Most Memorable Moments in Boxing in 2014

It was a year when Miguel Cotto made boxing history. Bernard Hopkins stretched the plausibility of human aging, while Sergey Kovalev emerged from his shadow as one of the sport's biggest stars. 

Nicholas Walters and Gennady Golovkin showed unforgettable power. Terence Crawford displayed potential greatness, and veteran Carl Froch threw the greatest single punch of his career. 

And sadly, if not surprisingly, as 2014 ends, the sport's two biggest stars will once more be most remembered for what they said about a fight that still can't seem to get made. 

10. Malik Scott's Unknown Comic Routine

Ricardo Arduengo/Associated Press

If you're a stand-up comic, self-deprecating humor might be part of your job. As a college professor, I sometimes found it to be a big help for establishing rapport with a class. 

But it's the last thing in the world I want to see coming from a heavyweight fighter getting ready to climb into the ring and trade punches with a knockout machine like Deontay Wilder. Coming from Malik Scott last April, before he faced Wilder in Puerto Rico, it just seemed bizarre.

Sure, Wilder was the phenom. But Scott was a guy who people knew and respected in the division. 

For him to show up at the presser broadcasting his embrace of the role of faceless opponent by wearing a paper bag over his head struck me as emotionally unhealthy and self-defeating. It would have been criticized as disrespectful and mean-spirited if drawn as a cartoon. 

Scott's performance when he got in the ring was a further embarrassment. He went down early in the first, when a Wilder lead hook landed behind his ear, ruining his balance. A straight right coming behind the hook seemed to graze Scott, as he was already set to go down. 

Scott failed to rise for 10, and the crowd in the arena reacted with boos when HBO showed the replay immediately after.

I've never been hit by Wilder. I suspect he wouldn't have to hit me with much of a punch for me to want to quit and not get hit by any more of them.

But I'm a middle-aged writer. Scott was arguably a top-10 contender at the time and had sparred against Wilder.

Scott may very well have been unable to continue. But his performance in the round, prior to the knockdown, didn't give the impression of a fighter who was trying to win.

Scott threw no punches. A boxer who normally has an intelligent sense of distance, he practically camped out directly in range for Wilder.

Scott has a draw with top-10 contender Vyacheslav Glazkov that a lot of people think he should have won. He's rebounded from the defeat to Wilder by recording a good win over former world-title contender Alex Leapai.

It's a shame that the most memorable moment of his 2014 campaign, and of his career so far, is now his performance against Wilder.  

9. Marcos Maidana "Fights UFC"

There is no question that one of the biggest shocks of the year was Marcos Maidana's ability to make his first fight with Floyd Mayweather surprisingly close. Heading into the decision, I was pretty sure Mayweather had won the fight. 

But I wasn't certain. And that was a major triumph for the veteran gunslinger from Argentina, whom few gave any chance at all of being competitive. 

And any unbiased observer would have to concede that Maidana did it by fighting as dirty as the referee would allow. And referee Tony Weeks allowed a lot.

Maidana held and hit, punched on the break and pummeled relentlessly with his shoulder in the clinch. All of these are standard tactics in an MMA fight but not legal according to the rules of the squared circle. Maidana even tried to throw a knee at one point. 

The fact that Kenny Bayless imposed a completely different set of standards in the rematch is one reason that the second fight was not nearly as close. I also think Maidana's attempts to maximize his conditioning caused him to weigh less than he did in the first fight, which compromised his ability to bully Mayweather.  

8. Nicholas Walters Smashes Nonito Donaire

Nicholas Walters entered 2015 as the WBA "regular" featherweight champion. The Axe Man was undefeated, with a well-earned reputation as a knockout puncher.

He kept that momentum going in his first fight of 2014, when he blasted multi-division world champion Vic Darchinyan. It was a great notch on the resume, but Darchinyan's best days had come at super flyweight.

In October, Walters faced WBA "super" featherweight champion Nonito Donaire. The Filipino had been until recently a pound-for-pound star. He was a multi-division champion, and prior to his fight with Walters, his trainer was speculating in interviews, such as this one with the Examiner's Michael Marley, about going to 130 or even 135 pounds.

Walters brought such dreams crashing to earth. He physically bullied Donaire, putting him down in Round 3 and stopping him for good in Round 6.  

7. Gennady Golovkin Walks Through Daniel Geale

While 2014 came and went with Gennady Golovkin still failing to secure the kind of unification fight he craves at middleweight, he did get the chance to face a recent champion when he battled Daniel Geale of Australia last June.

Geale will never get into the Hall of Fame, but he was a legitimate belt-holder, and he has never been an easy opponent to beat. He has consistently been a hustling, physically durable fighter, even against world-class opponents.

But he was easy for GGG, who walked through another world-class opponent.

The punch that put Geale down for good in Round 3 was actually delivered by Golovkin just as he ate a straight right punch from the Australian.   

6. Terence Crawford Emerges as a Star Against Yuri Gamboa

Coming into this year, a lot of boxing fans were looking at Terence Crawford as a potential star in the sport. In March, he did what great young fighters have done historically. He travelled on the road to the champion's hometown and took his title.

Crawford easily claimed the WBO lightweight title by handling Ricky Burns in Scotland. For his first defense, in June, he went back to his home city of Omaha, Nebraska, and signed to fight former featherweight champion Yuriorkis Gamboa. 

Gamboa and Crawford both came into the bout 23-0 with 16 KOs. Even those of us who viewed Crawford as the favorite were quick to admit that Gamboa represented a formidable opponent for such a young champion.

It was the biggest fight at lightweight in years.  

Gamboa used his speed and experience to make a lot of problems for Crawford in the first four rounds. But a third of the way into the fight, Crawford made several adjustments and was suddenly controlling the fight with his length and movement. 

Crawford dropped Gamboa in Rounds 5 and 8 and twice in Round 9, before the referee waved the action off. It was a breakout performance for Crawford and one of the most memorable performances of the year. 

5. Carl Froch's Sudden Stoppage of George Groves in the Rematch

Last November, Carl Froch was knocked down in Round 1 by undefeated rising contender George Groves and was still down on the cards when he finally caught up to Groves with some big punches and forced a stoppage in Round 9.

The stoppage was viewed by many as questionable, so interest in a rematch was enormous. In May, in London's Wembley Stadium, Froch's rematch with Groves sold a whopping 80,000 tickets. HBO broadcast it live in the middle of the afternoon in the United States. 

Just the atmosphere of the fight made it unforgettable. But the action in the ring surpassed the trappings. 

After Groves got out to an early lead behind a stiff, busy jab, Froch slowly began to impose himself physically, before setting up a beautiful overhand right in Round 8 that Groves was unable to recover from. 

4. Sergey Kovalev Shows His Boxing Intelligence Against a Master

It had begun to get on my nerves a little bit—the frequency with which I would see and hear boxing fans dismissing Sergey Kovalev as a "big puncher." It's certainly true that the light heavyweight champion has extremely rare punching power. 

But he's also an intelligent, patient fighter. I thought he proved that earlier this year, prior to knocking out unbeaten Cedric Agnew, and I thought it had been obvious in the way he cut off the ring against former champions Gabriel Campillo and Nathan Cleverly.

But when Hopkins fought Kovalev in October at the improbable age of 49, in a light heavyweight unification fight, he seemed to be viewed by many fans and writers as an even-money bet against the undefeated Russian. 

Instead, Kovalev showed himself to be a powerful but patient stalker. He knocked Hopkins down in Round 1 and never let the all-time great into the fight. 

Kovalev will end the year with three of four belts in the light heavyweight division. He's also a leading candidate for 2014's Fighter of the Year. 

3. Manny Pacquiao: "He's Going to Fight Me?!? "

Manny Pacquiao once more demonstrated that he is an outstanding boxer against previously unbeaten Chris Algieri in November. He gave the absurdly overmatched Algieri a fast-paced boxing lesson, knocking him down six times en route to winning 119-103 twice and 120-102 once.

It is almost unheard of to see judges' cards with between 16 and 18 points separating the combatants. The fact that this happened tells you everything you need to know about how inappropriate Algieri was as an opponent for Pacquiao.

Pacquiao appears to be spending the last great nights of his career helping Bob Arum open Macau and the Zou Shiming market while fighting uninteresting, inexperienced opponents.

So it's small consolation that he's become more outspoken than ever before when it comes to stating his desire for a long-delayed fight with Floyd Mayweather. His mock misunderstanding of Max Kellerman after the Algieri fight, shown here, at least created one of the year's most amusing sound bites.

2. Floyd Mayweather "Would Love to Fight Manny Pacquiao"

As the Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather talk grew louder than it has been in years in the final month of 2014, Mayweather gave Showtime's Steve Farhood this unforgettable interview, in which he claimed that he "wanted" to fight Manny Pacquiao. He further stated that his team "was ready" to make the fight.

Any reasonable person would put this interview together with Pacquiao's own recent statements about wanting the fight and assume, "Well, the fight is finally going to happen."

But those of us who have been watching the rumors swirl around this fight for the past half decade are not so quick to express our enthusiasm.

Whether the fight happens or not, this Mayweather interview with Farhood will endure as a classic. 

1. Miguel Cotto Stuns Sergio Martinez

To jump up to middleweight and capture a world title in a fourth division was clearly going to take one of Miguel Cotto's all-time great performances. Even at 39, Sergio Martinez was still regarded as among the sport's top stars.

A classic Cotto performance is exactly what fans got. Fighting in front of a wildly partisan crowd in Madison Square Garden, Cotto came out for Round 1 and immediately began to dominate Martinez with his dangerous left hook. Before the first frame was over, Cotto had dropped the champion three times.

Martinez fought gamely and lasted until nearly the end of the fight, going down by TKO in 10. But there was little doubt for the entire fight that Cotto was in the process of making history as Puerto Rico's first four-division world champion.  

Given the legacies of both fighters and the historical precedence of Cotto's win, I have no problem picking it as the year's most memorable moment.