The British Boxing Board of Control today held their annual awards ceremony at the Novotel Hotel in Hammersmith, London and BritishBoxing.net were lucky enough to be invited along to witness the event.
After a fine lunch, the awards ceremony kicked off with the Amateur Boxing Association of England giving out their Awards. No prizes for guessing the recipient of their Senior Boxer of the Year award, Amir Khan. Junior Boxer of the Year went to Danny Price and Cadet Boxer of the year went to three boxers, Luke Gamble, Anthony Agogo and George Groves.
Next up came the Boards awards, the first award was a rather poignant moment as it was a joint award for Services to Boxing and the winners were Dennie Mancini, who unfortunately died a couple of weeks ago and his award was received by his daughter and niece, and Bob Paget, who was very much alive to collect his award, even if Sir Henry Cooper, who presented the award, may think differently.
Overseas boxer of the year award went to Injin Chi, who was unable to attend, and his award was collected by former World Middleweight champ Alan Minter (seen below with son Ross, who is due back in the ring on 19th November)
Contest of the year went to Michael Gomez v's Alex Arthur, Gomez was joined on the stage by Roy Rutherford, Graham Earl, Steve Murray and Spencer Fearon, who were also nominated for this category.
The Sportmanship Award was jointly won by Jason Booth and Dale Robinson (seen below with Mickey Cantwell), for the sporting behaviour they showed after their fight.
An additional award for most outstanding performance of the year went to Danny Williams for his great win over Mike Tyson.
The Final award for Boxer of the Year went to Scott Harrison, who beat off competition from Ricky Hatton, Danny Williams, Matt Skelton and Michael Gomez, to become the first featherweight since Naseem Hamed in 1996 to pick up the award.
It was then time for the autograph hunters to collect the signatures of the assembled former champs, current champs and future champs and to mingle and chat boxing.
Jim McDonnell was in buoyant mood and is confident that his charge Danny Williams can pull out another big performance in December and win the World title against Vitali Klitschko. He said training is going well and Danny now has dietician on board and he's lost six pounds in the last week, the game plan is already worked out according to Jim and they will be flying to Philadelphia to do their training.
I had a quick chat with Amir's dad, and he said they are open to all offers and will do what's best for Amir at the end of the day.
A great afternoon all round and I'd like to thank Simon Block for inviting us along to be part of the ceremony.
At the Novotel the day before the Lonsdale annual boxing memorabilia show was staged, with all proceeds going to various charities including the board's own and various ex-boxer associations, guest of honour was Michael Watson who was signing his autobiography, "The Biggest Fight" and it was my honour to have my picture taken with the "People's Champ"
