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Hamzah Sheeraz, the unbeaten middleweight, has been voted Young Boxer of the Year.
The 22-year-old from Slough was voted for the award by members of the Boxing Writers’ Club .
He joins a prestigious roll call of former award winners that includes the likes of Randolph Turpin, John H Stracey, John Conteh, Frank Bruno, Naseem Hamed, Joe Calzaghe, Ricky Hatton and Amir Khan.
Sheeraz will receive his award at the 69th Annual Dinner of the Boxing Writers’ Club to be held at The Savoy in London on May 23.
“I have studied my predecessors, many of whom influenced my style and inspired me to take up the sport,” Sheeraz, who has won 11 of his 15 professional fights by stoppage, said.
“I am truly humbled to have my name added to such an illustrious list.”
Sheeraz will be the first boxer to lift the award since Daniel Dubois in 2019, due to the Covid pandemic, which saw the dinner postponed for two years in a row.
Has fortunate to avoid a disqualification when stopping Bradley Skeete, after hitting him on the floor in December, but there was no questioning his first fight since stepping up to middleweight as he destroyed Jez Smith.
Currently training in California with his trainer Ricky Funez, ahead of an expected fight in July, Sheeraz has indicated that he will fly home to collect the award in person before flying back to the United States to continue his training camp.
Other boxers on the shortlist this year were Adam Azim, Mark Chamberlain, Zak Chelli, John Docherty, Johnny Fisher, Brad Foster, Mark Jeffers, Dennis McCann, Sam Noakes, Hopey Price, Brad Rea and Ellie Scotney.
Ron Lewis is a senior writer for BoxingScene. He was Boxing Correspondent for The Times, where he worked from 2001-2019 – covering four Olympic Games and numerous world title fights across the globe. He has written about boxing for a wide variety of publications worldwide since the 1980s.