The frontrunner for boxing’s Prospect of the Year, a candidate for Fighter of the Year and one of the best stories the sport has seen in a pandemic-ravaged 2020 insists he isn’t longing for it. Clay Collard is a mixed martial arts fighter. It’s spelled out in the bio of his Twitter feed and it’s something Collard emphasized on a 30-minute phone call last week.
“I’m a fighter,” Collard told SI.com. “But I’m a mixed martial artist first.”
Six months ago you likely never heard of Clay Collard. Why would you? At 27, Collard began the year with a pedestrian 4-2-3 record.