deserver

If affection lead a man to favor the less worthy in desert, let him do it, without depraving or disabling the better deserver.

O, be thou my Charon, And give me swift transportance to these fields Where I may wallow in the lily beds Propos'd for the deserver!

Costner, by the time of their second bout had taken to calling himself "Sugar" and stated in the weeks leading up to the fight that he was the rightful deserver of the name.

Moreover, his experience after many years of career and his permanent interest in the game made Cabrera deserver of nicknames such as "El Mago" (The Magician, in Spanish).