Bad Left Hook Fight of the Month Poll - November 2010

January: Carlos Tamara TKO12 Brian Viloria (25%)

February: Antonio Escalante UD10 Mickey Roman (48%)

March: Andre Dirrell DQ10 Arthur Abraham (48%)

April: Mikkel Kessler UD12 Carl Froch (65%)

May: Yonnhy Perez D12 Abner Mares (30%)

June: Miguel Cotto TKO9 Yuri Foreman (42%)

July: Dmitry Pirog TKO5 Daniel Jacobs (43%)

August: Giovanni Segura KO8 Ivan Calderon (44%)

September: Ricky Burns UD12 Roman Martinez (42%)

October: Toshiaki Nishioka UD12 Rendall Munroe (39%)

After a couple of relatively light months, this was a month that finally lived up to expectations.  In addition to several entertaining major fights, there were a few solid sleepers, including a number of fights that don't even end up making the poll this month.

Juan Manuel Lopez RTD8 Rafael Marquez - For eight rounds, this was a fierce war, with both men trying to do as much damage to the other as possible.  In the early rounds, it seemed that the much smaller Marquez was mostly able to keep up with Lopez punch for punch, and both men landed flush shot after flush shot.  As the fight wore on, it became apparent that Lopez was just too much fresher, and he began to pull away more and more each round until Marquez retired with a shoulder injury.

Manny Pacquiao UD12 Antonio Margarito - This was a complete one-sided beatdown, but it was both an entertaining beatdown, as well as a beatdown of someone a lot of folks wanted to see get beat down.  Using incredible angles and immense offensive output, Pacquiao managed to almost completely neutralize Margarito's offense and dominate the former "most avoided fighter".  There were a few times where there was some suspense because Pacquiao got caught up against the ropes, but much of that suspense was gone by the later rounds, once it was apparent that Pacquiao could take Margarito's best punches just fine.

Hozumi Hasegawa UD12 Juan Carlos Burgos - Hozumi jumped up two weight classes to take on Burgos for a vacant featherweight title.  While Hasegawa still was able to win, he looked just that much slower and that much less able to take a punch than he had in the past, making this a very exciting fight.  Hasegawa is a very pretty boxer, but occasionally Burgos would start landing, and Hozumi's tendency to brawl would come to the forefront.  Very competitive and entertaining rounds 7 and 11 were among the best fo the year. 

Andre Ward UD12 Sakio Bika - While I'm sure there are some who thought this was the worst fight of the month, for others it was a thing of beauty.  This was dirty inside fighting to the max, but it wasn't a John Ruiz style hugfest.  Rather, there was a full on chess match happening inside, with each fighter constantly jockeying for position and throwing (and frequently landing) hard shots even when the other arm was tied up.  People were expecting the dirtiest fight of the year, and they got just that, although the referee let both men go, meaning there was mostly a back and forth retaliation of fouls. One threw a headbutt, the other threw a headbutt.  One threw an elbow, the other threw an elbow.  All the while, both guys were throwing a lot of hard leather as well, in a bout that was much closer than the final scores indicated.

Juan Manuel Marquez TKO9 Michael Katsidis - Marquez mostly dominated this fight, but there were copious exchanges of punches between the two men.  The moment of greatest suspense came in the third round, when Katsidis knocked down Marquez.  But by the end of the round, it was back to business as usual, with both men focused on offense, but Marquez's offense being just that much shaper than that of Katsidis.  From that point forward, Marquez's slightly better defense and much greater accuracy helped carry the day, until finally he put Katsidis away in the 9th round.

Honorable mentions: Raul Martinez SD12 Rodrigo Guerrero; Sergio Martinez KO2 Paul Williams; Giovanni Segura RTD7 Chango Vargas; Alberto Garza SD12 Justin Savi; Derry Matthews SD3 Choi Tseveenpurev; Choi Tseveenpurev UD3 Ben Murphy; Robert Stieglitz UD12 Enrique Ornelas; Enad Licina UD12 Felix Cora Jr.; Shawn Estrada UD6 Tony Hirsch; Glen Johnson TKO8 Allan Green; Gavin Rees TKO11 John Watson; Willie Casey TKO4 Paul Hyland