Bad Left Hook Fight of the Month Poll - June 2010

Previous winners:

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%)

The year started slow, got great for a few months, and seems to have gotten slow again.  The month started decent enough, with three of the fights on this list happening on the first weekend of the month.  There are two themes that have started to play out this year.  First, as has already been pointed out, the Super Six is finally starting to live up to its name.  The first round produced three mediocre fights, but if Ward-Green wins this month's poll, then all three second round bouts will have been a fight of the month.  Second, there has been an unusual number of great swing bouts.   If you asked me to list my top 10 fights of the year so far, three of them would be swing bouts that wouldn't have even aired on TV if earlier fights hadn't ended quickly (Okada-Arroyo, Luna-Luna and Estrada-Rivero).

Selcuk Aydin SD12 Jo Jo Dan - Turkish native Aydin was fighting in front of a home crowd for an interim title, and applied constant pressure on his Romanian opponent.  However, Dan did a good job defensively, and was able to counter Aydin quite a bit, nailing him with most of the telling shots.  Aydin ended up getting a hometown decision, which put somewhat of a damper on what was a pretty decent fight.

Sebastian Sylvester D12 Roman Karmazin - This was another one of those rough battles we've had a few of lately where one fighter was far more aggressive but less accurate, while the other fighter showed better defense and more precise punching.  Nearly every round came down to preferred style, as there were solid arguments for either fighter winning all but a few of the rounds. The final scores of the fight show just how difficult of a fight it was to score - 118-110 for Sylvester, 117-111 for Karmazin and 114-114.  If you haven't seen the fight, it's available for free viewing at Sauerland's website boxen.com.

Miguel Cotto TKO9 Yuri Foreman - It may not have been as competitive as some had hoped, but the old Miguel Cotto came out to fight.  New trainer Emmanuel Steward helped Cotto drop a few bad habits that he had developed while essentially training himself over the last couple years, and was able to stalk Foreman, winning virtually every round.  However, from the seventh on, Foreman showed a major display of guts, as he continued to fight on through a dislocated knee that kept giving out under him.

Takashi Okada UD4 McWilliams Arroyo - This one was a great back and forth war with a skill level of both fighters that you rarely see for a couple of novices.  Okada controlled the fight with his aggression early, including scoring a knockdown on the Puerto Rican Olympian.  Arroyo was able to bounce back some in the latter rounds, but Okada kept fighting hard.  If you haven't had the chance to see this four-rounder yet, the Youtube links are available in the comments to the linked post.

Andre Ward UD12 Allan Green - So it wasn't the prettiest fight in the world, but Ward so thoroughly shut down Green that it was almost surprising.  If you like lots of back and forth action, then this fight is probably nowhere near the top of your list; but if you love the chess match aspect of boxing, then you probably enjoyed Ward's tactical mastery and technical dominance in the fight.

Tyson Fury TKO9 John McDermott - This one didn't have the world's highest level of boxing, but it did have some major swings in momentum.  Early on, Fury was able to outbox Big John.  By the sixth round, Fury was completely out of gas, and McDermott came back to win the round pretty handily, looking like he might be able to hang on.  However, McDermott himself gassed out soon after that, and with neither fighter having much energy left, Fury was able to outlast McDermott in a war of attrition.

Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. UD12 John Duddy - This fight involved two guys who like blocking punches with their faces, but whose last major televised fights were stinkers, so it could have gone either way.  It wasn't an all-action brawl, but Chavez was able to outquick Duddy in a relatively entertaining fight.  In the early rounds, Duddy applied a lot of pressure, forcing Chavez to trade, but as the fight wore on, Chavez became more effective at controlling from the outside, leaving Chavez to win a decision.

Honorable mentions: Tomas Villa UD8 Salvador Sanchez II, Pablo Cesar Cano SD10 Oscar Leon, Sherzod Husanov MD10 Jhon Berrio, Omar Nino UD12 Rodel Mayol, Brian Vera KO3 Sebastian Demers, Alex Leapai TKO4 Travis Walker.