Now that 2009 has wrapped up, we can take a look at the best of the decade that just was. We still have fighter and fight of the decade left to go. Apologies about the delay since the last one. Even round of the year tends to have a lot of disagreement, so I suspect the voting will be about as spread out on this one as any other poll we've done.
Erik Morales vs. Marco Antonio Barrera I, Round 5. Ring Magazine fight of the year, and a back and forth round between two fighters who legitimately hated each other. Embedding was disabled on this one, but check the link above.
Micky Ward vs. Arturo Gatti I, Round 9. Speaks for itself.
Marco Antonio Barrera vs. Erik Morales III (Round 11).
Chico Corrales vs. Jose Luis Castillo I, Round 10. This was the "mouthpiece" round. Castillo was battering Corrales from pillar to post, knocking down Corrales twice, when he came from behind with a miraculous TKO in the last minute.
Jamie Moore vs. Matthew Macklin, Round 9. Probably the best British round of the decade. Just a ton of back and forth action between two warriors who left it all in the ring this round.
Israel Vasquez vs. Rafael Marquez II, Round 3. At the risk of splitting up votes, there are actually two completely classic rounds between these two warriors, plus another that was named Ring Magazine round of the year that is in the honorable mentions.
Israel Vazquez vs. Rafael Marquez III, Round 12. Vazquez and Marquez had fought toe to toe and very even for 11 solid rounds. The winner of the fight was clearly going to be the winner of the round, and Vazquez was the one who was able to dig down deeper to put an emphatic exclamation point on that year's fight of the year.
Juan Manuel Marquez vs. Juan Diaz, Round 8. There are a number of rounds in this fight that could have been round of the year. This round wasn't as action packed as some of the prior rounds, but it was where the tide really turned in this battle, and more importantly, it's the clip that HBO posted to Youtube.
Honorable mentions: Bernard Hopkins vs. Felix Trinidad (Round 10); Popo Freitas vs. Jorge Barrios (Round 11); Israel Vazquez vs. Rafael Marquez III (Round 4); Michael Katsidis vs. Graham Earl (Round 2); Sakio Bika vs. Jaidon Codrington (Round 1); Kendall Holt vs. Ricardo Torres II (Round 1); Manny Pacquiao vs. Miguel Cotto (Round 3), Paul Williams vs. Sergio Martinez (Round 1)
Feel free to name any other great ones in the comments, and if you provide links, I'll add them up here as well. There are tons of them, and there's just no way I could have gotten all of them.