Welcome to The Queensberry Rules’ annual year-end awards, starting today and continuing throughout the week. Here’s how we do it around these parts:
The major categories are Round of the Year, Knockout of the Year, Fight of the Year and Fighter of the Year. The final day is a pu-pu platter of awards ranging from Trainer of the Year to more frivolous topics.
On the first day of each category, I give five finalists, with video and/or relevant info. You tell me if my finalists and honorable mentions are lacking, and give your vote on who you think should win. Maybe you sway me to adjust the list, and maybe you sway me on the eventual winner. On the second day after a category is introduced, I give that winner and explain why. (There are no major fights left in 2010, but we reserve the right to change our category winners if something crazy happens.)
So, today: Round of the Year and Knockout of the Year candidates. Tomorrow: Round of the Year and Knockout of the Year winners, plus Fight of the Year and Fighter of the Year candidates.
Your five finalists, in chronological order:
Ed Paredes – Joey Hernandez II
Beware of left hands that are quicker to their target than yours, as Hernandez learned too late, post-jellyfication. You might expect there will be more of this kind of thing later among the finalists.
Dmitry Pirog – Daniel Jacobs
The stutter step, the crushing right hand and the pose afterward were all part of the beauty. Maybe it loses minor points for Jacobs’ sudden reawakening, but not very many.
Daniel Ponce De Leon – Antonio Escalante
Suffice it to say that the lack of knockouts in De Leon’s early run after moving up to featherweight were a bit of a fluke. Dude can still punch, whether at 122 lbs. or 126 lbs.
Alexander Frenkel – Enzo Maccarinelli
You could argue the referee should have stopped it before it came to that, and you’d have a good argument. But you can’t argue that a near decapitation, under most any circumstances, is bad Knockout of the Year material.
Sergio Martinez – Paul Williams II
Let’s get serious. This post isn’t really meant to decide which knockout is the best, because everybody knows; it’s just a nice collection of 2010 knockouts.
Your honorable mentions, in no particular order:
Wladimir Klitschko – Eddie Chambers
Saul Alvarez – Carlos Baldomir (poor audio clip)
David Lemieux – Hector Camacho, Jr. (poor quality clip)
Lucian Bute – Edison Miranda
Freddy Hernandez – DeMarcus Corley
Nonito Donaire – Manuel Vargas
Jhonny Gonzalez – Santos Marimon
Kevin Mitchell – Ignacio Mendoza
Andre Berto – Freddy Hernandez
Randall Bailey – Jackson Bonsu
Danny Garcia – Mike Arnaoutis
Denis Lebedev – Alexander Alexeev
Ray Beltran – David Torres
Maxim Vlasov – Jerson Ravelo
Fernando Montiel – Rafael Concepcion
Audley Harrison – Michael Sprott II
Tim Coleman – Patrick Lopez
(Videos stay up as long as YouTube allows them.)
