Fight of the year? More like Year of the Fights

2011 has been a treat for boxing fans, and seriously you may have seen some stinkers, or felt slightly ripped off about certain things (Wladimir Klitschko v David Haye for example, or the judging in a number of notable fights) but you'll almost certainly have seen some amazing fights. Part way through the year there was a thread on the amazing Budweiser Boxing forum that started talking about the best fights of 2011...I took the thread a bit further than a short list and did more of a...long list...and since then have added more fights, and here is the long list for 2011's fight of the year:

Acosta v Rios
Arce v Vazquez Jr
Berto v Ortiz
Concepcion v Marquez
Lee v McEwan
Lopez v Salido
Maidana v Morales
Odom v Omotoso
Robles v Silva
Rodriguez v Wolak
Berto v Zaveck
Ceda v Narvaez
DeMarco v Sanchez
Murat v Campillo II
Froch v Johnson
Iwasa v Yamanaka
Lujan v Melligen
Mitchell v Murray
Macklin v Sturm
Appleby v Walsh
Aaron v Webb
Diaz v Kennedy
Miranda v Viloria
Chavez Jr v Zbik
Geale v Sylvester
Guerrero v Katsidis
Jamoye v McDonnell
John v Yordan
Lopez v Lundy
Robinson v Sexton I
Chisora v Fury
Conyers v De La Rosa
Antillion v Rios
Crolla v Watson
Gonzalez v Sierra
Gutierrez v Palacios
Hovhannisyan v Marquez
Hernandez v Keb Baas
Lara v Molina
Robinson v Sexton II
Barrett v Tua II
Coleman v Paris
Cotto v Mayorga
Arce v Nongqayi II
Frankel v Molina
Gomez v Granados
Huck v Nakash
Huerta v Martin
Lemieux v Rubio
Martirosyan v Roman 
Firtha v Fury
Hasegawa v Gonzalez
Cleverly v Bellew
Molitor v Gauthier
Theron v Cote
Angulo v Kirkland
Aspera v Silvestri
Vincente v Gonzalez
Porpramook v Yaegashi
Arce v Angkotta II
Helenius v Chisora
Martinez v Castaneda
Murray v Sturm
Murray v Rios

If you've missed any of these, make you sure you try to catch them, they are full of action, bombs and in some cases a fair bit of controversy. If you are a fight fan you need to have watched at least half of these!

A new year is fast approaching...so can we avoid somethings?

We know boxing fans don't get the fights they really want, well not that often anyway. 2010 was a year of what could have been, of course Pacquiao v Mayweather, Klitschko v Wlad, Gamboa v Lopez, Huck v Cunningham II, Ward v Bute and any number of other pretty obvious looking fights. As obvious as it is to complain about those not happening, it's a horse that has been flogged to the point of no longer being relevant, in fact we are beating the dead horse to even mention them, however, we don't need to accept crap. 2011 should be OUR (the fans) year!

This year we've had major fights ignored for the likes of:
Haye v Harrison (and over 1/2 a million people paid for this one)
Vitali v Briggs and Sosnowski
Wladamir v Peter II
Adamek v Maddalone
Povetkin v Firtha
Pacquiao v Margarito
Mayweather v Security guards
Huck v Richards, Minto and Godfrey
Lopez v Concepcion

Maybe whats been worse however have been the poor (in some case terrible) decisions made by those in charge of the sport, the judges, the commissions, the awarding bodies et al. Here are some of those examples I'm talking about:
Campillo v Shumenov II-What were the judges watching? (honestly what fight was Patricia Morse Jarman watching? Jerry Roth's score card was questionable too)
Tua v Barrett-Barrett won that and we all know it.
Minto v Huck-How did Minto qualify for a world title fight?
The WBA in general-How they manage to hand out upto 3 titles in some weights is a mystery, though they seem to enjoy it. Can someone please force this to stop?
The WBC V Bradley-Come on WBC GROW UP! If he beats Alexander accept him as your champion, it's only fair.
The IBF-What was their logic behind stripping Alexander for not fighting Mabuza (and instead unifying)?

One thing that does seem like it's about to change is the BBBofC, who although I'm no cheer leader for, I'm incredibly happy to hear they are changing their "accidental headbutt" rule that saw the recent Edwards v Bayaar fight ending in a farce. Though will they force a rematch or just sit on the result as if it was a legitimate stoppage?

Also just a few more quick complaints, can we finally see the end of Joe "I'm bent" Cortez. Yes that would be verging on slander but time and time again he proves he's not on a level. He let Gamboa off with a cheap shot that was very little different to the shot he DQ'd Humberto Soto for a few years ago, like wise he allowed Khan's constant holding with out a warning (but with out allowing any inside work by Maidana), the opposite to what he allowed in the Hopkins v Calzaghe fight. The sooner Cortez is out of the sport the better, much like dodgy officiating and scoring. We need rid of this or our sport will remain a minor sport where it can be "who you know" rather than "what you do" that decides the result.

Anyway hope to see some of you guys next year folks.