The Boxing Canon: Best Fights of the Decade (Introduction)

A canon is a collection of the best of what's around. It is formally defined as "a compendium of the greatest works of artistic merit".

Boxing, throughout its long and rich history, has been able to amass both quantity and quality of historical moments that have become part of its identity. These moments define the sport, give it a heritage and a tradition, and set it apart as a cultural phenomenon that permeates all societies which it comes to inhabit.

Boxing can be traced at least as far back as Ancient Greece. And it's no surprise it is one of modern society's oldest sports. Boxing is primitive, but it is also the sweet science. It is violent, but it is also tactical warfare. It is about physical attributes and performance, but also about intelligence and discipline.

Boxing combines and depends on both the most primal and the most advanced traits found in man. By the time the present year comes to a close, the decade spanning from 2000 to 2009 will have added ten chapters to boxing's ever expanding canon. These fights define what the sport of boxing has meant to its followers ever since its beginnings.

Therefore, they serve as a reminder that some things never change. Boundless displays of courage, wits, heart, skill, and hope are common throughout all these encounters, just as they were in the Fights of the Year that preceded this decade.

This particular decade has the peculiarity that only eleven different fighters put together these ten additions to the canon. One fighter appeared in three different Fights of the Year. Five fighters appeared multiple fights. Further, three of these fights are a rematch or rubber match of a previous Fight of the Year within the same decade.

What this means is that these warriors were not only born to fight, they were meant to be loved as fighters.

Drama is a common feature of these additions to the canon as well. It has a big stake in separating a good fight from a great fight, and a great fight from a Fight of the Year. Drama arises out of the degree of competitiveness of the fight, which is itself a product of the skill and will displayed by both fighters.

A Fight of the Year never allows us to know the outcome of the fight beforehand. And when we think we do know it, a Fight of the Year has a way of throwing us off track, slapping us around, and taking us for a ride, all before that grand finale explodes in our faces. Fights of the Year can't be scripted. You can't plan spontaneous combustion.

The Boxing Canon is a ten chapter series that will review the Fights of the Year as defined by Ring Magazine from the year 2000 to 2009. Nine of these fights already form part of an exclusive club (the tenth will be added when 2009 ends), and they have become permanent fixtures in the minds of all those who follow the sweet science.

Whether we were lucky enough to witness them in person, through a live broadcast, or even years after the fact, through the magic of recorded media, these fights, and the warriors involved, are all now part of a cultural baggage that transcends all geographic, racial, political, social and cultural barriers. All boxing fans are part of a same collective. All stand back in awe when confronted with these latest additions to the boxing canon.

All are grateful to the brave men who put everything, including their lives, on the line for the good of the sweet science.

These are this decade's Fights of the Year:

2000: Erik Morales—Marco Antonio Barrera I
2001: Micky Ward—Emanuel Burton
2002: Micky Ward—Arturo Gatti I
2003: Arturo Gatti—Micky Ward III
2004: Marco Antonio Barrera—Erik Morales III
2005: Diego Corrales—José Luis Castillo I
2006: Somsak Sithchatchawal—Mahyar Monshipour
2007: Israel Vazquez—Rafael Marquez II
2008: Israel Vazquez—Rafael Marquez III
2009: ?

The next episode will review the Fight of the Year for 2000: Erik Morales—Marco Antonio Barrera I