366 more days pounded into the hippocampus and amygdala, and we arrive at 2013. For our purposes, 2012 was a very fun year in boxing, more often than not. While many choose to dwell on fights that weren't made, cancellations, the many icons who perished, and the roided-out elephant in the room that is suspected rampant performance-enhancing drug usage in the sport, I choose to instead remind fans of the pugilistic gifts we were given. Before running down an abridged list of bout that were potentially Fight of the Year-worthy, I would like to quickly thank all new fans and readers of Beloved Onslaught and my work at Queensberry-Rules.com. This site and my readership have grown tremendously over the last year or so, and I appreciate all of the feedback and encouragement I have been given. Even though I am probably obligated to say this, I truly do believe much bigger things will be coming in 2013, both for me and for boxing. Again, thank you all so much for the support.
Not unlike Marcel Thil in the first installment of this "bad cuts" list, sitting atop Sir Henry Cooper's neck was the visage of a born fighter. He looked like a man who had worked in some sort of mine for fun, or picked fights because it just happened to be a day that ended in "y." Aside from being the definition of a tough customer between the ropes, he also came to be known for his skin's apparent disinterest in standing up to punishment. In his first loss to Italian Uber Bacilieri in 1955, he was stopped in the 5th round because, as the AP put it, "blood spurted from a cut over the 21-year-old Briton's right eye." The following year, another bout against Peter Bates saw him again halted in the 5th round with a badly slashed eyebrow. By the time he hooked up with Muhammad Ali, then Cassius Clay, in 1963, he had seven losses on his ledger, only twice going the distance. Much of the bout is legend, with an already cut up Cooper flooring Clay hard with a left hook at the end of round 4, Clay's trainer Angelo Dundee loosening a hole in his glove to buy an extra half-minute between rounds to recover, and Clay slicing up Cooper's face in the 5th to get a stoppage. In 1966, a now heavyweight champion Ali wanted revenge, and made the fact known in usual boisterous style before the first heavyweight title bout held in England in almost 60 years. And this time there would be no huge hook from "Our 'Enry," and he would leave the ring with another TKO under his belt, courtesy of cuts over his right eye, the bridge of his nose, and, strangely, his right shoulder. Remarked the AP, via the Oregonian, the initial eyebrow cut looked "as if someone had suddenly knocked over a bottle of very red and warm ketchup on a very white table cloth."
