As much as I've defended boxing on this site, I will not lie when absolute garbage happens in the sport.  Anyone who enjoys boxing in any way has been looking forward to the start of the Super Six World Boxing Classic featuring six of the best super middleweights in the world competing in a round robin tournament.

In the first fight of the tournament Arthur Abraham knocked out Jermain Taylor with a stunning right hand in the 12th round.  While Taylor started out hot, winning several rounds on my card, he eventually faded before being dropped with a picture perfect right hand.  It was a solid, competitive start to the most interesting event to hit the sport in many years.

Then the second fight happened...

Andre Dirrell took it to Carl Froch from bell to bell, winning 10 rounds on my scorecard and by a score of 117-110 on Scott Christ's card.  Froch looked completely outclassed for most of the fight, resorting at various points to throwing Andre to the ground, holding and hitting, hitting after the bell, hitting on the break, headlocks, and elbows.  However, despite all of this referee Hector Afu saw fit to never deduct a point from Froch but instead to deduct from Dirrell for excessive holding.  After the final bell the fact that the fight was being contested in Froch's home country of England sat in the back of my mind as heavy as Gary Shaw after a trip to the all-you-can-eat buffet.  The official scores were read and it was Froch whose hand was raised after a split decision.

Scott Christ expands at BadLeftHook:

It was an odd fight to watch or describe, as it was dirtier than all hell, with a referee that could not keep control of the fight. I truly, truly feel Dirrell won the fight, and rather dominantly so. Froch rambled after the fight about Dirrell not being a warrior and standing and fight, but Dirrell landed much better shots than he did, and frankly made him look like a second-rate fighter. Dirrell showed his entire range of skills, and though Andre was not clear of any wrongdoing tonight (he held a lot, and sometimes blatantly so), he was far less dirty out there than Froch.

This sucked most of the enjoyment out of the tournament for me.  This was supposed to represent something bigger.  This was the best fighting the best in an effort to help bring legitimacy to boxing.  What we got though was just more of the same old junk in a fancy looking package.

I still love boxing.  But it's getting hard to defend at this point.