No one did anything too spectacular this year as far as punching power is concerned so this is a little bit of a reputation award more than anything
Nominees
Derek Boogaard
Struggled this year with injuries and playing time but we know what he is capable of from his past two years in the league. Fighters seem to shy away from trading with him, knowing what might be in store. Only one victim this year: TKO of
Andre Roy
Wade Belak
Never known as a power puncher per se, but he turned in a hell of a season and ended with a monstrous punctuation mark: Knocking out half of the two-headed monster that has ruled the fight landscape for a decade,
Donald Brashear. A few weeks prior he also scored a TKO of
Cam Janssen so he deserves the nomination.
Colton Orr
Orr, like Boogaard, had a sub-par year in the power department only scoring one TKO victim (a revenge knockdown of Mike Rupp). But we know the right hand still has the ability to Fedoruk someone at any moment and its only a matter of time.
Eric Godard
Godard got two of the biggest destructive moments of the year when he punctuated the series with
Colton Orr with a TKO win in fight III. Also, he earlier in the season single-handedly beat the two-headed rookie monsters of
Mitch Fritz and
Steve MacIntyre. The power was most evident in the latter, in which he left MacIntyre with a fractured eye socket!
My Pick
A shout out to
Mike Commodore who knocked down all three people he fought (one ended up being a double minor but it was clearly a fight and a TKO). Thats like a 70s season fight-card of
Clark Gillies or something!
Anyway I digress: I would say Boogaard and Orr have more power than anyone in the league. But results are results and those two had little of them in this department this year. So I'll buck the trend and pick
Eric Godard who made two of the biggest splashes of the year. Expect to see the "past winners" of this award show many Orr's and Boogaard's for years to come however!
Past Winners
2003-04: -
2005-06:
Derek Boogaard
2006-07:
Derek Boogaard
2007-08:
Colton Orr