Irish boxers feature in ESPN Round of the Year list

Two rounds involving Irish fighters have been included in ESPN’s end-of-2016 Round of the Year list.

ESPN boxing chief Dan Rafael has placed both the twelfth round of Carl Frampton‘s WBA featherweight title tussle with Leo Santa Cruz and the opening stanza of Luke Keeler‘s clash with Tom Doran in his Top 9 for 2016.

The epic final round of Frampton-Santa Cruz came in third place, with Rafael calling it the “perfect crescendo” of a fantastic fight.

The opener to Keeler’s two-round shootout in Liverpool with Doran came in ninth, and Rafael described it as “wild.”

Topping the list was the “wild, back-and-forth fifth round” of Dillian Whyte’s heavyweight battle with Dereck Chisora earlier this month.

Both rounds have also been nominated for the Irish-Boxing.com 2016 Micky Ward Round of the Year, which you can vote for here.

Read ESPN Boxing’s Top 9 in full here:

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Joe O’Neill and Gavan Casey look ahead to 2017 in episode 1 of The Irish Boxing Show