Anthony Mundine, the Australian former rugby league player who had been a professional boxer just 17 months, was heading for an unlikely points win against local icon Sven Ottke in Germany when in the tenth round he was knocked out by a right hand to the temple. Mundine did not sit up for five minutes after being caught by IBF super-middleweight king Ottke, who finished his career undefeated in 22 world title fights.
There is no boxing referee more infamous than Wild West gunslinger Wyatt Earp, who disqualified Bob Fitzsimmons in the eighth round against Tom ‘Sailor’ Sharkey. Earp was the notorious former deputy marshal of Dodge City and Tombstone where he took part in the Gunfight at the OK Corral in 1881 that left three cowboys shot dead. In his life, Earp killed between eight to 30 outlaws. It therefore must have been disconcerting for British-born Fitzsimmons to be informed on the morning of the fight that Earp would be the third man in the ring. Earp even got into the ring with a six-shooter around his waist, until asked to remove it by a police captain after being booed by the 15,000 crowd in San Francisco. Fitzsimmons maintained control throughout and Sharkey hit the canvas following a left to the body in the eighth round, but Earp did not even issue a count. Instead, Earp ruled that Dundalk-born Sharkey had been the victim of a low blow and disqualified Fitzsimmons. Earp is believed to have been part of a betting ring that had invested heavily on Sharkey to win the eliminator to face James J Corbett for the world heavyweight title. After public outcry at the controversial decision, Fitzsimmons progressed to a world title shot a year later when the same punch earned him victory over Corbett. Earp never refereed again.
Lupe Pintor came off the ropes to wobble Wilfredo Gomez with hooks and uppercuts in an enthralling third round, but the Mexican was ground down in the 14th round. Puerto Rican Gomez retained his WBC super-bantamweight title for the 17th time after a desperately close fight. Pintor tired and after getting up from a right hand in the 14th, was stopped on his feet by the referee.
Manny Pacquiao began his collection of world titles at flyweight when he stopped local hero Chatchai Sasakul in three rounds in Thailand. At this stage of his career, Pacquiao had only fought in his native Philippines, Japan and Thailand. Within a year of winning his first world title, Pac Man was dethroned after returning to Thailand to lose in three rounds to Medgoen Singsurat. But Pacquiao then teamed up with trainer Freddie Roach in Los Angeles and went on to win (WBC/WBA/IBF/WBO) world titles in seven weight divisions (not including the IBO light-welterweight title): flyweight, super-bantamweight, featherweight, super-featherweight, lightweight, welterweight and light-middleweight.
Joe Louis had to pull himself off the canvas twice before winning a narrow points decision over Jersey Joe Walcott to retain his world heavyweight title. Walcott floored Louis in the first and fourth rounds and the scare led to a rematch the following year when the champion again had to climb off the canvas twice before winning, this time by 11th round stoppage, in his 25th and final defence. This fight showed the vulnerabilities of the aging champion Louis, who was close to being stopped in the opening round by 10-1 underdog Walcott, who was also 33.
There can be few more intimidating places for a boxer to fight than in a bullring in Mexico City in front of 40,000 locals against a Mexican hero. That was the unenviable position East Ender John H Stracey found himself in when challenging Cuban-born José Nápoles for his WBC welterweight title. Stracey looked as though he was about to crumble like a tortilla chip when he was put on his backside by a left hook in the first round. But Stracey had previous knowledge of Nápoles and recovered to execute his game plan to perfection. Stracey had sparred with Nápoles three years previous when the Mexican idol had visited for a title defence. Stracey never forgot how the jab worked for him when he sparred with Nápoles and in the third round it was the Mexican resident who touched down. Stracey then inflicted a steady beating on the aging champion, who had been world-title holder on and off for the previous six years. Nápoles was stopped on a cut in the sixth round of his last fight and Stracey would go on to make a single defence.
Abe Attell, who ruled as world featherweight champion for nearly a decade in total, crushed Jimmy Walsh in nine rounds in his native California when the challenger’s corner threw in the towel and referee Tommy Burns – the reigning world heavyweight champion – stopped the fight. Walsh’s corner tried frantically to stop the slaughter in the previous round by throwing in the towel, but Walsh insisted he was OK before needing to be dragged back to his stool. The champion showed no mercy in the ninth and sunk Walsh with a right to the stomach and the towel was thrown in again.
With nearly a million people watching on pay-per-view TV, pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather Jr weathered an early storm from Manchester hero Ricky Hatton to execute a rare knockout. It was claimed 30,000 had followed Hatton to the Nevada desert to see him take on the world’s best boxer for the WBC welterweight title. Some were at the weigh-in where Hatton screamed at them: “Let’s f***ing have it!” But Mayweather was masterful, knocking out Hatton with a right hook in the tenth round at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. “I slipped,” joked Hatton, who admitted: “I needed to keep a cool head, but I was too gung-ho and you can’t be against a boxer as good as him.” In the next seven years, Mayweather would register just one more stoppage win and did not box again for 21 months after inflicting the first defeat in 44 fights for Hatton, who earned about $10million.
Sonny Liston showed why people were talking about him being the hardest hitting heavyweight since Joe Louis when he became the first person to stop German Willi Besmanoff, who was badly gashed around the right eye prompting the referee to halt the fight before the start of the seventh round. It was a significant victory in the menacing contender’s rise to challenging for the world heavyweight title in 1962. Liston, from St Louis, was a brooding figure who learned to box during a two-year stint in prison for robbery. He returned to jail for six months in 1956 for assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest.
Amir Khan felt aggrieved after he was controversially outpointed by Lamont Peterson. The Bolton boxer complained about being deducted two points for pushing, a changed scorecard and the presence of a “mystery man in the hat” – later identified as Mustafa Ameen – following his split points defeat in Peterson’s home city of Washington. To rub salt into the wound for Khan, Peterson subsequently tested positive for a banned substance that meant a rematch – set for May 2012 – was scrapped at late notice, costing Khan more money. Peterson failed a random urine test for taking testosterone, an anabolic steroid banned in boxing, before fighting Khan.
In a remarkable tale of bravery and triumphing over adversity, Bobby Chacon captured the WBC super-featherweight title from Rafael Limon nine months after contemplating suicide. Chacon had put a gun to his head following the suicide of his wife Valorie because he would not quit boxing. Chacon was left haunted by guilt and his life was at rock bottom when aged 31, with three children to support and seven years after he had lost his featherweight title, he met his Mexican rival for a fourth time. With his face bloodied and swollen, Chacon looked to be heading for defeat after being dropped in the third and tenth rounds. He was cut on the bridge of the nose and had to beg the ringside doctor to allow him to continue in the 12th round. Somehow, the American found the energy to go on the front foot for the remaining rounds and crucially decked Limon after two short rights to the jaw with 12 seconds left in the 15th and final round. It was enough to earn Chacon the close decision. “This is dedicated to my wife, if only she could be here with me,” Chacon said after. “I told her this was all I wanted.”
Dubbed ‘The Brain versus the Beast’ in a battle between the instinctive brawler and educated boxer, Nigel Benn stopped Nicky Piper in the 11th round to defend his WBC world super-middleweight title. Welshman Piper, who had a Mensa membership and an IQ of 153, was knocked down with a left hook and Benn then followed up to force the stoppage.
What was astonishing about Nonpareil Jack Dempsey’s 45th round stoppage of John Reagan was not the length of the fight, but the fact that it took place in two locations. They got to the first venue on the shore of Long Island Sound by tug boat, but after 15 minutes they found themselves scrapping in the rising tide with snow falling. The boxers, officials and crowd then had to travel 25 miles before finding a suitable location to reassemble the ropes and continue the bout. Dempsey had his leg ripped open by Reagan’s spiked shoes but wore his opponent down and Reagan’s seconds retired their fighter at the end of the 44th round. Dempsey was known as Nonpareil because he was so dominant: he suffered just four defeats in his 67-bout career. Dempsey – real name John Kelly – was born in County Kildare and grew up in New York after his parents emigrated there in his childhood. His parents disliked boxing, so he assumed a different name. He died of tuberculosis five years later aged 32.
It was hard to have much sympathy with Adrien Broner as he fled the ring following a humbling points defeat to Argentine Marcos Maidana for the WBA welterweight title in Texas. The American had been his usual flash and arrogant self in the build-up to the fight, calling Maidana a “stepping stone”, but was floored twice. Brash Broner found the end of his unbeaten record too much to take and ran out the arena to the sound of boos and drinks being thrown at him. It was Broner’s second fight at welterweight after ruling as world lightweight champion.
Dariusz Michalczewski looked on course to smash the records of Joe Louis and Rocky Marciano after he stopped Richard Hall in the 11th round due to a large swelling by his challenger’s eye to defend his WBO world light-heavyweight title. The Poland-born Germany-based boxer made three more successful defences to set a record number of world title defences at light-heavyweight (23) and was just two short of Joe Louis’s record of most title defences across all divisions and one short of eclipsing Rocky Marciano’s 49-0 unbeaten record when Julio Gonzalez caught up with him.
Joe Calzaghe stopped Richie Woodhall in the tenth round, but it was not the Welshman’s classy defence of his WBO super-middleweight title that got the headlines but another fight on the same Sheffield bill. IBF featherweight champion Paul Ingle sustained life-threatening brain injuries after being stopped in the final round by Mbulelo Botile. Ingle was down in rounds 11 and 12 before he lost consciousness in an ambulance on the way to a local hospital. He needed brain surgery, which lasted two and a half hours and began only 45 minutes after he was knocked out, to remove a blood clot. Ingle never boxed again. He ballooned in weight and was left being reliant on a small disability pension and being cared for by his mother.
Bernard Hopkins failed for a second time at becoming world champion amid a hostile atmosphere in the centre of a bullring in front of 15,000 spectators in Ecuador. Segundo Mercado floored Hopkins in the fifth and seventh rounds, the first times the American had visited the canvas as a professional. He got up to draw on points with Mercado for the vacant IBF belt. The previous year, Hopkins had lost on points to Roy Jones Jr. But Hopkins, who turned professional aged 23 after serving almost five years in prison for robbery, began his historic reign as world middleweight champion in a rematch with Mercado in April 1995 by a seventh-round stoppage. Hopkins went on to make a record-breaking 20 world middleweight title defences.
Terry Norris lost his WBC light-middleweight title in an 11th defence when Jamaica-born Simon Brown knocked him out in the fourth round. In the biggest upset of the year, an out-of-sorts Norris was floored by a jab in the first round. Norris was wobbled in the third before going down in the fourth, but he got revenge and his title back in a rematch five months later by a landslide points decision.
The Sheffield featherweight Naseem Hamed made a thrilling American debut when he got off the canvas three times before stopping home hero Kevin Kelley in the fourth round in New York. The WBO featherweight champion was a curiosity to most fans in the US before this fight at Madison Square Garden and after was one of the biggest personalities in world boxing. Hamed hit the canvas in the first, second, and fourth rounds with Kelley dropped in the second and twice in the fourth round. Hamed, who would somersault over the top rope to enter the ring and could never be accused of lacking confidence, made six more world title defences before being embarrassingly dismantled by Mexican Marco Antonio Barrera in April 2001.
Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter’s potential to go beyond just being a middleweight contender was highlighted by his first round demolition of reigning world welterweight champion Emile Griffith. Those 133 seconds of the non-title catchweight bout, which saw Griffith floored twice, would be the best achievement of Carter’s unfulfilled career. A year later, Carter lost a unanimous decision to Joey Giardello for the world title, but there was never another chance at glory. Carter’s boxing career was terminated by an event three years after inflicting Griffith’s first stoppage loss. Carter was wrongfully convicted of three murders at a bar in 1966 and spent 19 years in prison before a court freed him. Carter became an international symbol of racial injustice.
Khaosai Galaxy retired as an unbeaten world champion after unanimously outpointing Armando Castro in a 19th defence of his WBA super-flyweight title. The star of Thai boxing finished his 48-fight career without ever being knocked out with just one points loss early on in his record. Castro was one of only three challengers to last the distance with Galaxy during his reign as champion. Galaxy’s twin brother Khaokor also won the WBA bantamweight title in 1988, making them the first twins to hold world titles.
Michael Moorer, just 22, looked impressive as he notched up his 18th successive KO by halting Mike Sedillo in six rounds to retain his WBO light-heavyweight title. The systematic destruction, finished off with several clubbing blows to the head, completed a busy year for the American, who had won the belt only a year previously and this was his sixth defence in 12 months. Moorer would win the world heavyweight title in 1994 and 1996 in two brief reigns.
Harry Forbes was declared winner an hour after Frankie Neil was carried out of the ring after claiming he had been hit by a low blow in the seventh round in Oakland. Referee Ed Smith dismissed Neil’s claims he had been hit low after a medical inspection. Neil, who was knocked down nine times in the world bantamweight title bout, had been due to face Forbes’s younger brother Clarence, who fell ill so Harry stepped in. But Neil got revenge on his fellow Irish-American the following year with a second round KO for the world bantamweight title. Also on this day in 1903, Sam Langford – the Canadian who was denied many title opportunities because of the colour of his skin – fought a 12-round draw with Jack Blackburn, later the trainer of Joe Louis, in Boston. Two weeks earlier, Langford had beaten Joe Gans over 15 rounds.
World champions Freddie Miller and Panama Al Brown were booed by the crowd in Paris during their ten round bout and by the time it had ended most of the crowd had walked out of the Palais Des Sports in disgust. Brown, the first Hispanic world champion after claiming the bantamweight belt in 1929, held on to Miller whenever he could despite two warnings from the referee. NBA featherweight champion Miller took the decision, but neither of their world titles were on the line. Despite his unpopularity on this night, Brown continued to box in Europe for another three years before returning across the Atlantic.
Harry Greb and Tommy Loughran exchanged punches instead of presents in one of their six ring meetings. But Loughran weighed in eight pounds over the limit, meaning this was a non-title ten-round bout instead of it being for Greb’s world middleweight title. Greb, who had extended Gene Tunney the 15 rounds distance just two weeks earlier, laboured to a points win at Pittsburgh Motor Square Garden. This was one of six meetings between the pair, with two no decisions, one draw, two wins for Greb and one win for Loughran.
Kid Chocolate was in decline and Frankie Klick gratefully capitalised on the chance to win the world super-featherweight title in Philadelphia. Klick – beaten in his three previous fights – stopped the Cuban in the seventh round but this was a gift-wrapped fight for him. Kid was finished as an elite fighter, his lifestyle catching up with him, and a month previously had been KO’d in two rounds by Tony Canzoneri. In the seventh, Kid was left face first on the canvas from a right to the jaw.
Jack Johnson became boxing’s first black world heavyweight champion when he toyed with and then swatted the smaller Tommy Burns like an insect in the Sydney afternoon heat on Boxing Day. After Burns failed to remotely trouble a smiling and laughing Johnson, the challenger finished a commanding performance with a 14th round stoppage that began a seven-year reign. In the sixth round, 30-year-old Johnson felt so at ease he turned his head to talk to ringside reporters; four rounds later, he held Burns motionless for a photograph. Burns, at 5ft 7in and weighing 24 pounds less than his American rival, was the shortest ever world heavyweight champion and at times Johnson was propping him up rather than beating him down. The white establishment did not want a black world heavyweight champion and Johnson feared conspiracy, so he cautiously declined from throwing any body shots to avoid being disqualified for low blows. It did not impede Johnson, from Galveston in Texas, too much and in the 14th round the Sydney Police stormed into the ring to stop the one-sided fight after Burns had been smashed to the canvas and was on the brink of defeat.
Unknown South African Zolani Petelo upset the locals by stopping Ratanapol Sor Vorapin in the fourth round and ending the Thai boxer’s remarkable run of 21 victories in consecutive IBF mini-flyweight (minimum-weight) title fights. It was the first time Vorapin had been beaten as champion and he failed in two subsequent bids to win back the belt.
Mexican Israel Vazquez made a successful first defence of his IBF world super-bantamweight title by flooring the undefeated Artyom Simonyan twice in the third and once in the fifth round before the fight was stopped. Vazquez was on his way to big fights against Rafael Marquez, Oscar Larios, Ivan Hernandez and Jhonny Gonzalez.
Marco Huck went looking for the knockout late on against American Steve Cunningham, only to be stopped himself with a minute to go of their IBF world cruiserweight title fight. Cunningham wobbled crowd-pleaser Huck with a right uppercut before the German’s corner threw in the towel as the champion looked for the stoppage in the 12th round. Cunningham was leading on two of the three judges’ scorecards in Germany.
Walter McGowan was on the verge of a successful first defence of his WBC world flyweight title in Bangkok after he had twice deposited Chartchai Chionoi on the canvas with left hooks in the second round. But the Thai boxer recovered and returned fire to give the Scot a bad nosebleed which became so severe that it prompted the referee to stop the fight in the ninth round. “The referee did the right thing,” said McGowan’s manager and dad Thomas, who had boxed himself under the name of Joe Gans. “I would never have let it go another round myself. Walter was winning, but I would have stopped it.” The pair fought again in London a year later when McGowan was again stopped on cuts, this time around both eyes and on his forehead.
Former world middleweight champion Jake LaMotta, renowned for his love of the good life and punch-lines, was left to drown his sorrows rather than toast the New Year after a miserable performance. LaMotta – known as the Bronx Bull – was dumped on the canvas for the first time in 103 fights by a right hand from Danny Nardico. LaMotta was taking a pasting and his corner pulled him out at the end of the seventh round. It was the beginning of the end for LaMotta, who the previous year had been world champion but would have just three more fights after this loss. “In my whole career I never really got hurt,” said LaMotta. “The only ones that really hurt me were my wives. My third wife divorced me because I said to her ‘your stockings are wrinkled’. How the hell did I know she wasn’t wearing any?”