Iconic means that the fight was important to boxing, with a huge buildup, memorable and significant in some way beyond the contest itself. Joe Louis vs Max Schmeling II was one of the biggest fights of all time, taking place during the rise of Nazi Germany in 1938 and meant a whole lot more than just a heavyweight championship to the entire world. But the fight was over in the first round, with Louis knocking out Schmeling. Not necessarily an exciting contest. Maybe the most well-known, famous fight of all tie was the Rumble in the Jungle - Muhammad Ali vs. George Foreman. The story behind this fight and the two men, as well as what took place in the ring that night, is truly the stuff of legend but to watch the actual fight itself is not particularly exciting to me. While Foreman was one of the greatest and Ali is known as THE greatest, neither displayed great boxing skill in that fight. Ali used a very ill-advised strategy and Big George let him get a way with it by throwing looping, sloppier punches. Maybe that's a little blasphemous but if you are looking to check out some of what I feel are more interesting, exciting and compelling battles, here are some recommendations below.
I've divided them up into "classic" and "modern" categories. “Classic” being anything past 20 years old and “modern” being something more recent, with boxers who still compete. I've included video links too. You can skip ahead to the first round if you don't want to see the walk-in and everything else. And now that football season is over, what if you took about an hour every Sunday to watch a boxing match instead?
Classics
Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier I
Called the Fight of the Century, Ali-Frazier 1 had a great build-up between the two prominent heavyweights in the golden era for that division, with both fighters generally seeming to dislike each other, Their third fight between them - The Thrilla in Manilla - is an honorable mention and almost like a real life Rocky movie but both men were at a higher level when they met the first time. Plus, for those of you who doubt the importance and power of the lead hook, look no further than this fight and watch Joe Frazier use it to single-handedly (literally) take down The Greatest.
Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Tommy Hearns I
Another two all-time greats going at it in a battle that went back in forth, with adjustments and strategy changes. I consider myself very lucky to have grown up during the best era for middleweights ever, who all fought each other. Any of the classic battles between Sugar Ray, Hearns, Hagler or Duran and fun watches but this one is the second best.
Marvin Hagler vs. Tommy Hearns
And here is the best of those matchups! If you watch nothing else I mention here, watch this fight. It's only a few rounds, it won't take long, but has more action than you will see in multiple 12-round fights. It's one thing to watch an all-out brawl but watching it with two of the best ever is something special. Even if you don't like boxing or appreciate the skills, you would probably enjoy this one.
Riddick Bowe vs Evander Holyfield I
When Mike Tyson lost to Buster Douglas just over 33 years ago to the day, I mostly stopped following boxing for a while. I also ran away from home, didn't have a TV, and there was no such thing as the internet so it was fully off my radar. Another one of my favorite boxers, Hector Camacho fought against Julio Cesar Chavez a couple years later and I watched it with some people from work and Camacho lost a decision and was generally dominated and it just made me angry so I'm like, "Screw this!" and didn't want to watch boxing at all. But then a couple months later, I was housesitting for someone with HBO and watched the Bowe-Holyfield fight just to kill some time. It actually got me re-interested in sport. Great fight, great heavyweights and it ushered in a decent mini-era for that division. All three fights these guys had were good but the first was definitely the best, in my opinion.
Mickey Ward vs. Arturo Gatti I
All three of the Ward-Gatti fights were classics but this is easily my favorite. Both guys fight similarly in a style I really like. Great boxing, went back and forth, and so much heart from both fighters.
(Honorable Mention) Diego Corrales vs. Jose Luis Castillo
Another all-out slugfest with the fighters trading shots for 9 rounds but it was the 10th round where it became a classic. I thought it was over two times (and might have been stopped earlier, had it taken place today).
Modern
Juan Manuel Marquez vs Manny Pacquiao IV
We had all been begging for the Pac Man vs. Mayweather fight for years and even though I had resigned myself to believing that it was never going to happen, I can't say I was super excited to see Pacquiao fight Marquez for the fourth time. All their fights had been close (first was a draw) but I thought it would be another hard-fought, relatively close decision for Manny. This battle took a few rounds to heat up but once it did, we saw some excellent hand speed and probably the best counter-punch knockout of all time.
Anthony Joshua vs Wladimir Klitschkoho
The heavyweight division reached it's lowest point at the end of the 1990s, at least in terms of captivating the public's interest. It was largely dominated by the Klitschko brothers, Vitali and Wladimir. Both very talented and seemingly good guys but just did not move the needle. Without a lot of strong competitors, the landscape was pretty barren. It took about 15 years for the division to get more interesting. Anthony Joshua put on a pretty good performance against Wladimer in 2017 and threw one of the best uppercuts you'll see in the 11th round, coming back from some major damage and exhaustion earlier. I won't say watching all 11 rounds is that exciting. There are a lot of less interesting moments for sure but the highlights are at least worth checking out.
Tyson Fury vs. Deontay Wilder III
This was another fight I didn't necessarily want to see. And again, Fury-Wilder 1 and 2 weren't bad fights, it was just that Tyson Fury is a much more skilled boxer than Wilder and of all the combined rounds they had fought in their previous two fights, I thought Fury won pretty much all but one of them and like most people, wanted to see Fury and Anthony Joshua go at it instead but a third match with Wilder was contractually obligated. Luckily though, their third fight wasn't what I expected at all and was one of the most exciting battles I had seen in a while. Lots of action, both fighters looked finished at multiple times, and were going for broke. Tyson Fury could have easily out-boxed Deontay again but decided to slug it out.
Jermell Charlo vs. Tony Harrison II
Great technical boxing from both fighters. I really like Tony Harrison's sharp jab and after I saw this fight, I decided I wanted to jab like him. Then I decided I wanted more of a Macho Camacho hammer-style jab. One day I hope to somehow fuse the two despite them having different applications.
Naoya Inoue vs. Nonito Donaire I
Nonito "The Filipino Flash" is/was a future Hall-of-Famer who had experienced a resurgence in the last few years. Inoue was a hungry, young fighter who had just been running right through everybody, finishing all of his fights early. As impressive as it is to just destroy the competition, it's even more impressive when you aren't able to just crush someone the way you're used to, end up getting hurt, taken into deeper waters for the first time, and manage to come back by taking things to the next level and showing the heart of the champion. Doing this on a couple of different occasions is even more impressive still.
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