BoxRec

What fight you think was the cruelest in terms when a guy is getting hit unmercifully and helplessly through the ropes and somethin in your heart and soul say: Stop the fight!

I got some examples of brutality:
Kid Gavilan vs Gil Turner...It was Gavilan's finest fight in my view. But it was a brutal ending. The referee, that SOB should have stopped it earlier.

Manny Pacquiao vs Miguel Cotto...I was rooting for Manny, but, when Cotto was getting his ass kicked, I was screaming "Stop the fight!, Stop the fight!, Stop that Fight!!!"

Ike Williams vs Beau Jack...So many shots in the great Jack's head, why the stupid referee did not stopped it sooner?

Aaron Pryor vs Alexis Arguello I... I cried for the great Arguello. I wanted him to win his fourth world crown in his fourth weight class...Twenty-three unanswered shots to the head and that stupid referee did not stopped it sooner. Every time I see this fight I don't like the ending.

What other fights you remember of that type of brutality?

Dempsey v Willard

Painful to watch.

Emile Griffith vs Bennie Paret III instantly came to mind, and I'm sure will be in the minds of others in BOTP. That's the worst I can think of right now. I don't even want to watch it again, but here's a link for those that haven't seen it (use caution):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CwK-8V5 ... ure=relmfu
Ingemar Johansson vs Eddie Machen is nearly as brutal. I think Machen is seriously lucky he didn't end up like Paret. After Machen finnaly slumps to the canvas after taking about a dozen flush shots (really a conservative estimate) from a big puncher, the ref actually counts to ten and gives a big wave off with Machen's seconds already in the ring tending to him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezLbrjlyTuQ

Duran-Moore.

Filthy, sickening performance which should have been put a stop to.

chucktaylor wrote:Emile Griffith vs Bennie Paret III instantly came to mind, and I'm sure will be in the minds of others in BOTP. That's the worst I can think of right now. I don't even want to watch it again, but here's a link for those that haven't seen it (use caution):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CwK-8V5 ... ure=relmfu
Ingemar Johansson vs Eddie Machen is nearly as brutal. I think Machen is seriously lucky he didn't end up like Paret. After Machen finnaly slumps to the canvas after taking about a dozen flush shots (really a conservative estimate) from a big puncher, the ref actually counts to ten and gives a big wave off with Machen's seconds already in the ring tending to him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezLbrjlyTuQ

Agree 100% with this.

Cooney-Norton also comes to mind.

chucktaylor wrote:Emile Griffith vs Bennie Paret III instantly came to mind, and I'm sure will be in the minds of others in BOTP. That's the worst I can think of right now. I don't even want to watch it again, but here's a link for those that haven't seen it (use caution):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CwK-8V5 ... ure=relmfu
Ingemar Johansson vs Eddie Machen is nearly as brutal. I think Machen is seriously lucky he didn't end up like Paret. After Machen finnaly slumps to the canvas after taking about a dozen flush shots (really a conservative estimate) from a big puncher, the ref actually counts to ten and gives a big wave off with Machen's seconds already in the ring tending to him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezLbrjlyTuQ

Griffith-Paret III was terrible officiating, he was hit 9 or 10 times when he was just an unconscious ragdoll hanging outside the ropes. Sickening to watch. More recently I thought Vitali-Briggs being allowed to go the last 4 rounds was absurd, when he wound up in the ER following the fight I felt really bothered by that, but I was not surprised at all, that fight should've been stopped by his corner probably before the 8th, but the fact that it went all the way through rounds 9-12 shows he had a sorry ass uncaring corner.

The referee and corner in Vitali Klitschkos beating of Shannon Briggs should have been arrested.

Ali-Holmes obviously.

Walker vs Schmeling is almost like a car crash to me. Mickey suffered a terrible beat down at the hands of Schmeling, but Walker's grittiness and resolve made it impossible to look away.

Zale-Graziano III: Refs back then used to wipe the gloves off of guys who were completly glassy-eyed and had no legs and let the fight continue . . unbelievable.

Ezzard Charles-John Holman I: Totally unneccesary punishment taken by Ezzard after he was clearly out on his feet

As you mention some of these, there must be a few that fit the mold of....."I would have stopped it, but then the other guy would never have come back to win". Few of these for sure....but Durelle Moore was the classic example.

I can think of a few that fit your list elmer but they may simply have been examples where I had a better view than the ref....example Cooney Norton.....Not sure the ref had time to react. A few of Basillios fights would have been stopped because of cuts these days...and he would not have been able to score a few of his wins if I recall.

Holmes Ali? No way the ref should have stopped that one, I think no one would have been satisfied if the ref would have stepped in.....some (come to think of it probably Ali himself) would maintain to this day that Ali was "playin' possum about ready to pounce" when the "blind idiot" ref put an end to it. That one HAD to be stopped by Ali or his own Corner. Nothing else would have been acceptable. Can you imagine the discussion on this board about that fight, if the Ref would have stopped it? some of you probably think I would be part of that madness....lol. I assure you I would not.

Oddly I honestly DON'T think Chavez-Taylor should have been stopped, and inversely think that Benn McLellan should have been stopped. Real Irony on that last one I suppose.

Zale-Graziano III is a good shout from Dempsey.

Castillo/Corrales should have been stopped during the mouthpiece bull shit, Chico had nothing left.

If Don King were here, which bout do you think he'd nomimate?

"I can think of a few that fit your list elmer but they may simply have been examples where I had a better view than the ref....example Cooney Norton.....Not sure the ref had time to react." BoxBuzz

re Cooney-Norton....

Perez could have reacted a bit sooner. The way Cooney hit, all it might have taken to kill Norton was one more shot.

Goodnight, Irene wrote:If Don King were here, which bout do you think he'd nomimate?

Tyson-Douglas. Only to protect his interest of course, but that's what I figure Don King would go with.

Yeah, thats what I meant. No doubt he would.

Frank Tate-Michael Olajide. Olajide had no chance to win and the referee just would not stop it. It was just a one-sided beating where Olajide could have been seriously injured. The referee was Richard Steele.

Haye - enzo. Whilst it was not a long accumulation of punches. It was the fact he was gone after the first knockdown the ref shoukd of stopped it earlier he didnt need to be punched till his legs wouldnt support him

Arguably Jorge Vaca against Mark Breland --- but in saying that, just viewing this on a DVD years after the fact, I couldnt help but be spell-bound, so I imagine right up close and in the moment, the ref may've had the same problem --- but God damn, did Breland take the licking of a lifetime for twenty-odd seconds...Vaca nearly decapitates him with a Marciano-on-Walcott-esque right hand, which deposits Breland into the ropes in a prone position, and bing, bang, bop, boom, bap...blow upon blow upon blow! It was an amazing sight. Breland's head just bounced about like a tetherball. Even the commentary was memorable.

"I think he---ohhhh! Oh, my!!! A HUGE right hand from Jorge Vaca! Breland with his back against the ropes...Breland has not answered in well over twenty punches!"

The announcer did a great job. It was the sort of hysterical, infectious call you want for such moments (one thing Lampley, as much as Im an advocate of his, lacks), and you couldve played his, "Ohhh! Oh, my!!!" line over the footage of the Kennedy Assassination and itd have been just as fitting

Adamj1987 wrote:Haye - enzo. Whilst it was not a long accumulation of punches. It was the fact he was gone after the first knockdown the ref shoukd of stopped it earlier he didnt need to be punched till his legs wouldnt support him

Maccarinelli vs Frenkel was even worse IMO

Holy...(no pun intended) Crap......I can't believe this one has not been mentioned...(or has it?)


I was totally shocked to learn that a man can chomp off a chunk of his opponents ear whils't performing his professional pursuit of pugilism. AND that the fight may continue.

I thought for sure that would be the end of the fight. It never occurred to me that a pro boxer can return to that buffet table for seconds. He must have liked it, since he announced later in his

career that he would be dining on another champion's children. Though that champ (LL) had no children at the time as I recall.

gatti against gomez, was sad to see him get beat up like that.

J-C wrote:

Adamj1987 wrote:Haye - enzo. Whilst it was not a long accumulation of punches. It was the fact he was gone after the first knockdown the ref shoukd of stopped it earlier he didnt need to be punched till his legs wouldnt support him

Maccarinelli vs Frenkel was even worse IMO

About the same i think, but i couldnt remember frenkels name thats why i didnt say him

Undoubtedly its in the heavyweight division more than others u get these fights where very quickly one guy is hurt/finished but the ref is slow reacting or unable to pull the other guy off....but it does make for some highlight reel brutalisations such as

morrison-mercer
Ruddock-dokes
Norton-Cooney

But realistically those were so sudden , with the possible exception of morrison-mercer,that u didnt really have time to scream "stop the fight"...

So for me they have to be:

Duran-Moore. This was a sadists dream. Very brutal atmosphere and beating, especially since it was durans thumb in the eye of Moore that made him so helpless, it seemed at times like the crowd, the referee and his own corner wanted him to be maimed for life or killed such was their inability to see what was going on.

Honeyghan-Breland....even ABC commentator Dan Dunphy screamed unproffesionally "stop the fight". This was sickening the way his own crowd were baying for his blood, his bravery and teh way it seemed he had a rabid dog on him in the third. Very sad to see a shot honeyghan

Irene, Ive never seen and always wanted to see Vaca-Breland. Its fascinating to me that a man that Honeyghan beat with one shot, and who was such a limited brawler, who was beaten brutally by Simon Brown himself, could manage to do what u describe to Breland a few years later, as Breland to me in 88-89 I couldnt imagine Vaca lasting more than 3-4 rounds with.

Not as though Vaca outclassed him, though. He just landed the punch of a lifetime in an otherwise-uneventful round, then flat buried him under an avalanche of leather. I remember thinking the announcers estimate of Breland not answering in, "well over twenty punches," was pretty damn conservative.