BoxRec

What were your top 5 favorite boxing matchups?


1. Was it fights between top swarmers against top master-boxers?



2. Was it fights between top swarmers against top sluggers?



3. Was it fights between top sluggers against top boxer-punchers?



4. Was it fights between top boxer-punchers against top master-boxers?




What were your top 5 favorite boxing matchups? Why?


Please explain.

1... James Toney vs Mike McCallum 1 for the Middleweight Title --- The brutally fought Draw when McCallum was 35.. He faded for their other fights.

2... Salvado Sanchez vs Ruben Castillo for the Featherweight Title --- Like the above fight a battle between 2 great boxer-punchers.

3... Anthony Joshua vs Wladimir Klitschko --- Two great boxer-punchers put on a dramatic, punch filled, nearly clinchless Heavyweight Title Fight.

4... Roberto Duran vs Estaban De Jesus III --- Best career performance of Duran -- Boxed brilliantly and kept his ass off the canvas in this one.

5... Joe Louis vs Max Schmeling 1 --- Great demo of a right hand counter punch against a very talented jabber -- which everyone tries to master.

6... Larry Holmes vs Tim Witherspoon --- Surprisingly skilled showing by green young Witherspoon and one of the hardest fought fights I've ever seen.

I like a bunch of other fights like the recent Golovkin-Alvarez fight, but that was marred by a rotten decision.

Favorite and best are different. Only fights I've seen live.

5 Best

Saad/lopez 2
Pryor/Arguello 1
Chacon/Limon 4
Vazquez/Marquez 3
Holyfield/Qawi or Morales/MAB 1

5 Favorite

Holyfield/Tyson 1- I called it for so many years and it finally went down
Hearns/Leonard 2- He waited so long for his revenge and only got the chance because they thought he was shot. Handled the robbery with class seldom seen.
Duran/Leonard 1- fantastic fight with two of the greatest ever and Duran delivered a brutal beating that Leonard ate like a man.
Morales/maidana- Everyone thought he was done, I knew he wasn't. I choked up watching Erik rally from the brink of a ist rd ko loss
Lee/Locicero- It's not really obscure anymore, but I've turned on hundreds of hardcore fans to that fight through the years. I saw it live when I was 10 or 11 the night before a fishing trip in Oregon when all the adults were asleep.

I'll give you two lists.

In my time as a fan (late 2001 to now)

1. Gatti vs Ward 1 - No explanation needed

2. Maidana vs Broner 1 - Being a big Maidana fan, and calling him to win this one. It was real sweet.

3. James Toney vs Vassily Jirov - A wild fight with the momentum swinging back and forth multiple times before Toney dropped him in the 12th to take the decision

4. Castillo vs Corrales 1 - Would've been higher on the list if Castillo had come out on top. Heartbreaking for me at the time, but a truly great fight.

5. Miguel Cotto vs Ricardo Torres - Just a fun wild, shootout. Never dull to watch.


All Time

1. Bobby Chacon vs Bazooka Limon IV - One of the greatest fights I've ever seen. Every round is high drama!

2. Barrera vs Morales 1 - Same as the previous fight I mentioned. Just nonstop action start to finish.

3. Matthew Saad Muhammad vs Yaqui Lopez 2 - As Savage as it gets. Both guys take an inhuman amount of punishment, and just keep firing back!

4. Joe Frazier vs Muhammad Ali 1 - As a Smokin' Joe fan this is my favorite of the bunch though The Thrilla in Manilla is equally entertaining, and possibly even more brutal. Both absolute classics!

5. George Foreman vs Ron Lyle - The Heavyweight Slugfest to end all Heavyweight Slugfests!

SaadOffTheDeck wrote:Favorite and best are different. Only fights I've seen live.

5 Best

Saad/lopez 2
Pryor/Arguello 1
Chacon/Limon 4
Vazquez/Marquez 3
Holyfield/Qawi or Morales/MAB 1

5 Favorite

Holyfield/Tyson 1- I called it for so many years and it finally went down
Hearns/Leonard 2- He waited so long for his revenge and only got the chance because they thought he was shot. Handled the robbery with class seldom seen.
Duran/Leonard 1- fantastic fight with two of the greatest ever and Duran delivered a brutal beating that Leonard ate like a man.
Morales/maidana- Everyone thought he was done, I knew he wasn't. I choked up watching Erik rally from the brink of a ist rd ko loss
Lee/Locicero- It's not really obscure anymore, but I've turned on hundreds of hardcore fans to that fight through the years. I saw it live when I was 10 or 11 the night before a fishing trip in Oregon when all the adults were asleep.

I almost mentioned Lee vs Lo Cicero. I stumbled upon that one on ESPN Classic one time. LOVE that fight.

Izzy vs Marquez 3 went around my head a few times too while compiling my list so I'm on board with that as well.

My favourite fights have little to do with any of the above. It's not about style or action or quality. It's about emotional involvement and the nostalgia that comes after spending and hour shouting at the tele or jumping around your living room.

Lewis vs Holyfield 1
Naz vs Kevin Kelley
Calzaghe vs Lacy
Hatton vs Tszyu
Froch vs Groves
Burns vs Martinez

The fighters I have followed most closely and made me fall in love with the sport. (I could probably have named another fight for each of the above)

No amount of watching great fights from the annuls of history will compete. No global super fight will ever come close without the complete buy in you get when you truly support a fighter.

That's what gets me when I hear some American fans on here talk about just following the sport and not being a "fan" of the hometown fighter. UK fans follow fighters like they do their football team.

davie wrote: No amount of watching great fights from the annuls of history will compete. No global super fight will ever come close without the complete buy in you get when you truly support a fighter ... That's what gets me when I hear some American fans on here talk about just following the sport and not being a "fan" of the hometown fighter. UK fans follow fighters like they do their football team.

I've never been a fan of home teams or home grown fighters unless I trained them, and then you indeed have emotional involvement and bias you just can’t get away from. Not that it's ever right. But when Joshua fights Wilder I'm rooting for Joshua as always because he's the better boxer and puncher. The same for sports teams. I guess I can see supporting a team because they’re your alam mater or happen to share your geographical location, but why be so biased? You should support the team or boxer you actually believe to be the better unit or athlete. If that's the Brit or the Ukrainian, nothing wrong with that.

Kalan wrote:

davie wrote: No amount of watching great fights from the annuls of history will compete. No global super fight will ever come close without the complete buy in you get when you truly support a fighter ... That's what gets me when I hear some American fans on here talk about just following the sport and not being a "fan" of the hometown fighter. UK fans follow fighters like they do their football team.

I've never been a fan of home teams or home grown fighters unless I trained them, and then you indeed have emotional involvement and bias you just can’t get away from. Not that it's ever right. But when Joshua fights Wilder I'm rooting for Joshua as always because he's the better boxer and puncher. The same for sports teams. I guess I can see supporting a team because they’re your alam mater or happen to share your geographical location, but why be so biased? You should support the team or boxer you actually believe to be the better unit or athlete. If that's the Brit or the Ukrainian, nothing wrong with that.

Do you still support the fighters you're a fan of when they get older, and start losing?

Favorites is of course very different from greats.

I'm older than a lot of people here and your first years as a fan are remembered fondly.

Sometimes mid level fights like Bobick-Wepner really got my attention. I couldn't concentrate in high school thinking a bout that Saturday afternoon fight.

I was really obsessed by 1970 HWs: Ali, Foreman, Frazier, Norton, Quarry, Young, Bobick, Wepner, Bugner, Lyle, Shavers, and later Spinks and Holmes.

Duran-Leonard, Leonard-Hearns 1, Hagler-Duran, were also my early day obsessions.

Greatest fight I ever saw LIVE was probably Dynamite Billy Douglas (Buster's Dad), vs Pedro Soto or Holyfield-Qawi 1.

gilgamesh wrote:

Kalan wrote:

davie wrote: No amount of watching great fights from the annuls of history will compete. No global super fight will ever come close without the complete buy in you get when you truly support a fighter ... That's what gets me when I hear some American fans on here talk about just following the sport and not being a "fan" of the hometown fighter. UK fans follow fighters like they do their football team.

I've never been a fan of home teams or home grown fighters unless I trained them, and then you indeed have emotional involvement and bias you just can’t get away from. Not that it's ever right. But when Joshua fights Wilder I'm rooting for Joshua as always because he's the better boxer and puncher. The same for sports teams. I guess I can see supporting a team because they’re your alam mater or happen to share your geographical location, but why be so biased? You should support the team or boxer you actually believe to be the better unit or athlete. If that's the Brit or the Ukrainian, nothing wrong with that.

Do you still support the fighters you're a fan of when they get older, and start losing?

Not really... Cuz if they start slipping they should quit... Nobody wants to lose -- but obviously if you want to be great you have to risk possible losses...Probably the smartest thing Ward did was quit -- there's a lot of comp at LHW who could beat his tail in. Somebody like Willie Pep fighting 241 fights and fighting young guys in their 20's at 46 doesn't make sense to me. You're long gone buddy. Train other boxers or find something else to do.

What was your fabricated record?

Kalan wrote:[Probably the smartest thing Ward did was quit -- there's a lot of comp at LHW who could beat his tail in

oh, yeah, so true. so many fighters at 175lbs right now who'd not just beat him, but 'beat his tail in'.

Ward was highly protected and the Kovalev fights were fixed..

Even Kovalev's trainer was working against him behind the scenes.. Giving Ward's camp Kovalev's training details and offering to come over to Ward's camp.. The scandal blew up in an attempt to make it psychologically more damaging to the Russian.. With today's competition Kovalev doesn't have a chance.

Kalan wrote:Ward was highly protected and the Kovalev fights were fixed..

Even Kovalev's trainer was working against him behind the scenes.. Giving Ward's camp Kovalev's training details and offering to come over to Ward's camp.. The scandal blew up in an attempt to make it psychologically more damaging to the Russian.. With today's competition Kovalev doesn't have a chance.

What was your fabricated record?