BoxRec

I can think of some big ones

Ezzard Charles vs Rocky Marciano I- EzzardCharles, he earned huge respect for fighting a gruelling 15 rounder in one of his best fights at heavyweight

Lennox Lewis vs Hoylfield I- Lennox Lewis

Billy Conn vs Joe Louis I- Billy conn. he gave the brown bomber is toughest fight in his prime and was winning before getitng knocked out. this earned him huge respect as an all time light-H.

Jose Luis Castillo vs Deigo Corrales: Jose Luis Castillo- no need to say anything here. true warrior.


Ken Norton vs Larry Holmes- Norton. he gave one of the greatest heavyweights of all time the toughest fight of his career and nearly beat him.

when i read this i immediatly thought of billy conn, because he came so close to defeated possibly the greatest heavyweight ever, but just fell short. he really made a name for himself that fight, and proved that he could be a great fighter, maybe a better one at light heavyweight, but a great boxer non the less.

Here are a few that come to mind:

1) Tommy Farr lasting the distance against Joe Louis
2) Yvon Durelle knocking the Mongoose down 4 times and still losing
3) Yaqui Lopez giving Saad Muhummad everything he had
4) Pierre Fourie fighting 4 different world championship bouts at light heavyweight and losing them all.
5) Duk-Koo Kim, considered a bum before the fight, who gave his all against Mancini and paid the ultimate price

if anyone ever deserved to win a title it was Yaqui Lopez. Poor guy, fought his heart out in each of his title fights and still couldnt come out on top. I think he challenged for the title 5 times, so close but so far.

Fiourre gave foster a good fight in their first fight, though foster was past his prime. peirre fiorre was granted a rematch not so long later and gave foster a closer fight in the 2nd fight. he lost that one decisevly and then foster retired after getting scraping a draw off of jorge ahumada. Ahumade to this day believes he was robbed. It was a close fight IMO could have gone either way.

i was watching foster vs frank depaula the other day. that was a bullshit knockdown they called against foster. Foster slipped before depuala threw that left hook. it didnt matter cause foster knocked depaula down later that round 3 times for the automatic stoppage.


how many times was foster knocked down at light-H?????

..hey...good lists..but where is jersey joe walcott? really derided and considered no contest against joe louis...and unknown to the general public...he became a hero when he won everything but the decision in their match. and..again...in that great stand he put up against marciano. that was one of the times when the defending champion was the underdog...and he made some if the smartest moves i've seen in any heavyweight,a s well as slugging it out many times with the younger and stronger marciano.

I have to say Ray Leonard against Duran. He proved that night that when he was in a fight that he could take a beating and remain competitive all the way.

I'd say the same about Hearns against Leonard. Hearns proved that he was a top notch fighter. he dominated ray for long periods of the fight and was very close to winning it.

I agree too with Jaclem's Walcott and BB's Charles. In the UK I'd say Cooper after dropping Clay/Ali and Farr for going the ditance with Louis. The other losing performance that shocked me was Bruno v Lewis. Bruno was inspired that night and gave probably his best performance ever.

I watched the Foster-Ahumada fight live on TV, and while I thought Ahumada clearly won. I thought he made a big mistake in not jumping all over Foster when after several rounds it became apparent that Foster had hurt his right hand, and had been reduced pretty much to a one armed fighter.

Ali Frazier 1
Taylor Chavez 1
Leonard Duran 1
Holmes Norton
Walcott TheRock
Morales Barrera1
Foreman Lyle
Ali Young

how about mickey ward after losing to gatti?

Good One Rory

Felix Sturm vs. Oscar De La Hoya springs to mind, considering that Sturm did actually put in a winning performance but got screwed out by the polotics. Also, both guys in the Gatti-Ward trilogy gained alot of respect regardless of who won or lost.