BoxRec

Inspired by that neck-snapping shot from Alexis Arguello in his first encounter with Aaron Pryor.

Earnie Shaver's right hand in round 7 against Larry Holmes in the rematch. Come to think of it you could say that about Shavers' fights against Ali, Lyle, Mercado and Tillis.

I think (going from memory, & couldn't be arsed checking the DVD) it was at the start of round six, Frazier nearly decapitated Ali with a left hook in Manila. A pearler of a punch, how Ali stood up to it, I'll never know. It was probably the best punch of Ali-Frazier III.

lets hope gran doesnt read that

i thought hamed landed the best punch vs barerra it was a left uppercut that broke his nose and snapped his head back but i havnt seen the fight for a while

This didn't land, but Foreman launched a humungous uppercut at Ali in the 1st round: I always thought that if that punch had of landed, it would have removed Ali's head from his neck!

p4p1 wrote:i thought hamed landed the best punch vs barerra it was a left uppercut that broke his nose and snapped his head back but i havnt seen the fight for a while

One thing you can say for Hamed, despite his dozens of glaring faults, is that he had power. You're talking about Round 3. MAB's guard was sound, the blow hit his gloves up in front of his nose, yet the punch was still hard enough to make it bleed.

Syntax Error wrote:This didn't land, but Foreman launched a humungous uppercut at Ali in the 1st round: I always thought that if that punch had of landed, it would have removed Ali's head from his neck!

It was designed to send Ali's head into orbit, methinks. Foreman's arm nearly came out of it's socket when it didn't hit the target.

Basilio knocked Gavilan down in their fight which he lost. I don't recall Gavilan landing anything as hard. Dempsey probably hit Tunney harder on his knock down than Tunney did in his knock down of Dempsey in their rematch. Patterson blasted Maxim in maybe every round of that controversial loss. Saddler landed the hardest shots in his loss to Pep. Foreman landed a left hook in the Young fight that was likely harder than the shots Young landed, even the knock down. Holmes probably landed the harder shots in his losses to Spinks. Hagler landed the harder shots in his loss to Leonard. Judah almost knocked Spinks out in the 12th round of their first fight, before losing a decision. There's a lot of examples. I'm sure there were plenty of fights where Ali or Whitaker or Pep or someone won but wasn't the one to land the hardest punch. Luckily, boxing is more complex than that.

Roy Jones vs Lou Del Valle - Del Valle drops Jones in the 8th with a big left. The rest of the fight, before and after that punch, was all Jones.

here's some others:
dawson-adamek rd.10
dawson-johnson rd.10
gonzalez-letterlough - any of the knockdowns of gonzalez

#1 has to be holmes-shavers.

I've always disagreed with that. I don't think Shavers hitting Holmes is #1. I don't think he hit Holmes any harder than he hit Ali. It just looked better because Holmes went down, while the 35 year old Ali didn't.

Eubank against Collins and Thompson - all four fights; left uppercuts, right uppercuts.

Tyson vs Douglas.

Years later Douglas vs Monaco.

I think Holmes went down because he was coming into that shot. And fighting Shavers.

Shavers hit Ali with some damned good shots nonetheless and more often than Holmes was hit in two fights.

Doesn't answer the question of it being any more or less a better punch.

Holmes was hit less often because he was in his prime. Still, Shavers managed to drop him with a shot that he must have hit a 35 year old Ali with three or four times.

I Feel Fine wrote:Basilio knocked Gavilan down in their fight which he lost. I don't recall Gavilan landing anything as hard. Dempsey probably hit Tunney harder on his knock down than Tunney did in his knock down of Dempsey in their rematch. Patterson blasted Maxim in maybe every round of that controversial loss. Saddler landed the hardest shots in his loss to Pep. Foreman landed a left hook in the Young fight that was likely harder than the shots Young landed, even the knock down. Holmes probably landed the harder shots in his losses to Spinks. Hagler landed the harder shots in his loss to Leonard. Judah almost knocked Spinks out in the 12th round of their first fight, before losing a decision. There's a lot of examples. I'm sure there were plenty of fights where Ali or Whitaker or Pep or someone won but wasn't the one to land the hardest punch. Luckily, boxing is more complex than that.

Not the hardest punch, IFF, the best punch, though it's a given that they will often be one & the same.

Goodnight, Irene wrote:Not the hardest punch, IFF, the best punch, though it's a given that they will often be one & the same.

Define "best." If it doesn't necessarily mean "hardest" then I would take it to mean "the punch that caused the most damage." Meaning, for example, that even though Foreman's shots were harder, Ali landed the "better" shots because he stunned Foreman several times while George never noticably rocked him. That doesn't seem to be the logic of the thread. Foreman's shots were thought of as better by a couple of you simply because they were indeed harder than anything Ali landed, even if Ali's shots were more telling. If "best" does not mean hardest, then I would say Ali probably landed the best shots of the fight because Ali hurt George more than George hurt him. If we're not looking at it in that way, then I would go with George because George's shots were harder.

Iran Barkley left hook on Roberto Duran's chin about the 9th round...Duran went skating all around the ring. It was funny.

Yeah, I think I know the punch you mean; amazing Duran didn't go down from that. Hearns would still be out from that shot.

Still, hard to top the beauty of Duran putting Barkley down with that right

I second the vote for Shavers vs. Holmes Two. I STILL can't believe Larry Holmes came back to win that fight.

I still can't believe that people are more impressed with a prime Holmes going down from the shot and going on to win than they are with the fact that a 35 year old Ali never went down to begin with after taking more than one of those kind of shots. I think it was the second round where Shavers landed one that looked maybe even harder than the one he landed on Holmes.

..walcott in louis-walcott #1.....rounds one and four. two round house counter beauties. louis stayed down for the count of 7 in the fourth round, which shows he was hurt because otherwise he would get up at the count of one, which always made jack blackburn have a fit.

The overhand right Rosario hit Camacho with in 86 was wicked. Camacho claimed in an interview once that it was like somebody put a white sheet over him and he couldn't see.

VoiceOnTV wrote:The overhand right Rosario hit Camacho with in 86 was wicked. Camacho claimed in an interview once that it was like somebody put a white sheet over him and he couldn't see.

Good call.

That punch changed Camacho forever.

Jaybee From The Castle wrote:

p4p1 wrote:i thought hamed landed the best punch vs barerra it was a left uppercut that broke his nose and snapped his head back but i havnt seen the fight for a while

One thing you can say for Hamed, despite his dozens of glaring faults, is that he had power. You're talking about Round 3. MAB's guard was sound, the blow hit his gloves up in front of his nose, yet the punch was still hard enough to make it bleed.

thats the one the first of two times barrera came to hamed the next time he did he got tageed aswell i believe if he had of come forward in that fight he would of been stopped.... barrera fought a smart fight as much as i hate to admit it