The ten Lightweight title fights you must see in your lifetime

# 10 - Tony Canzoneri W PTS 15 Kid Chocolate, World title, 1931

The skinny: Kid Chocolate of Cuba had already made himself a history-maker earlier in 1931 when, by lifting the Super-Featherweight title, he'd become his country's first ever world champion. Had Tony Canzoneri, the popular Italian-American who came in to the fight holding the world Lightweight title as well as being recognized by everyone aside from 'Ring Magazine' as Light-Welterweight king managed to make 130 lb on the scales, then he'd have been able to make history, too, as a victory would have added the Cuban's crown to his haul (which had also previously included the Featherweight title) to make him boxing's first-ever 4 weight titlist. Boing down to the Super-Featherweight limit to make this fight a triple championship one proved too much, but nevertheless this fight pitted two of the most popular fighters in the sport against each other, and a large crowd at Madison Square Garden were expecting a special bout.

Canzoneri, short and squat as well as a rough handful on the inside, looked to make it a dog fight early on, but the first two rounds were characterised by the smoother boxing of the lithe Cuban, who snapped the Lightweight champion's head back with multiple jabs before, in the middle of a wild exchange, countering him with a heavy left, which moved Canzoneri to the ropes.

Showing almost cat-like reflexes, Chocolate proved an elusive target until the fourth, when a clubbing right from Canzoneri forced him to touch down with his gloves - however, he escaped having a knockdown called against him, with referee Willie Lewis slow to react. The challenger was back to his classical style of stick and move in the fifth, and the beautiful mesh of styles was never more evident in an excellent sixth, as Canzoneri forced his way inside while Chocolate looked to hold him off with stiff counter right hands before finishing with a crunching right uppercut on the inside.

The champion's body punching started to become a factor in the next two rounds, and in the ninth he had his first emphatic success in a while, making Chocolate's knees dip with a hard left hook, punishing the body and putting the seal on a big round by driving his opponent to the ropes with a straight right just before the bell. When Canzoneri looked to be bossing the inside exchanges throughout the tenth and eleventh and giving Chocolate precious little room to get his own longer, more textbook punches off, the large Italian element within the frenzied New York crowd must surely have been feeling supremely confident that their man was on course to retain his title without too much bother.

As it was, Chocolate dipped in to his reserves in the twelfth, getting back up on his toes and out speeding the stalking Canzoneri, and two lovely counter lefts in the thirteenth had the champion missing so wildly with the right that he almost turned himself full-circle. Canzoneri threw everything at his foe in the fourteenth, but once more Chocolate's theatrical but effective defence, which saw him effortlessly dodging a rapid-fire series of hooks from the champion which hit nothing but thin air, coupled with some accurate and sharp left hands, seemed to have him standing in good stead as the final three minutes approached.  

The last round was frantic - Canzoneri relentlessly stalked, as he knew he had to, and Chocolate had no intention of running, instead meeting the champion head on, catching him with sharp rights as he rushed in. However, the best work of the final stanza came from Canzoneri, who showed all the tricks of the trade - some legal, some not so - on the inside before finishing with a classy left hand. And then came the decision, after an anxious wait; Charles Mathison scored the fight to Chocolate, referee Lewis had it for Canzoneri and, as it turned out, so too did the final judge Joe Agnello. The verdict was controversial enough to incite riotous scenes of disapproval in some quarters of the Garden, but was of little importance to Canzoneri. He'd retained his title - everything else was irrelevant.

Why it's here: Despite being a terrific division historically, even by its own high standards the Lightweight class really did undergo a wondrous and golden era in the thirties, with the likes of Canzoneri, Chocolate, Lou Ambers, Henry Armstrong, Wes Ramey, Barney Ross etc all meeting each other with regularity. As such, it'd be a shame if such a golden era wasn't referenced in an article like this. The fight showcased a real clash of styles, the kind which often combine to make for a thrilling bout, as well as serving as an almost microcosm of Chocolate's career, which was littered with controversial or contentious defeats in big fights against his rivals. How great he is, on record, is debatable - but a fight like this goes to show just how easily he could have elevated himself in to that bracket without any debate at all.



# 9 - Hector Camacho W PTS 12 Edwin Rosario, WBC title, 1986

The skinny: If you were Puerto Rican and had even the slightest bit of interest in boxing in the eighties, then you were excited about this fight. Two of the country's finest ever fighters, the baby-faced and flashy Hector Camacho and the stern, mechanical Edwin Rosario, would go head to head for Camacho's WBC Lightweight title in New York at Madison Square Garden, where both men enjoyed tremendous support.

The betting odds said that Camacho, who had won his second world title (he was also previously the WBC's champion at 130 lb) from the man who had snapped Rosario's unbeaten professional streak in 1984 (Mexico's Jose Luis Ramirez), would hold on to his crown, but he himself was under no illusions about the threat which Rosario carried; he'd abandoned his playboy, clown prince lifestyle (which the bleak, single-minded Rosario despised and which had caused much of the genuine dislike between the pair) in order to train in solitude for this fight, concentrating on building up his bulk in order to hold off the hard-hitting challenger. Nobody had beaten Camacho yet, and he didn't want the man ending that run to be such a bitter rival.

For three rounds, Camacho, blessed with truly astonishing hand and foot speed, seemed to have everything under control; Rosario ambled after him, but Camacho, a year older than Rosario at 24 (though you'd never know it, his boyish looks being a stark contrast to the moushtached, prematurely grizzled face of his opponent) controlled the action with a series of range-finding jabs, sharp little body shots and the ocassional flurry of flashy jabs thrown in rapid succession, much to the delight of the crowd. Rosario finally seemed to loosen up a little in the fourth, however, as he closed the gap that little bit quicker and, surprisingly, found himself countering Camacho, rather than being the man picked off when he opened up.

The fifth was huge for both men - though in very different ways. Camacho started off with a classy, rapid-fire flurry, mixing up shots between head and body with dazzling velocity, but then Rosario backed him to the ropes and, for the first time, managed to keep him there for more than a split second.

And then, it came. The punch which so, so nearly turned the fight on its head, and which took Camacho to a dark place he'd never been before. It was a compact, withering left hook by Rosario, landing perfectly on the wide-open Camacho's chin. The champion seemed to freeze for a split second upon feeling it, before his legs wobbled dramatically underneath him as he tottered back to the ropes, his eyes wide with apprehension. Suddenly, an exhibition of his quicksilver skills had become a grim fight for survival - Rosario clobbered him repeatedly, which sent him stumbling across the ring, and an attempt at popping out his jab proved ineffective, leaving him open for another hard right hand. Positioned on the ropes, the champion held, spoiled, back-peddled, anything he could to try and avoid the finishing shot, and it was almost miraculous that he made it to the bell, albeit he only did so after being badly wobbed again by another left hook.

Oddly, despite Camacho appearing to still be a little rubbery and groggy early in the round, Rosario didn't push for the finish with any great conviction in the sixth, allowing Camacho to eventually come to himself and end the stanza with a nice counter right and a couple of swift lefts to the body (albeit with a warning for hitting low by the referee Arthur Mercante).

There was little between them in the seventh; Camacho's confidence seemed to be returning as he fired off a lovely one-two which snapped the challenger's head back, and he even dared to enter in to some breath-taking body exchanges with Rosario, arguably getting the better of them, but Rosario then showed his hand with a pair of classy right hooks, before dominating the eighth round in which he consistently backed Camacho to the corners and ropes, assaulting the ribs and getting through with an eye-catching right uppercut.

In a sudden twist, it was Rosario who was hurt and rocked in the ninth - Camacho reeled off one of his trademark, ultra-fast flurries (three successive rights to the body, with a final left to the head) and then pushed the challenger back to the ropes with a one-two. Rosario used his brute strength to push the advancing Camacho off him, but the champion had a good tenth, too, taking advantage of a lack of activity on Rosario's part by picking him off with his slick southpaw jab and the odd left hand counter here and there, and it was starting to look as if he'd got through the worst of it.

He hadn't. Looking tired in the eleventh, Camacho found himself unable to hold Rosario off, being jarred by a right and then, with his back to the ropes, having to hold desperately as another left hook rocked him to his boots. Rosario, knowing that a knockout was probably the requirement for victory, simply shoved him off, and came close to that knockout when he once more had Camacho on jelly legs with a left, but the champion somehow held on. And so it all came down to the twelfth and final round. It was almost inevitable that Camacho would take a beating in it, the only question was whether or not Rosario could make it a bad enough one to force the stoppage in his favour.

He gave it an all-out effort, but Camacho, using every trick in the book, remained upright and just about able to defend himself for the full three minutes, despite taking some more heavy shots both high and low. As the final bell sounded, there were some who felt that Rosario's late rally had won it for him in any case, even without a knockout. As it turned out, it hadn't. Camacho was awarded a split decision victory, but the fight would end up having far greater ramifications - it was just that nobody knew it yet.

Why it's here: Well, it was a top class fight, first off, and a grudge match, too. But ask any fan of Hector Camacho what fight in his career was a key turning point, and they'll inevitably come to this one. There were two Camacho's; the exciting, all-action boxer-puncher who was involved in easy-on-the-eye fights before Rosario, and there was the one after Rosario, the version which took less chances, spent his fights almost entirely off the back foot and who constantly seemed to be fighting within himself. With the world at his feet, many felt that Camacho was primed to soon become boxing's pound for pound number one in 1986.

But alas, he was hurt and hurt badly for the first time in this fight, and spent the rest of his career making it his business to never be hurt like that again, often at the expense of excitement. While Camacho's show of bravery in this fight is commedable, and Rosario would come again (a knockout victory over Livingstone Bramble later in 1986 giving him his second Lightweight title after Camacho vacated), it was almost as if this fight finished one of boxing's brightest stars, or at least finished him as the crowd-pleasing star we'd all preferred to have seen.



# 8 - Ernesto Espana W TKO 9 Johnny Lira, WBA title, 1979

The skinny: While boxing fans may have mourned when the legendary Roberto Duran, by then the undisputed king at 135 lb, absconded the Lightweight division in 1979, you can be sure that professional Lightweights the world over rejoiced. One such man would have been Venezuela's Ernesto Espana who, as one of the leading contenders for Duran's title, fell neatly in to a shot at the Panamanian's now vacated WBA belt, which he won by knocking out Claude Noel in thirteen rounds in Puerto Rico in June 1979. Just seven weeks later, however, he had another task to undertake - proving that he was no flash in the pan, and that he wasn't to be remembered as a man who won a world title purely by luck.

Johnny Lira, nicknamed 'World Class Pug', was the assignment, and what's more, it was to take place in front of Lira's adoring home town fans, in Chicago. Lira had earned his shot, and surprised many, by handing a first professional defeat to the 25-0 and fearsome punching Andy Ganigan, and despite Espana himself boasting 23 knockouts in his 26-1 ledger, he fancied his chances of pulling another upset, particular with home advantage on his side.

Espana, very tall for a Lightweight at 5'11" and with a body shape akin to a daddy long legs (long, thin arms and legs matched, oddly enough, with a squat upper body and a deep chest), edged the first round, his jab keeping the on-rushing Lira at bay, but it was Lira's jab which won the day in the second, before the pair of them opened up in the final minute, cutting loose with heavy hooks, many of which landed. It was Lira's right against Espana's left, and it made for an intriguing battle.

Espana seemed to have forgotten his reach and boxing skills in the third, as he went after Lira with nothing other than power shots as his jab was totally abandoned. For his trouble, he repeatedly found himself beaten to the punch, and also walked on to a lovely counter right hand as he lumbered after the challenger on the ropes. Lira, a bundle of energy with no concept of economy of movement, also took advantage of the disappearance of Espana's jab to get in close and work the body, which he did with his usual brand of all-out aggression and gusto.

The fight reached new levels in the fourth. Espana started out using his rangy jab and looked to soften Lira up with short uppercuts whenever the challenger got in close, and Lira soon found himself stuck on the ropes with his gloves cupped around his head in defence as the long-limed, lithe champion unloaded a flurry of hooks to both head and body.

However, Lira was made of the tough stuff, and showed no sign of wilting, instead emerging from that exchange wearing an almost sadistic smile on his face, egging his opponent to just try and knock him out again. Continuing at the same, frenetic pace, the pair of them exchanged whipping body hooks, before Lira was forced to stand up to yet another hard left hook - and once more, he did so without so much as flinching. There was still enough time left for another eye-catching shot apiece - a left for Espana, and a right for Lira - before they exchanged a respect tap at the bell.

Lira was growing in confidence, to the point where he felt comfortable enough to wade towards his opponents with his hands down in the fifth, playing to the crowd. But he had some skill to go with the bravado, cleverly rolling underneath two wild Espana hooks before countering with a sharp left hook upstairs. Unexpectedly (and only temporarily), the pace slowed in the sixth, but normal business was resumed in the seventh, as both men felt that the time was right to really press for a finish.

Two hard left hooks by the champion, thrown as he literally leaped in to an exchange, had Lira holding on for the first time in the fight - but then Lira turned the round upside down, catching the champion with a booming right hand, bang on the point of the chin. Espana, wide open and looking to throw his own shots, never saw it coming, and slumped heavily to the canvas upon taking it. Perhaps too eager to convince everyone that he wasn't badly hurt, he sprung up instantly, and almost paid a heavy price, being forced to take another pair of clubbing right hands which had his legs in spasm as both men slugged it out until the bell.

However, the accumulated punishment he'd taken had left Lira's left eye worse for wear, and as it began to close up and bleed heavily in the eighth, the champion, who recovered exceptionally well between rounds, upped his game. He struggled to get hold of Lira for the opening two minutes of the round, but he then stunned his opponent with a hard right cross. Lira, forgetting himself momentarily, rushed the champion and found himself on the end of two more heavy shots which sent him towards the ropes and, once he was there, a brilliant left uppercut topped off with a hard left in close had him down, and in serious trouble. He was on his feet by four, but there is a legitimate argument that only the bell saved him, sounding as it did immediately as the referee waved him back in to action.

With the fight close, Espana knew that he had to target Lira's damaged eye, and he was relentless in the ninth, pouring more misery on Lira with a string of devastating uppercuts. The challenger, to his credit, remained upright and tried as best he could to fend off the taller man with his jab, but he was simply too tired, and had taken too many of those long, stiff shots, to sustain it. He survived the round, but the way he gingerly slumped back to his stool told the story. With his legs heavy and, more importantly, his left eye reduced to little more than a bloody slit, the fight was inevitably called between rounds, and Lira, despite his fine effort, hadn't quite managed to cap off his fairytale title shot with a victory in front of his own fans.

Why it's here: To many boxing buffs the name of Ernesto Espana is known mostly as being the man who Hilmer Kenty beat to start a boxing dynasty, giving legendary trainer Emmanuel Steward and his Kronk Gym their first ever world champion (Kenty dethroned Espana in his very next title defence after this). It's a shame, as the Venezuelan was an exciting, of rather odd, fighter to watch, with this fight being a prime example. As for Lira, the fight still represented that 'Rocky' kind of moment for him, even though he was defeated. After this, he faded away in to relative obscurity, highlighting the way in which fighters, written off as no-hopers beforehand, just seem to have that knack of finding an extra ten per cent or so when they have home advantage, one of boxing's (and sport's in general, I guess) little vagaries.



# 7 - Lou Ambers W PTS 15 Henry Armstrong, World title, 1939

The skinny: Henry Armstrong, in August 1939, was seemingly untouchable. Twelve months before, he'd outscored Lou Ambers to win the world Lightweight title, becoming the first (and still only) man to hold three bonafide, legitimate world titles at the same time. Incredibly, in the twelve months since that victory, he'd already managed to fit in seven successful defences of his Welterweight crown (the other one he'd held, and had now vacated, had been the Featherweight championship), but Ambers had himself continued winning in the meantime, prompting Armstrong to turn his attentions back to the 135 lb weight class for a rematch.

Armstrong had come perilously close to losing their first fight in 1938, more due to his style of fighting and a stern referee in Billy Cavanaugh who deducted four rounds from the triple champion and awarded them to Ambers for repeated fouls (as per NYSAC rules, a title could not change hands on a foul, probably the main reason why Cavanaugh chose to make so many deductions, rather than give an unsatisfactory disqualification). The referee for their rematch, Arthur Donovan, had officiated for the Fritzie Zivic-Charley Burley fight just weeks before, letting Zivic (commonly cited as the dirtiest fighter of his era and, quite often, as one of the dirtiest of all time) get away with a whole manner of rough 'n' ready tricks - so from the outset, Armstrong could breathe a little easier, surely?

As it was, he must have felt a feeling of dé ja vu in the second, when Donovan docked him the round for a right hand, delivered with full might, which landed below Amber's waist line. The rest of the round, like the third, was an intriguing match up, Armstrong pressing in to Amber's body and throwing a torrent of hooks with both hands, Ambers looking to pick of opportunities to counter, particularly with his left, even managing to do so off the ropes, normally the last place any Armstrong opponent would wish to be.

Ambers looked weary of Armstrong's power in the fourth, being forced to back off when the champion caught him with a pulverising right hook over the top, but once more Donovan was back on Armstrong's case in the fifth, deducting another round from his total, this time for a straying left. To his credit, Ambers (buoyed by the large Italian-American contingent within the New York crowd) was warming to the fight himself, hurting Armstrong with three cracking left hooks as the round wore on before finishing with a sharp right uppercut on the bell.

Despite Armstrong's breath-taking attack, it was Ambers who took the sixth, working beautifully off some clever counters with both hands as Armstrong chased after him, and his accuracy and movement brought a respect tap at the end of the round from the champion. Armstrong was having a good seventh until, once more, he was penalised for going low by Donovan, and it was anyone's guess who was now ahead in the eyes of the officials.

A pattern seemed to be emerging; Armstrong, setting his usual, frenetic pace and hurting Ambers multiple times with his right hand, had a good eighth, before losing the ninth on, yes, another low blow. There was little between them in the tenth, although some fine left hooks inside by Ambers were arguably the pick of the round, before an unbelievable fifth deduction in the eleventh for Armstrong, in what had been an otherwise great round for him, positioning Ambers to the ropes almost all the way through and making him hold on desperately on two separate occasions with withering right hooks to the jaw. He pleaded with Donovan, but to no avail - despite his efforts, his crown was in danger of slipping away.

Perhaps feeding off Armstrong's frustration, Ambers also upped his game in the twelfth, rolling with and defending well against the champion's swinging hooks and catching him coming in with tidy right uppercuts, some of which rocked Armstrong's head back, much to the delight of crowd. Armstrong, pushing his head in to his opponent's chest and face at every opportunity, came back well in the thirteenth however, two hard right hooks stunning Ambers and forcing the Italian-American to retreat. Armstrong continued to throw a dazzling array of punches on the inside, and was still jogging back to his corner between rounds whereas Ambers seemed to lumber, but going in to the final round, there was still no doubting the fight, and title, was in the balance.

The final round belonged to Armstrong, with a long, looping left hook of his hurting Ambers as he tried to find some space for himself, backing off from an inside exchange, and at the final bell most observers felt that, even with the deductions, 'Homicide Hank' had done enough to retain his title. However, it was his Welterweight crown that he'd have to concentrate on from now on, as Donovan scored 8-7 in Ambers' favour, solidified by the judges, who gave another 8-7 tally as well as an absolutely disgraceful 11-3 to make Ambers the winner via a controversial (for many reasons) unanimous decision.

Why it's here: Despite his outstanding record and achievements, Ambers is often a forgotten man in the golden era for the Lightweights, the thirties, his name regularly slipping behind the likes of Tony Canzoneri (who he joined as one of only two men to have regained the Lightweight title with this victory), Barney Ross and, of course, Armstrong. And yet, that does him a disservice, and the controversy of this result shouldn't blank out the fact that, between 1936 and 1941 when Armstrong was, by a distance, the hottest fighter of the planet, Ambers was the only man to defeat him.

As for Armstrong, he would go on to rack up another twelve successful defences of the Welterweight crown after this fight, as well as being unluckily held to a draw in a Middleweight title tilt in 1940 (his aggressive, rough style of fighting again costing him), but you'd have to wonder what other incredible weight jumping the indefatigable marvel would have done had he kept his Lightweight title a little longer. To this day, many maintain that he was robbed of it, but the fight does offer us a big talking point; did Donovan simply enforce the rules, or did he really stitch Armstrong up? There will never be any consensus on the issue, I suppose, but if you haven't already had a look yourself to make up your own mind, then I'd recommend you do.



# 6 - Jim Watt W TKO 4 Charlie Nash, WBC title, 1980

The skinny: Jim Watt hadn't wanted to, or expected to, fight Charlie Nash in defence of his WBC Lightweight title initially. A younger, wet behind the ears Watt had gone down on points to his fellow Scot, Ken Buchanan, in a British Lightweight title fight in 1973 - when Watt collected the vacant WBC title six years later on an emotional night in his home city of Glasgow, it was assumed that, eventually, his and Buchanan's paths would cross again as Buchanan aimed to become a world champion once more.

However, in late 1979, Northern Ireland's Charlie Nash tore that script up, controversially outscoring Buchanan in Denmark in a WBC final eliminator. So controversial was the verdict that even Harry Mullan, an avid supporter of Nash, condemned it, but for Nash, the decision offered him the chance to settle an old score. Genuine animosity existed between the Derry man and Watt, with Nash having accused Watt of vacating his old British title through pure fear rather than face him, and it was thought that trouble would brew in Glasgow's Kelvin Hall if / when Watt's supporters, loud and passionate enough to intimidate anyone, collided with those who were in support of the Northern Irishman.

When the first bell rang, the two men produced an opener worthy of such an electric atmosphere. The wiry-built but immensely strong Watt probed with his jab, while his fellow southpaw Nash concentrated on hard, single shots, landing the first of the fight, a solid right hand which forced Watt to the ropes momentarily. Watt, fighting with added emotion, went to open up uncharacteristically early, but as they exchanged Nash turned his shots over that little bit quicker, walking the champion on to a hard, jolting left hook and following it up with a right cross bang on the chin, which sent the champion to the deck. He rose almost instantly, and with a snarl on his battle-worn face slugged it out with his tormentor until the bell, with just about every shot thrown by either man done so with a knockout in mind.

Nash flurried like a crazed man in the second, buoyed by his opening round success, and briefly drove Watt to the ropes with a right, but as he charged in to take advantage he found himself calmly walked on to a big left hand as Watt, quick as a flash, reversed the situation. Watt's money punch, the right hook, was coming to the fore with increasingly frequency throughout the round and, even though he found his head jarred backwards by a sharp left uppercut from the challenger, another corking right hand in the closing stages showed that the Glasgow man had put his first round disappointment well and truly behind him.

Proving that he was a boxer as well as a hard man, the champion slowed the pace in the third, producing some neat and very much text book defence and counter jabs, until the final minute when the fight became a war of attrition once more. Nash, an ungainly and rough-housing fighter, had some success with his pressure, but the clean work, in particular four chilling left hands, all came from Watt, who was visibly growing in confidence. But still, Nash had no intentions of backing away, and came out as aggressively for the fourth as he had done for the first three rounds.

Early in the fourth, it seemed a good tactic - a huge left hand from Nash sent the champion reeling, and the Northern Irishman literally ran after him, landing two more bruising right hands. But Watt was sucking it all up, and was in his element in such a brutal contest. The Glaswegian dug out a massive left hook of his own, rocking Nash's head to the delight of his home town crowd - the impact seemed to make Nash freeze on the spot for a split second, before his knees went from under him, sending him to the canvas and dragging Watt with him. Upon resumption, Watt soon had Nash trapped on the ropes. Watt was clinical; he peppered his opponent with range-finding rights before suddenly, and brilliantly, switching it up, firing off the left hand, hard and straight. The punch detonated perfectly on Nash's jaw, and sent him crumpled to the floor for a second time in the round.

Wearily, Nash pulled himself up and assured referee Sid Nathan that he could continue, but he had little left. Armed with no concept of spoiling or holding, he gamely threw whatever he could at his opponent, but the champion was now walking through his shots with impunity, once more driving him to the ropes and unleashing another monster right hand, putting Nash down for a third time. Nash was brave again, hoisting himself up before Nathan reached 'ten', but he was a beaten man, the referee wisely waving the fight off, thus ending one of the great world title tussles seen in a British ring.

Why it's here: Well, one hell of a fight, first off, albeit a short one! These quick and high-octane slug fests can, in their own way, provide just as good value for money as a drawn-out, fifteen round affair, as we all know. Moreover, this fight served to settle a grudge and, in the eyes of those who felt that Nash had unfairly jumped the queue ahead of Buchanan, put right a wrong. And once more, as Espana-Lira showed, this fight demonstrated that a division can lose a long-serving, outstanding champion and recover quickly, as well as produce excellent fights. Roberto who? Nope, never heard of him!



# 5 - Juan Manuel Marquez W TKO 9 Juan Diaz, WBA, WBO and lineal titles, 2009

The skinny: Despite giving sixteen years of professional service to boxing by 2009, and titles as both a Featherweight and Super-Featherweight, by 2009 Juan Manuel Marquez had still not received the widespread acclaim he deserved from boxing fans the world over in many people's eyes. Part of that may well have been down to a pair of fights against his great rival, Manny Pacquiao. They'd fought two thrillers, with many feeling that Marquez, whose rounded, counter-punching style saw him stand out amongst most other all-action Mexican greats, deserved the decision both times.

As it was, all he had to show for his efforts was a draw in their first encounter in 2004, and a split decision defeat in their 2008 rematch, which cost Marquez his WBC 130 lb belt. It could have been so different, but instead it was now Pacquiao who'd slipped in to the (temporarily) retired Floyd Mayweather's pound for pound throne, and who had become one of the biggest names in any sport world-wide. Meanwhile, Marquez was making compromises, travelling to the backyard of his opponent, Juan Diaz, for this title fight - Houston, Texas.

Diaz, looking to reclaim his crown as the top dog at 135 lb in the midst of his conqueror Nate Campbell's departure of the division, showed his hand early. Marquez's patient, neat boxing seemed to be controlling the opening stanza, but as the round drew to a close Diaz drove home a long, straight left hand, which made the knees of Marquez dip as he stuttered towards the ropes. Though it was Marquez who had the final say in an excellent opener, a solid right hand, Diaz was visibly delighted with his opening three minutes of work, squaring up to his opponent at the bell, and doing his best to extract as much noise as possible from his home crowd as he gestured to them in mock victory.

He made an even better fist of it in the second, a round which passed at an electric pace, once more moving Marquez to the same ropes where he experienced his woes in the opener by scoring repeatedly with a hard, short left hook on the inside. Marquez looked to slow the pace in the third, starting to double his rangy left to both head and body as was his custom, but still the relentless pressure of his opponent was causing problems, albeit it also led to him falling in to some booming right hand counters as he lunged in towards Marquez on the ropes.

Marquez looked to be slipping through the gears in the fourth and fifth, shoring up his defence and scoring with fast, accurate counters as Diaz's pace dropped ever so slightly, but Diaz, his opponent's junior by a decade, was back in business in the sixth as yet another stern left hook had Marquez reeling backwards on shaky legs. He continued to toil in the seventh, but Marquez, a notorious for his exceptional powers of recuperation when hurt, seemed to stumble upon a new focus and conviction in that round, throwing his left in a beautiful three-shot flurry (body, head and then back to the body, all landing) and using his nimble footwork to make Diaz repeatedly fall just short whenever he opened up.

The eighth round was a stunning one, as Diaz ran straight at Marquez, only to be met with a torrent of damaging uppercuts. Once more, Diaz called upon his trusty left hook to stagger the Mexican veteran as he had done many times previously in the fight, but a bad cut over his right eye was the least of his troubles Marquez came right back at him. Left uppercut by Marquez. Big left hook by Diaz. Another booming uppercut from Marquez, this time with the right - it was all happening, and at one hell of a pace, too. When he was rocked to his boots by another hard left hand, it looked as if Diaz's challenge could be about to end, but he recovered well, gamely fought out out the rest of the round on equal terms.

It was, however, merely a stay of execution. Marquez, smelling blood, opened with a sharp right-left-right combination, all of the punches picked supremely, and it was starting to become clear that he'd cracked Diaz's code. Bravely, the younger man responded with a wilful left hook, but as he tried to press Marquez to the ropes he left himself open for a perfect counter right hand, thrown with evil intent by Marquez, and thrown accurately, too.

Not surprisingly, it forced Diaz to the deck, and though he rose admirably, there was to be no stopping Marquez now. As soon as he was waved back in to action, he reeled off a pair of strength-sapping body punches, rounded off with a stunning right uppercut to the jaw, and down went Diaz again. This time, no count was needed, referee Rafael Ramos signalling the end of a fantastic fight, and handing Marquez an epic victory, made even sweeter after his previous year's disappointment at the hands of Pacquiao.

Why it's here: It's that classic old boxing tale, isn't it? Young, hungry lion takes on old, battle-worn lion and comes so, so close - but in the end, experience tells and the old warrior ends up handing his young foe a valuable lesson. But a truly brilliant fight - so good, in fact, that it was voted Ring Magazine's 'Fight of the Year' for 2009 - and also of great importance to Marquez's career, which has since become firmly established as one of the very best in boxing over the past decade or so. Because despite featuring in many pound for pound lists and picking up straps in a couple of weight classes, it wasn't until this moment that the Mexican could finally claim to be THE true and unquestionable champion in any weight division.



# 4 - Roberto Duran W KO 11 Esteban De Jesus, WBA and lineal titles, 1974

The skinny: Esteban De Jesus of Puerto Rico had made his own little piece of boxing history when, in November 1972, he inflicted the first ever professional defeat on Panama's Roberto Duran, fresh from taking the WBA and lineal Lightweight titles from Scotland's Ken Buchanan five months before. It was a non-title fight, but nevertheless, that points defeat had left Duran seething; he cherished his unbeaten record and, on top of that, he held a deep-seated, irrational dislike for Puerto Ricans, something which could be traced all the way back to his childhood. While a rematch with Buchanan had been mooted, Duran could think only of De Jesus, and revenge.

When the pair met again in searing heat in Panama City, this time with Duran's titles very much on the line, Duran's eagerness not just to merely beat De Jesus, but to annihilate him, seemed to be working against him initially - he ran straight in at his opponent in the opening round, walking on to some brilliant counter lefts and, mid-round, that very same punch connected well enough to put the champion down. Rather than serving as a warning to Duran, the setback only seemed to enrage him even more and, once again, De Jesus took advantage, putting the seal on a fine, dominant round with a booming right hand at the death, which came close to putting the Panamanian down for another count.

Perhaps, it seemed, De Jesus just had Duran's number, and it appeared that way for much of the second when, after they both jolted each other with rights, the Puerto Rican reacted quicker to follow up with the left before settling back in to his pure boxing, repeatedly catching the champion with his jab and keeping the distance at a range which suited him, rather than his opponent.

In a stunning third round, Duran finally made an inroad, wobbling De Jesus with a beautiful left hook, a shot which precipitated two ferocious minutes of breath-taking inside fighting. The challenger, perhaps surprisingly, seemed to edge those minutes, but he was hurt by another left when they resumed at mid-range, before having the final say in a topsy-turvy round with a nice right hand. Duran's pressure and body hooking took the fourth, but he endured a torrid fifth, again being countered by De Jesus' left and, more worryingly, sustaining a cut over his right eye. He'd convinced himself that De Jesus had just caught him on an unfocussed off-night two years previously, but the danger of the same man besting him once more was looming - and with the eyes of the boxing world watching and his title on the line, what excuse could he have if the same happened here?

But Duran, whose heavy hitting had already earned him the nickname 'Hands of Stone' ('Manos de Piedra' in his native tongue), rose to the challenge in the sixth, bringing his own left hand, also handy for a sharp counter, in to play, and he was really in his element in the seventh, using his sublime head movement, deceptively quick feet and sheer brute force to navigate the challenger's jab, get inside and punish the body before putting the seal on a great round by dropping De Jesus with a perfect right to the temple. As Duran had done earlier, De Jesus beat the count, but he too seemed to have lost his cool now - instead of looking to clear his head, he stood and traded with Duran until the end of the round. He survived it, yes - but he was starting to fight on Duran's terms. Not advisable.

The Puerto Rican started the eighth well, catching Duran coming in with some classy right hands, but he got over-confident, following the puncher (one of the cardinal sins of boxing) to the ropes and paying for it by shipping some heavy duty right hands which would have felled a lesser fighter. Back in the centre of the ring, Duran was really finding that range, buzzing De Jesus with two good lefts, and when the champion dominated the ninth by switching his left hook on the inside between head and body, the writing looked as if it may have been on the wall.

Instead, De Jesus showed what a worthy foe he was, delving in to his deepest reserves and having his best round in a while in the tenth, getting back up on his toes, out jabbing Duran and also scoring with a beautifully-timed counter right uppercut. However, that effort, combined with the heat and the punishment which Duran had dished out, seemed to take everything out of him, and he looked a lesser fighter in the eleventh before a punch had even been thrown. When the first telling punch did come, a big Duran right, it was apparent that the end was nigh.

As De Jesus reeled, Duran hooked twice to the body with the left, visibly sucking whatever wind De Jesus had left out of him, before emphatically putting the challenger to the floor with a devastating right to the head. Despite appearing to be conscious and aware of his surroundings, De Jesus just seemed too demoralized to continue more than anything, seeming almost to deliberately rise just after the count reached 'ten.' Duran had his revenge victory, and a thrilling fight had come to an end.

Why it's here: Most great champions of any weight class have one rival with whom they'll always be linked. For Roberto Duran at Lightweight, that man was Esteban De Jesus. The longer Duran held the title, the more people began to realise that this wasn't merely a Lightweight champion, this was very possibly the greatest Lightweight champion of them all - and it's fights like this which embellished that reputation. There was pressure on Duran here. He was facing the only man to have beaten him, so he had something to prove, and moreover he was facing a man who gave him all sorts of problems. But when the pressure was really on, he came through. As for De Jesus, he fought well enough in defeat to confirm that his initial victory over Panama's greatest fighter was no fluke. He himself would become WBC champion in 1976, and that, along with this outstanding battle, set the pair of them up beautifully for their third and final fight in 1978, rounding off one of the great series in Lightweight history.



# 3 - Jose Luis Ramirez W TKO 4 Edwin Rosario, WBC title, 1984

The skinny: When Edwin Rosario, aged just twenty, outscored Mexico's Jose Luis Ramirez in a close, hard-fought battle for the vacant WBC Lightweight belt in 1983, a new star was born, with Puerto Rico's Rosario soon being dubbed the "new Roberto Duran." Since that fight, Rosario had defended his crown twice against notable opposition, whereas Ramirez had spent the interim eighteen months racking up wins against journeymen. Nevertheless, the fact that Ramirez had been one of the very few men to go the full distance with the hard-hitting Rosario was, to many, a good enough reason for a rematch, and so a second fight between the pair came to pass, in front of Rosario's countrymen in San Juan.

Rosario's fearsome punching power had accounted for his first title challenger, Robert Elizondo, in a single round, and it looked as if the exact same thing was about to unfold in this bout as, with mere seconds on the clock, he threw a fast, straight right, seemingly catching Ramirez off balance (the Mexican had been stepping in to launch an attack of his own) and sending him to the canvas - and also sending the pro-Rosario crowd in to a frenzy. After beating the count, Ramirez showed that typical Mexican heart, intending to do nothing but fight his way out of trouble, but he was forced to spend much of the round fighting off the ropes, Rosario loading up and firing off hard hooks over his southpaw jab.

Rosario, as anyone would expect, appeared full of confidence in the second. He began with a classy one-two, followed by a straight left hand to the chin which left Ramirez wobbling towards the ropes. Rosario, seeing the chance to end things right then and there, stalked him every inch of the way, drubbing his foe to the floor again, this time for a heavier, more serious knockdown, with a series of short hooks to the head. Although Ramirez beat the count once more, you'd be forgiven for thinking he had been broken mentally - he rose sluggishly and slowly, and wore the look of a seemingly doomed man. But, amazingly, his first action upon resuming the fight was to dig in two impressive shots to Rosario's body. Ramirez was staggered yet again by a straight right hand towards the end of the round, but when he sucked it up, bit down on the gum shield and gamely slugged it out for the remainder of the round, the doubts were surely starting to gather in Rosario's head: "What do I have to do to put this man down and keep him down?"

Perhaps beginning to realise that he may need to show some patience to get the job done, Rosario started the third looking to use his jab and probe a little more carefully for openings, although a blazing right hand sent towards Ramirez's mid-section earned him a warning from the referee to keep the gloves up. Eventually, Rosario positioned the Mexican exactly where he wanted him - in the corner - but the whole dynamic of the fight changed within a split second when Ramirez, out of nowhere, came up with a devilish left hook, perfectly landed on to Rosario's exposed chin.

The champion seemed to freeze upon impact, before his unsteady legs tottered towards the opposing ropes. And now, incredibly, it was the Puerto Rican who was having to cover up and fight off instinct, his head unclear and his legs wobbling. Then it was Ramirez's turn to be warned for going low, but it proved only a minor hiccup, as two massive uppercuts again had Rosario in trouble and holding, before the bell which was an annoyance for Ramirez, but a God send for his 21-year-old opponent.

Knowing that he came perilously close to disaster in the previous round, Rosario looked to keep his distance and clear his head in the fourth, but two left hooks to the body followed by a right upstairs by Ramirez forced an unwanted change of plan as Rosario opened up. And when he did, Ramirez pounced, hitting him with another big left which had Rosario in a world of trouble once more. Back in the corner again, he showed he had real heart (if not the survival instincts, which he'd seldom needed before in his career) by trying to brawl his way back out of trouble, but Ramirez was relentless, almost making him double over with an evil left to the ribs and forcing his guard to drop with a right uppercut.

Defenceless, Rosario fell in to his opponent, who blinded him with one more uppercut before ducking underneath him, leaving Rosario to stumble face-first in to the turnbuckle, his back now to his opponent. On the spot, the referee faced a difficult decision to either let Rosario turn and continue fighting, or call the fight off. As it was, the fact that Rosario was so slow to turn (probably having no idea of where he was or what had just happened to him), he made the latter call - and with that, Ramirez had completed a truly staggering comeback, at the same time exploding the aura of invincibility which had hitherto surrounded his opponent.

Why it's here: Every division has it's very own "Hagler-Hearns." For the Lightweights, this was arguably it. A short, brutal and thrilling shootout, with an incredible turn around and upset winner to boot. For Ramirez, this fight was vindication of a long, hard career (around ninety fights, by this stage) in which he'd had to struggle for recognition. That would no longer be a problem, as he fought out the rest of his career mixing it with the absolute cream of the crop such as Hector Camacho, Julio Cesar Chavez and Pernell Whitaker, largely thanks to this stunning victory. It was also a huge turning point in the landscape of eighties boxing; Rosario was being primed to be the next superstar, and was seen as invincible in some quarters, having steamrolled his way through so many other fighters beforehand. That was no longer the case, and once more a timely reminder had been served - anyone can be beaten, no matter how much evidence there is on the contrary.



# 2 - Livingstone Bramble W TKO 14 Ray Mancini, WBA title, 1984

The skinny: Charismatic, popular and with a crowd-pleasing style, Ray Mancini was the money man at Lightweight in 1984. He'd endeared himself to the boxing public with a heroic effort for Alexis Arguello's WBC Lightweight belt in 1981 and now, still aged only 23, was already making his fifth defence of the WBA version, which he won soon after. His opponent in Buffalo, New York, was Virgin Islander Livingstone Bramble, himself a colourful character.

But despite Bramble's freakish reach for a Lightweight (a whopping 74 inches!) and his own impressive 20-1-1 ledger, nobody was really expecting him to join the great Emile Griffith as a world champion from his shores. He was installed as a 4-1 underdog by the Vegas bookies, and many felt that this fight would simply be a small obstacle for Mancini to navigate before landing a mega-money showdown with WBC champion Edwin Rosario, Super-Featherweight king Hector Camacho or the world's premier Light-Welterweight Aaron Pryor, all of whom had been calling Mancini out, with one eye on the potential gate receipts for a fight against the well-supported and always good value Italian-American.

A brilliant first round gave an indication of what lied ahead, as both men got stuck right in to it, Mancini banging in compact left hooks to both head and body while Bramble, the slightly more patient operator, looked to work some magic with his snapping right. They stuck together like glue in the second, with the pace showing no sign of slowing. Mancini, as ever, rallied with his left to the body, as well as catching the challenger with some chopping right hand leads over the top, but in the rare instances in which there was any real room to work with, it was Bramble showing a quick, accurate jab and the right uppercut - the problem was that, too often, he was reacting to what Mancini was doing, rather than getting off first.

A bad cut, caused by a head clash, over the right eye of Mancini threatened to curtail the fight early, but his cut man Paul Percyfield worked wonders, not just only between the second and third rounds, but right throughout the fight.

After Bramble's balance was briefly threatened by a good left hand in the third, the fourth showcased how well their styles meshed. With Mancini the all-out aggressor, Bramble showed how to defend without having to concede ground, utilising his handy counter-punching abilities. Mancini showed that he had some skill to go with his raw pressure in the fifth, scoring frequently with deft jabs of his own as they continued to trade measured, but yet also bruising shots with a high level of technical proficiency; Mancini ended the round with two hard rights upstairs and put the finishing touches to it with a left to the body, Bramble came right back with an impeccable right hand uppercut.

The next three rounds seemed to indicate that, much to the New York crowd's surprise, Bramble was on the verge of causing a shock - no matter what Mancini came up with, Bramble seemed to reply with something that little bit better, and all of this happening still at that intense pace, nothing new for Mancini, but unchartered territory for Bramble. The challenger shored up his defence in the sixth, catching many of Mancini's hooks on the gloves and fore arms, and when Mancini cleverly side-stepped a Mancini right to step around and fire off a lovely left of his own in the seventh, the man from the Virgin Islands responded by staggering the champion with a big left hook as they traded in close. Mancini fought back well, which resulted in what appeared to be a nod of appreciation from Bramble, but in the eighth the challenger was in control once more, pushing Macnini on to the back foot for the first time and ending the round with a gorgeous right-left double of whipping hooks, badly hurting the champion.

Bramble threw precious few shots in the ninth, but those that he did throw were landing with authority, and it was hard to pick between his precise work and the constant pressure of Mancini which was being applied for 180 seconds of every round, but Mancini was successful in forcing Bramble to cover up for much of the tenth, regaining the respect of the challenger with a hard, straight right hand through the guard and jarring him with three more left hand counters before the round was out. Once more, it was the champion's quantity against the challenger's quality in the eleventh, but on that occasion Bramble's clean, effective punching took the spoils, three big left hands - one of them a perfectly-placed counter which caught Mancini trying to fight his way off the ropes - again causing Mancini to stop in his tracks for just a second or two.

Bramble had turned southpaw for the odd moment earlier in the fight, but decided to box the whole of the twelfth as a left-hander. It didn't work, as Mancini stopped the rot, finding a new home for his jab which hadn't been there for the previous rounds in which Bramble had been using his usual orthodox stance, and the champion was able to end the round by driving himself in close and punishing Bramble with a sapping right hand body shot. Bramble reverted to type in the thirteenth, and though Mancini continued to wing in vicious hooks to the body and apply as much pressure as possible, he was visibly the more worn out of the pair, whereas there still seemed to be some spring in Bramble's step as he rocked Mancini with a pair of right uppercuts.

With Mancini's legs appearing unsteady as the round drew to a close, through sheer exhaustion as much as anything else, Bramble saw his opportunity, and in the fourteenth he took it. A fast right-left combination looked to have knocked any remaining wind out of Mancini, but remarkably the brave champion found enough within himself to rock Bramble's head back one more time, his snappy jab making a final appearance. But Mancini had slowed appreciably from the early rounds, and when Bramble rocked him with two hard, rapier-like left hands right through the centre of his guard, it was clear that this was not to be his night.

Following the flailing Mancini to the ropes, Bramble let rip with a dazzling array of uppercuts followed by a monster of a left hook. Incredibly, Mancini was somehow still standing, but he was a beaten man, and the referee Marty Denkin wisely stepped in to end a wonderful fight. The script had been torn up, and there was a new champion in town, but Mancini, as he did against Arguello, had enhanced his reputation, even in defeat.

Why it's here: It wouldn't have mattered if this was a local areas title fight contested in front of one man and his dog. The action which unfolded in the ring was everything you'd want to see in a boxing bout; beautiful yet brutal, exciting yet also hard to watch at times, passionate yet thought out and measured. Unfortunately for Mancini, one of the best value for money fighters of his generation, it ended his hopes of one of those aforementioned showdowns with some of the biggest names in the game (he would later fight Camacho, but only after a four-year retirement when both men had lost a little of their lustre), and a love affair between himself and millions of boxing fans ended abruptly.

But for Bramble, it was a joyous night, a reminder of how the betting odds can, so often, mean so little in a sport where it call comes down to just two men in a ring. After the fight, a tearful Dave Wolf (Mancini's trainer), his voice trembling and breaking up with the emotion of the evening, said of the fight, "The way Ray was hurt so badly earlier, but came back to go ahead before being stopped (he lead on two of the three cards at the time of the stoppage), will make me love him forever." And it was because of fights like this that Mancini was loved by so many boxing fans at his pomp.



# 1 - Diego Corrales W TKO 10 Jose Luis Castillo, WBC, WBO and lineal titles, 2005

The skinny: Ever since losing his unbeaten record to Floyd Mayweather, who mauled him to a tenth round TKO loss suffering five knockdowns along the way, there had been a suspicion that boxing had already seen and taken the best of Diego 'Chico' Corrales. He'd blamed that loss, which happened at Super-Featherweight, on weight making and the psychological burden of an impending jail term, but a string of unconvincing performances since then had left many wondering if he could ever climb back to the heights which had seen him look so impressive as WBO Super-Featherweight kingpin, to the point where he actually entered the ring against Mayweather as the shortest-ever odds challenger to one of his titles. Now wearing the WBO Lightweight belt, he was presented with a chance to unify the division with WBC titlist Jose Luis Castillo, a man who'd fared much better against Mayweather (dropping two decisions, the first of them being highly contentious).

Fighting at close quarters, the two combatants helped the first round whizz by in no time at all, with Corrales landing some nice straight punches but being tagged repeatedly by Castillo's clean hooking to the body, as well as two lefts which he hooked over Corrales' lazy right at the end of the round. The second round was almost a carbon copy, the difference being that this time it was Corrales' cleaner work which impressed, as he rocked the WBC champion's head back with a lovely right uppercut and then jolted him with two hard lefts as the round drew to a close.

There was little between them in a ferocious third, until Castillo found some room - a rare thing indeed in this fight, where both men were looking to work inside at every opportunity - to rock Corrales with a sharp one-two, but showing a desire which matched his pre-fight promises to "go through hell to win if necessary", Corrales found a home for his snappy, rangy left hand in the fourth, despite the constant advances of his Mexican opponent. The WBO belt holder showed he had more than one kind of fighting in the fifth, starting off jabbing at range before ending the round by pinning Castillo on the ropes and hurting him with a solid left hook, but he was in a world of trouble at the end of the sixth; a huge right hand cross from Castillo had him badly hurt and, instead of holding on, he attempted to brawl his way out of a hole, taking a massive left hook which had him out on his feet - only to be saved by the bell.

Incredibly, a similar slice of luck was witnessed in the seventh - only this time, it was Castillo who was glad to hear the bell, having been shaken up by a short, compact left from Corrales, who had recovered mightily well in those valuable sixty seconds between rounds. The Vegas crowd at the Mandalay Bay were in no doubt whatsoever that a classic was unfolding before their very eyes, but the battle was taken to even higher levels in a stunning eighth round. Castillo was hurt by another left, before roaring back on the inside with a huge right hand which had Corrales' knees dipping, as well as sending his mouthpiece flying out. That brought the WBO champion a valuable few seconds amongst the onslaught, but it was Castillo who ended the round stronger, his last punch being a hard, sapping left hook as he leapt in.

Still devastating each other on the inside in the ninth, Castillo appeared to be in the ascendancy now, resting his head in to the taller man's chest and driving him backwards with body shots, albeit they also resulted in him being warned to keep his gloves up by referee Tony Weeks. Against the run of the action, Corrales, from nowhere, found two outstanding right hooks, landing them perfectly on his opponent's chin, but to his dismay Castillo remained on his feet, firing off a solid right cross and short left of his own, before Corrales replied with another hurtful right hand right on the bell.

And yet, not even nine rounds as pulsating as that could prepare anyone for what unfolded in the tenth. Early in the round, Corrales waded his way towards Castillo, dropping his right hand almost imperceptibly, but enough for Castillo to spot the gap and fill it with a crunching left hook. Corrales, once more losing his mouthpiece, was down, and it was a heavy knockdown, taking him until '8' to haul himself up. Having his mouth piece cleaned and put back in gave him vital extra seconds, but it looked as if they'd count for nothing when, upon resumption, Castillo had him under siege again, two more heavy left hands putting the WBO title holder down for a second time. This time, the mouthpiece came out voluntary, and it took even longer to rise - a count of 9, this time. To compound his misery, Weeks also deducted a point for removing his mouth piece as a means of buying time; within sixty seconds, the fight had seemingly been snatched away from Corrales, and he needed nothing less than a knockout.

Returning for a few seconds to his corner to have his mouth piece reinserted once more, his trainer and manager, Joe Goosen, could be seen and heard solemnly instructing Corrales with a line which has passed in to boxing folklore, "You've gotta fu**ing get inside on him, now!"

That's precisely what Corrales did, but once more it was him, rather than his opponent, who was rocked, this time by a snappy one-two which drove him to the ropes, right next to the corner where Goosen had reeled off his now famous line, and where he was probably watching the action unfold with parted fingers - if his fingers weren't reaching for the towel, that is. But then, suddenly, both men threw huge, wild right hands, Castillo in the hope of ending the fight, Corrales in the hope of just doing something, anything, to survive and hold off the inspection of Weeks, who likewise surely had one eye on stepping in. But it was Castillo who came out worse from the simultaneous blows.

Now, somehow, it was Castillo backed on to the ropes, but there was even more ebb and flow in store, as he crunched the on-rushing Corrales with a massive right of his own. Technique was merely a memory as both men fought their hearts out - Castillo landed another right, but he was suddenly looking weary, and a scorching right-left double sent him in to the ropes where, mere seconds before, Corrales himself had been fighting for survival.

Another left from Corrales - Castillo seemed to be shrinking with every shot. Now a right hand. Left uppercut, and then a right caused Castillo's hands to drop to his sides and looked dangerously close to cleanly removing his head from his shoulders - and at that moment, Weeks jumped in. Nine rounds of incredible action, topped off with a tenth that you just couldn't make up the script for, and Corrales had unified the division, achieved one of the most scintillating comebacks in history and, for the time being, had finally given himself some peace of mind.

Why it's here: That tenth round alone was worth the admission fee - that it was preceded by nine brilliant other ones pretty much blows the mind. Style was an afterthought for these two men on this night, but the sheer savagery of the fight alone makes it one of THE must-watch fights for any boxing fan, of any age, any nationality, and preference of style. Jim Grey, interviewing both fighters afterwards for Showtime, commented that it was the best fight he'd ever seen. That's always a subjective call, of course. But I'd challenge anyone to find a better one in which the world 135 lb title was on the line, or to find a more miraculous comeback in such a fight, as well.

The greatest Lightweight title fight of them all? You bet it was.

Had to leave out my usual introduction, chaps, as the article was too long to be posted with it! But you all know the drill - there's the skinny, my reasons for selecting the fight and placing it where I have on the list and, of course, all fights are available in full (or something close to it) on YouTube if anyone who hasn't seen them wants to check them out.

Let me know what you think it anyone's interested. Cheers, lads.

Gutting you insist of full fight footage being available Chris as there is a few minutes of very grainy footage of Gans Nelson kicking about but given it went 40 odd rounds would be stretching your requirements to include it.

Deserving winner though, the ending has never really sat too well with me as still think Corrales cheated to some extent, however still one of the best fights I have ever seen so deserves its place.

As always Chris, excellent work but guess that goes without say by now.

Chacon v Limon or was that fetherweight?

Anyway great selection as always Chris 606v2 some of my fav fights to watch after a workout
606v2 boxing is lucky to have you.

Particularly enjoyed Rosario - Camacho so might put that up a couple of places but youve got it more or less spot on - except for Bramble-mancini which I havent seen in its entirety so will forego any judgement on that. You really should gather these articles into a subsection or something - Top 10 fights or whatever so people don't miss out on them - well worth the watch.  My evening at work will pass much quicker now.

No Mancini vs Frias?!!

Gatti v Robinson and Arguello v Mancini

Brilliant stuff. The Camacho v Rosario fight changed Camacho from an exciting Naz like boxer into a boring safety first fighter who became interesting due to his ring attire.

Add to the list Watt v O'Grady where the Glasgow kiss win Watt the fight. Anywhere else and a dq would have happened.

hazharrison wrote:No Mancini vs Frias?!!

The best one round fight I've ever seen.

azania wrote:

hazharrison wrote:No Mancini vs Frias?!!

The best one round fight I've ever seen.

Not Khan/Prescott?

DAVE667 wrote:

azania wrote:

hazharrison wrote:No Mancini vs Frias?!!

The best one round fight I've ever seen.

Not Khan/Prescott?

Was that a fight?

azania wrote:

DAVE667 wrote:

azania wrote:

hazharrison wrote:No Mancini vs Frias?!!

The best one round fight I've ever seen.

Not Khan/Prescott?

Was that a fight?

More like a mugging.

Bramble vs Mancini was shrouded in nasty controversy...........Bramble kept bringing up Duk Koo Kim all the time and throwing it at Mancini.......He later claimed he did it to get an edge by making Mancini even more aggressive and open.......But it stank at the time and still does.......Though I must admit I had a lot of admiration for the aggressive counterpuncher's style and charisma....He certainly looked good against Williams before Mancini but I still fancied Ray......

Think Mancini was favorite for the rematch.......Even better fight.

Loved Bramble's trunks and robes he used to wear too.........Hugely colorful and classy.

Also his haircut was controversial also especially in the rematch claims he deliberately pushed his spiky braids into Mancini's eyes...trying to cut and blind him........

Remember this fight as part of a hugely entertaining double header featuring Bumphus-Hatcher........Good night of Boxing...........

Would say I'd think Arguello v Mancini would be a better choice for the wbc version........A real life Rocky film starring the great fighter trying to recapture his prime and the heir apparent trying to take his title........

Fight was fought in a great spirit, great respect, great skill by Arguello and great heart by Mancini.......That fight really made him a star more than Frias.......

But I won't quibble and will venture that it's a superb effort again and great thread.......

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Bramble vs Mancini was shrouded in nasty controversy...........Bramble kept bringing up Duk Koo Kim all the time and throwing it at Mancini.......He later claimed he did it to get an edge by making Mancini even more aggressive and open.......But it stank at the time and still does.......Though I must admit I had a lot of admiration for the aggressive counterpuncher's style and charisma....He certainly looked good against Williams before Mancini but I still fancied Ray......

Think Mancini was favorite for the rematch.......Even better fight.

Loved Bramble's trunks and robes he used to wear too.........Hugely colorful and classy.

Also his haircut was controversial also especially in the rematch claims he deliberately pushed his spiky braids into Mancini's eyes...trying to cut and blind him........

Remember this fight as part of a hugely entertaining double header featuring Bumphus-Hatcher........Good night of Boxing...........

Would say I'd think Arguello v Mancini would be a better choice for the wbc version........A real life Rocky film starring the great fighter trying to recapture his prime and the heir apparent trying to take his title........

Fight was fought in a great spirit, great respect, great skill by Arguello and great heart by Mancini.......That fight really made him a star more than Frias.......

But I won't quibble and will venture that it's a superb effort again and great thread.......

Hair not heir.

Must do better.

ONETWOFOREVER wrote:

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Bramble vs Mancini was shrouded in nasty controversy...........Bramble kept bringing up Duk Koo Kim all the time and throwing it at Mancini.......He later claimed he did it to get an edge by making Mancini even more aggressive and open.......But it stank at the time and still does.......Though I must admit I had a lot of admiration for the aggressive counterpuncher's style and charisma....He certainly looked good against Williams before Mancini but I still fancied Ray......

Think Mancini was favorite for the rematch.......Even better fight.

Loved Bramble's trunks and robes he used to wear too.........Hugely colorful and classy.

Also his haircut was controversial also especially in the rematch claims he deliberately pushed his spiky braids into Mancini's eyes...trying to cut and blind him........

Remember this fight as part of a hugely entertaining double header featuring Bumphus-Hatcher........Good night of Boxing...........

Would say I'd think Arguello v Mancini would be a better choice for the wbc version........A real life Rocky film starring the great fighter trying to recapture his prime and the heir apparent trying to take his title........

Fight was fought in a great spirit, great respect, great skill by Arguello and great heart by Mancini.......That fight really made him a star more than Frias.......

But I won't quibble and will venture that it's a superb effort again and great thread.......

Hair not heir.

Must do better.

  

I love both of the Bramble-Mancini fights, Truss. Can see why you'd opt for the second one, but for whatever reason I just enjoy their opener more. Great ebb and flow, high emotions etc. Always wondered who was favourite for the rematch, thanks for clearing that up.

Amazing that Bramble became so highly rated on the back of those wins over Mancini (and Crawley). I believe that he was rated inside the Ring's top five pound for pound in 1986 before Rosario shocked him. In fact I think I've heard that he was even briefly elevated to number three behind Hagler and Curry for a very short while. Good wins, don't get me wrong, and he was a very talented boxer, but you can't help but think that the boxing establishment got a little too carried away with him!

I considered Mancini-Arguello, too. Great fight and a fantastic show of courage from a young, inexperienced and still wet behind the ears Mancini. But Lightweight is a pretty stacked division when it comes to great title fights; that fight was considered, but so too were Tony Lopez-Joey Gamache, Duran-Buchanan, Kenty-Espana etc. Just ran out of spaces for them all, really.

Thanks a lot for all the other comments so far, lads.

Bramble was rated high in the p4p rankings but there were good reasons for it........

Mancini was highly rated and he beat him twice........Crawley had beaten a kid called Steve Romero who was one of the highly rated kids of the future and tipped to succeed by KO and probably the Ring..(Always preferred KO).....He absolutely boxed his ears off and he was never the same....

Bramble-Crawley was regarded as a 50-50 fight.....Bramble was also coming off a layoff and having trouble with Duva........

Crawley was also a smooth, fleet footed cagey boxer (couldn't bang but it didn't seem to matter) and he was the exact opposite of Mancini...........Also Bramble being a counterpuncher It was thought Crawley was all wrong for him !!

So when he stopped Crawley it was wrongly assumed that he could defeat all styles of fighter and that he was complete.......

Also you have to take into consideration..........Hagler, Curry, Camacho apart..........Hearns had just been beaten by Hagler, Leonard, Duran, Pryor were gone, Holmes had lost and Spinks had just got a gift in the return with Larry..........So it wasn't the greatest of times for big-name fighters !!..though it was soon to get better..

Chavez, Mccallum and Nelson were basically just starting their championship reigns or hadn't beaten Crawley, Mancini types..

Not denying that the odd little window can arise where you might get an odd / false kind of ranking, beefster. Just difficult to match Bramble with a spot as high as number three, even with those wins over Mancini / Crawley looking back in retrospect. Went from being a pound for pounder to a journeyman in the space of minutes against Rosario.