The Best Boxing Matches in History

Fourteen rounds in the heat of Quezon City on 1 October 1975, and by the end neither man could see straight. Eddie Futch pulled Frazier out before the fifteenth. Ali's line afterwards was that Frazier quit just before he did, and that he didn't think he could fight anymore. Two men in opposite corners agreeing they had nothing left.

Two judges had it for Taylor, 107-102 and 108-101, and all he had to do was stay upright until the final bell. He didn't. A right hand with twenty-five seconds left put him down, he hauled himself up on the ropes, referee Richard Steele asked twice if he was okay, got nothing back, and waved it off with two seconds to go on 17 March 1990.

Three rounds, and The Ring rates the first of them the greatest round in boxing history. Hearns broke his right hand in it and kept throwing anyway. The forehead cut he put on the middleweight champion in that same round opened up a minute into the third, and the blood came down in sheets. Caesars Palace, 15 April 1985. Hearns beat the count at nine, couldn't continue, and the referee stopped it holding him upright.

Both unbeaten, both with a claim to the heavyweight title, both guaranteed $2.5 million, and it went the full fifteen at Madison Square Garden on 8 March 1971. Early in the last round a left hook dumped Ali on the canvas with his jaw already swollen. He was up at four and stayed up. Unanimous decision to the man who put him there.

Behind on all three cards, 124-122, 125-122 and 125-121, with two rounds to go, and he won it anyway. The welterweight unification of 16 September 1981 turned over twice: Hearns boxing beautifully through the middle rounds, then Leonard pinning him on the ropes in the fourteenth until referee Davey Pearl stepped in. Watch it cold and you still can't call it.

Down in the opening round, behind on every card after twelve, 8-4 and 7-5 with the judges and 7-4 with referee Charley Daggert, and one punch away from nothing. On 23 September 1952 the challenger found the punch, a right hook that knocked the champion out cold in the thirteenth. The Ring made it its fight of the year and nobody needed the reasoning explained.

A light heavyweight moved up, outboxed the heavyweight champion and led on two cards at the Polo Grounds on 18 June 1941. Then he went looking for a knockout instead of a decision. Louis dropped him late in the thirteenth and he didn't beat referee Eddie Joseph's count. Conn's own verdict: he was a wise guy, he had him, and he let him get away.

Two Mexicans at super bantamweight, twelve rounds at the Mandalay Bay on 19 February 2000, and barely a quiet thirty seconds anywhere in it. The referee also called a knockdown on what looked like a slip, which nobody has stopped bringing up since. Split decision, 114-113 and 115-112 one way, 114-113 the other. Go and watch it before you argue about great fights.

Sixty thousand people in Kinshasa on 30 October 1974, watching the challenger lean back on the ropes and invite the hardest puncher alive to punch himself out. Seven rounds of taking it on the arms and body, and by the end Foreman's strength was gone, spent on shots that missed or got deflected. He went down in the eighth and referee Zack Clayton ended it. Ali called the tactic the rope-a-dope.

At 42-1, the challenger was a betting curiosity and nothing more. Then he jabbed the champion's face out of shape at the Tokyo Dome on 11 February 1990, got flattened by an uppercut in the closing seconds of the eighth, beat the count, and knocked Tyson out in the tenth while referee Octavio Meyran counted. Nobody in the building had a script for it.

Ninety thousand at Wembley on 29 April 2017 for a heavyweight fight that kept flipping. A barrage put Klitschko down in the fifth; he got up, took the rest of the round back, and dropped Joshua in the sixth. It stayed ugly until the eleventh, when Joshua floored him again and then pinned him on the ropes until the referee had seen enough.

104,943 people at Soldier Field on 22 September 1927, and the champion had been winning it comfortably until a combination put him on the canvas in the seventh. Dempsey didn't go to a neutral corner, so the count started late and a superimposed clock had Tunney down thirteen seconds. What settles it: he got up, outboxed Dempsey over the last two rounds, and took a unanimous decision.

Billed as the first women's boxing match to headline Madison Square Garden, on 30 April 2022, and it earned the top of the bill inside the ropes rather than on the poster. Undisputed lightweight champion against a seven-division world champion, and a split decision at the end of it. The November 2024 rematch went 95-94 on all three cards. They were back at the Garden in July 2025.

Forty seconds left in the third round on 28 June 1997, a clinch, and the challenger rolled his head over a shoulder and bit a piece off Holyfield's right ear. Later in the round he bit the left one. Referee Mills Lane disqualified him. Total revenue came to $180 million. Impossible to forget, and as an actual contest it barely got going.

Nearly 20,000 people packed a ring built for the occasion in downtown Reno on 4 July 1910. The previously undefeated Jeffries came back to take the title off the first African American world heavyweight champion, and got nowhere near it. Knocked down twice in the fifteenth, his corner threw in the towel to keep a stoppage off the record. Enormous night, one-sided fight.