Five Biggest Fights Unbeaten Boxers
The upcoming clash between Terence Crawford an Errol Spence is a battle between the two best welterweights in the world, a fight to crown the undisputed champion in one of boxing’s oldest and most glamorous divisions, a meeting that may very well result in the winner being acclaimed the top boxer on the planet, pound-for-pound.
If those reasons alone aren’t historic enough for you, there’s another one: with a combined record of 57-0, the fight is a rare championship fight between two undefeated fighters. Rare, but not unprecedented. Here, in reverse order, are the five biggest previous battles of unbeatens:
5. Felix Trinidad (35-0, 30 KOs) vs Oscar De La Hoya (31-0, 25 KOs)
September 18, 1999. Las Vegas, Nevada
With typical boxing hyperbole, this clash was dubbed The Fight of the Millennium. Extreme exaggeration notwithstanding, this had all the makings of a genuinely significant rivalry. Not only were both men unbeaten, but they were also rival claimants to the welterweight title. The contest featured a Mexican-American versus a Puerto Rican. And, perhaps just as important, it was a meeting of the sport’s two biggest and most antagonistic promoters, with Bob Arum going up against Don King. The fight sold 1.25 million buys on pay-per-view in the U.S., at the time a non-heavyweight record.
The fight itself, alas, was something of a disappointment: over the first eight rounds, De La Hoya boxed rings around Trinidad, setting the template that Bernard Hopkins would follow two years later. But then he took trainer Gil Glancy’s advice to stay out of trouble too literally and circled Trinidad warily, barely throwing a punch, for the final third of the contest. It still took some dubious judging to find victory for Trinidad, which two of the judges managed to do; the scores were 114-114, 115-114, 115-113 for the Puerto Rican.
4. Floyd Mayweather (49-0, 26 KOs) KO10 Conor McGregor (0-0)
August 26, 2017, Las Vegas, Nevada
It’s still technically a battle of unbeatens if one of the combatants is making his boxing debut. Granted, it was always more of a circus event than a genuinely competitive prizefight, but this boxer vs UFC crossover fight was massive. The press tour, initially lively, soon descended into the profane, but neither man’s fans cared even a little bit, as it was not only what they had come to expect, it was what they wanted. Mayweather reportedly earned $280 million from the event, and McGregor $130 million. The fight did a crazy 4.3 million buys on PPV on Showtime, and it was a huge crossover event. Again, the contest itself, such as it was, was predictably anticlimactic: McGregor won the first couple of rounds because Mayweather let him, and as soon as "Money May” decided to let his fists go, he dominated. It would be Mayweather’s last sanctioned bout, and a window into how he would spend the next six years and counting.
3. Mike Tyson (34-0, 30 KOs) KO 1 Michael Spinks (31-0, 21 KOs)
June 22, 1988, Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Tyson held all three major heavyweight belts and was by some distance the most famous active boxer on the planet, but Spinks was the legitimate, lineal champion, having beaten the man (Larry Holmes) who beat the man (Muhammad Ali). Since winning his first belt just two years earlier, Tyson had walked through Bonecrusher Smith, Pinklon Thomas, Tony Tucker, Tyrell Biggs, Holmes, and Tony Tubbs, but Spinks was widely seen as the biggest test of his career. It would not, however, be much of one: Spinks, his knee bandaged, came out looking every bit as anxious as pretty much every one of Tyson’s previous opponents and by the time 91 seconds had elapsed, he had been down twice and counted out.
2. Larry Holmes (39-0, 29 KOs) vs Gerry Cooney (25-0, 21 KOs)
June 11, 1982, Las Vegas Nevada
It would be nice to say that this fight was so heavily hyped because it featured two undefeated heavyweights, because Holmes was loved and respected for his boxing ability and acumen, and because Cooney had electrified the country with his two-round KO of Ken Norton; but sad to say, that isn’t the principal reason this fight attracted so much attention. That isn’t the reason why Cooney was on the cover of Time Magazine and Sports Illustrated; or why Cooney’s dressing room had a hotline installed so that President Ronald Reagan could call but Holmes’ didn’t; or why champion Holmes walked to the ring first and Cooney second. Cooney was the Great White Hope, and that’s what sold this contest, to America’s shame. Cooney put up a solid effort - and who knows, maybe he would have done better had he had more than two rounds of boxing in the two years before facing the most masterful heavyweight of his generation, but in the end, Holmes cut him down in the 13th round.
1. Joe Frazier (26-0, 23 KOs) W15 Muhammad Ali (31-0, 25 KOs)
March 15, 1971, New York, New York
It has to be, doesn’t it? It was The Fight of the Century, after all, and much more deserving of its epithet than De La Hoya-Trinidad merited being dubbed Fight of the Millennium. This was about so very much more than the two best heavyweights of the generation squaring off; this was a proxy battle for the soul of an America that had been rent asunder by the traumas of Vietnam and the civil rights movement. Frazier sealed victory with a final round knockdown, but wound up in hospital afterward, such was the brutality of this contest; astonishingly, it would not be the most violent of what became an epic trilogy. Far from settling the score between the two men, it only lit the fuse of a hatred that would burn, at least from Frazier’s end, for the rest of their lives; but having entered the fight as something of a pariah to much of white society, Ali would ultimately become a beloved figure.
It is difficult to imagine any fight occupying quite such an outsized presence in society today; given the divisions that contributed to this one becoming so immense, that’s probably no bad thing.
Honorable Mentions (in no particular order):
Floyd Mayweather-Ricky Hatton; Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder I; Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder II; Tommy Fury-Jake Paul (sorry!); Julio Cesar Chavez-Pernell Whitaker; Julio Cesar Chavez-Meldrick Taylor; Riddick Bowe-Evander Holyfield I; George Foreman-Joe Frazier; Floyd Mayweather-Canelo Alvarez; Joe Calzaghe-Jeff Lacy; Floyd Mayweather-Diego Corrales
