Top 20 Fights

[Peter Som]

I'm not going to front, I'm a boxing newbie. I've always had an interest in the sport but not enough to look into it seriously. Well, I started to look into it seriously in the beginning of this year and I've also taken up learning how to box.

So I'm curious to know what are the top 20 fights I must see before I die according to Saddo's crew. I apologize if this is the wrong forum for this thread. Thank you guys ahead of time!

[TitoFan]

It's the perfect forum for this thread.... and welcome to the forum.

I could probably give you more than 20 fights to watch, but I'll keep my list short and off the top of my head. I'll also try to give you a mix of fights, all very exciting IMO. I'm not sure whether you mean recent fights or from any era, so I'll go with the latter. Most are from the 70's-80's forward. This is in no particular order:

1. Ali-Frazier III (one of the classics of all time)
2. Pryor-Arguello I (both were great, but the first was another classic of all time. Unfortunately, the wrong guy won for me.)

3. Leonard-Hearns I (another classic... hard to top for sheer excitement)
4. Ward-Gatti I (what a slugfest! classic!)
5. Duran-Leonard I (both are ATG's and were at their absolute peak.... great stuff!)
6. Leonard-Benitez (I seem to have SRL a lot on here... but he did face some great fighters in his time)

7. Ali-Foreman (one of the greatest upsets of all time)
8. Tyson-Douglas (ditto)
9. Trinidad-Vargas (ok.... I'll stick in a personal favorite )
10. Barrera-Morales III (can't have a good list without one of these fights... the trilogy was awesome)

11. Corrales-Castillo I (the 10th round is probably one of the best in history)
12. Hagler-Hearns (short fights don't get any better than this)
13. Ali-Frazier I (the 3rd one was better... but this one was probably the biggest sporting event in history to that point)

14. Eubank-Benn I (two British fighters at their best putting on a great show)
15. Foreman-Lyle (if you like multiple knockdowns on BOTH sides... this one's your fight)


Well.... 15 is a nice round number, so I'll stop there.
Hope the list is helpful.

[Peter Som]

Thank you for the response and welcome Tito! Any boxing match of any time that's reasonably accessible.

[rjj tszyu]

Ali-frazier 1,2 and 3
Bowe-Holyfield 1
Marco Antonio Barrera- Erik Morales 1,2, and 3
Arturo Gatti vs Micky Ward 1
Diego Corrales vs Castillo 1
Tommy Hearns Vs Marvin Hagler
Ray Leonard Vs Tommy Hearns 1
Ray Leonard Vs Roberto Duran 1
George Foreman vs Ali (everyone in the world must have seen this)
George Foreman Vs Ron Lyle
Ivan Robinson vs Arturo Gatti
Israel Vazquez vs Rafael Marquez 1,2 and 3
Evander Holyfield vs Mike Tyson 1 and 2 just for the controversy
Evander Holyfield vs Dwight Muhammad Qawi 1

There are just too many to be honest. And not every historical fight is a great one but it's good to watch how history was made sometimes anyway. Take Wladimir Klitschko now for instance, it's no secret he isn't the most exciting Heavyweight there has ever been but he is the epitome of professionalism, he's always in shape and he's making history in the heavyweight division right now. He has the capability to become the heavyweight champ with the most title fights. I'm not saying he will but he has the opportunity and the way he's going right now who's going to stop him?

I like to watch Klitschko, not because his fights are blood and guts wars but because he puts on a boxing clinic as far as using height and reach and controlling a fight with the jab. The art of this game is to hit and not be hit and sometimes you have to acknowledge that some great fighters aren't always in the greatest fights. Mayweather is in a similar boat to Klitschko right now for me. He too isn't in any wars, in fact the closest he's ever been are probably his last fight with Cotto and the first fight with Castillo. He is the complete counter puncher and if you were to read a text book on how to box as a counter puncher, Floyd Mayweathers style would be all but there to see. A lot of people sometimes say Mayweather is boring but when you see such a master of the sweet science for me it's a joy to watch almost as much as watching Gatti and Ward all but kill each other.

[DannyGarcia]

Thank you Tito, gonna check these out

[IamInuit]

Two very sound lists provided to you already by two solid hard core guys. A few more to add.

Ike/Tua
Limon/Chacon 4
Mugabi/Hagler
Robinson/Basilio 1 and 2
Like to recommend some Robinson fights at 147 for you but they simply don’t exist.
Clay/Jones
Charnley/Brown
Young/Foreman
Monzon/Benvenuti 1
Foster/Finnegan
Zale/Graziano 2
Lopez/.Lockridge 1
Lopez/Muhammad 2
Gonzalez/Sorjaturong
Robinson/Turpin 2

Gans/Nelson. If you got some time on your hands and are a savvy searcher you should be able to piece this one together. It was 42 rounds of grind.

[Bobthepen]

For pure entertainment and the heart of a lion, watch Carl Thompson fight anybody. The cat is awesome.

[CutMeMick]

Since you've got yourself some nice fights listed and more then enough to keep you busy for a few I'll only had a couple of my favorite that are easy to look up...

Apologies if they are repeated.

John D. Jackson vs. Fernando Castro 1
Salvador Sanchez vs. Wilfredo Gomez
Roberto Duran vs. Esteban de Jesus 2
Juan M. Marquez vs. Manny Pacquiao 3
Miguel Cotto vs. Ricardo Torres

And I'll give you this little short & sweet gem of a fight. Enjoy!

[frankenfrank]

Oliver McCall vs Lennox Lewis #1
Oliver McCall vs Henry Akinwande
Jose Luis Ramirez vs Edwin Rosario #2
Oleg Maskaev vs Hasim Rahman #1
Oleg Maskaev vs Hasim Rahman #2
David Tua vs Oleg Maskaev
David Tua vs Hasim Rahman #1
David Tua vs Hasim Rahman #2
David Tua vs Ike Ibeabuchi
James Toney vs Vassily Jirov


Montell Griffin vs James Toney #1
Montell Griffin vs James Toney #2
Montell Griffin vs Roy Jones Jr #1
Corrie Sanders vs Wladimir Klitscko
Lamon Brewster vs Wladimir Klitschko #1
Mike McCallum vs Michael Watson
Mike McCallum vs Donald Curry
Joe Louis vs "Jersey Joe Walcott" #1
Bert Cooper vs Evander Holyfield
Bert Cooper vs Michael Moorer


These fights below r unpleasant 2 watch , but u got 2 watch them so u won't believe some of d popular shit that caught well with ppl whom hadn't watched these fights :


Doug Jones vs Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay back then)
George Chuvalo vs Muhammad Ali #1
Jose Luis Ramirez vs Pernell Whitaker #1

[Peter Som]

Thank you all once again for these posts, I'm happy to learn about this sport's history beyond Ali and Tyson! Haha.

My weekend is gonna be packed!

[Rantcatrat]

Since you've got yourself some nice fights listed and more then enough to keep you busy for a few I'll only had a couple of my favorite that are easy to look up...

Apologies if they are repeated.

John D. Jackson vs. Fernando Castro 1
Salvador Sanchez vs. Wilfredo Gomez
Roberto Duran vs. Esteban de Jesus 2
Juan M. Marquez vs. Manny Pacquiao 3
Miguel Cotto vs. Ricardo Torres

And I'll give you this little short & sweet gem of a fight. Enjoy!

Holy crap

[Peter Som]

Since you've got yourself some nice fights listed and more then enough to keep you busy for a few I'll only had a couple of my favorite that are easy to look up...

Apologies if they are repeated.

John D. Jackson vs. Fernando Castro 1
Salvador Sanchez vs. Wilfredo Gomez
Roberto Duran vs. Esteban de Jesus 2
Juan M. Marquez vs. Manny Pacquiao 3
Miguel Cotto vs. Ricardo Torres

And I'll give you this little short & sweet gem of a fight. Enjoy!

That's a thing of beauty!

[THE THIRD MAN]

It's the perfect forum for this thread.... and welcome to the forum.

I could probably give you more than 20 fights to watch, but I'll keep my list short and off the top of my head. I'll also try to give you a mix of fights, all very exciting IMO. I'm not sure whether you mean recent fights or from any era, so I'll go with the latter. Most are from the 70's-80's forward. This is in no particular order:

1. Ali-Frazier III (one of the classics of all time)
2. Pryor-Arguello I (both were great, but the first was another classic of all time. Unfortunately, the wrong guy won for me.)

3. Leonard-Hearns I (another classic... hard to top for sheer excitement)
4. Ward-Gatti I (what a slugfest! classic!)
5. Duran-Leonard I (both are ATG's and were at their absolute peak.... great stuff!)
6. Leonard-Benitez (I seem to have SRL a lot on here... but he did face some great fighters in his time)

7. Ali-Foreman (one of the greatest upsets of all time)
8. Tyson-Douglas (ditto)
9. Trinidad-Vargas (ok.... I'll stick in a personal favorite )
10. Barrera-Morales III (can't have a good list without one of these fights... the trilogy was awesome)

11. Corrales-Castillo I (the 10th round is probably one of the best in history)
12. Hagler-Hearns (short fights don't get any better than this)
13. Ali-Frazier I (the 3rd one was better... but this one was probably the biggest sporting event in history to that point)

14. Eubank-Benn I (two British fighters at their best putting on a great show)
15. Foreman-Lyle (if you like multiple knockdowns on BOTH sides... this one's your fight)


Well.... 15 is a nice round number, so I'll stop there.
Hope the list is helpful.

A very good list, i will add 5 more.

Sanchez V Gomez (Just so you know how good Salvador Sanchez really was.)
Mancini V Frias ( Even 1 round of boxing can enthrall and excite to the max)
Frazier V Foreman 1 (Only to highlight what a monster George Foreman was back in 1973, this was Joe Frazier he destroyed, not some club pug!)
Mosley V DLH 1 (It was Sugar Shane Mosley's finest hour)
Fenech V Nelson 1 (they could've fought this in a phone booth)

[ICB]

Michael Ayers vs Wayne Rigby 1
Kevin Kelley vs Alejandro Gonzalez/Troy Dorsey/Naseem Hamed
Matthew Saad Muhammad vs Marvin Johnson 1/2 Yaqui Lopez 2
Wilfredo Gomez vs Lupe Pintor
Jeff Harding vs Dennis Andries 1 2 3
Daniel Zaragoza vs Paul Banke 2
Michael Gomez vs Alex Arthur
Kelvin Seabrooks vs Thierry Jacobs
Charles Williams vs Merqui Sosa 1 2

I'll give you a bit of advice check out Arturo Gatti, Bobby Chacon, Danny Lopez, Ray Mancini, Matthew Saad Muhammad, Micky Ward, check out there best fights there some of the most exciting fighters you will see

[Peter Som]

So I'm almost through all of the fights. Jaw dropping stuff, I've watched so many I don't even know what's real anymore.