One of the things that makes boxing so compelling is that at any moment – BOOM! – one punch can end a fight. For the winner, there’s elation. For the loser, despair. The roar of the crowd is deafening.
I’ve compiled a list of one-punch knockouts that are a treasured part of boxing lore. There are three criteria for inclusion:
1) The fight must have had historical significance.
2) The outcome must have been in doubt at the time the punch landed.
3) One punch ended matters with no more punches thrown afterward.
The most celebrated one-punch knockout in boxing history was a left hook to the jaw delivered by Sugar Ray Robinson on 1 May 1957, in his second fight against Gene Fullmer. Four months earlier, Fullmer had won a unanimous decision over Robinson to claim the middleweight crown. Midway through round five of their rematch, everything was going the champion’s way, until Robinson’s blow.
“It wasn’t a tough fight,” Fullmer later recalled. “I was winning on everybody’s card. I was working on his body a lot and he was hurting. Never seen the punch coming. I still don’t know anything about the punch except I’ve watched it on movies a number of times. I didn’t know anything about being hit. I didn’t know anything about being down. The first thing I knew, I was standing up. Robinson was in the other corner. I thought he was in great condition, doing exercises between rounds. My manager crawled in the ring. I said, ‘What happened?’ He said, ‘They counted 10.’ Up to then, I didn’t know.”
When his boxing days were over, Robinson called the blow “the most perfect punch of my career.”
Rocky Marciano’s one-punch knockout of Jersey Joe Walcott to seize the heavyweight throne on 23 September 1952 runs a close second to Robinson-Fullmer. Walcott was ahead on the judges’ scorecards. Marciano needed a knockout to win. Thirty seconds into round 13, Rocky backed Walcott into the ropes. Both men threw perfectly-leveraged right hands at the same time. Marciano’s landed.
The blow, AJ Liebling observed, “traveled at most 12 inches, straight across his chest to the champion’s jaw. It was about as hard as anybody ever hit anybody. Walcott flowed down like flour out of a chute. He didn’t seem to have a bone in his body.”
After the fight, Walcott said he “didn’t remember anything” about the punch. “I don’t know if it was a right or a left,” he said. “I wasn’t tired; I felt good; I was setting my own pace. Then, bang, it hit me. I still don’t know what hit me. I couldn’t even try to get up.”
Ironically, one year earlier, Walcott had won the championship with a one-punch knockout of his own over Ezzard Charles.
More recently, on 5 November 1994, George Foreman solidified his place in boxing history with a one-punch knockout of Michael Moorer. Moorer was undefeated and had won the heavyweight title by decision over Evander Holyfield earlier that year. Meanwhile, the 45-year-old Foreman’s quixotic comeback had stalled with losses to Holyfield and Tommy Morrison.
“Foreman was losing every round,” Joe Cortez, the referee that night, later recalled. “But he wasn’t taking a beating. Then, in round 10, he threw a left hook. Moorer went to his left and walked into one of Foreman’s right hands, so Foreman did it again and hit him with another straight right. It was a thunderous punch. Moorer went down flat on his back. I tried to get Foreman to a neutral corner but he seemed stunned by what he’d done, like he couldn’t move. I had to push him. It was like neither of us could believe what we were seeing.”
Jim Lampley, HBO’s blow-by-blow commentator that night, later reminisced: “As Moorer was being counted out, I asked myself why I wasn’t the kind of announcer who sits down before a fight and thinks of lines to use in the event of a major occurrence. You know, ‘Do you believe in miracles?’ That sort of thing. Then the count hit 10. It was an extraordinarily powerful moment. And what came out of my mouth was, ‘It happened! It happened!’”
Moorer must have been in pain after that knockout. But pity poor James Corbett, who was on the wrong end of two historically-significant one-punch knockouts in championship fights.
On 17 March 1897, Corbett was defending his title in dominating fashion against Bob Fitzsimmons. Then, in round 14, “Ruby Bob” landed his famed solar-plexus punch.
Writing for the New York Journal, TT Williams described the punishment that Fitzsimmons had absorbed up until that moment: “I saw a face that will haunt me until time has defaced it from my memory. There was a leer and a grin and a look of patient suffering and dogged courage. It was the face of a brave man fighting an uphill fight with lip torn and bleeding, nostrils plugged with coagulated blood, ears swollen, eyes half-closed and blinking in the sunlight, with every line and muscle drawn to an angle of suffering. It was one face from the time that first blood was claimed and allowed till the victory was in his hands.”
Fitzsimmons refused to give Corbett a rematch. Corbett countered with the threat that he would lick Fitzsimmons every time they met on the street.
“Jim,” Fitzsimmons responded, “if you ever hit me, I’ll shoot you.”
Fitzsimmons lost his championship to James Jeffries in 1899. One year later, Corbett challenged Jeffries in a fight that was scheduled for 25 rounds. It ended in the 23rd.
“The finishing blow,” the Durango Democrat reported, “came suddenly and was a startling surprise. Corbett had been making a wonderful battle. His defense was absolutely perfect, and while he was lacking in strength, he had more than held his own and stood an excellent chance of winning the fight had it gone the limit. He had not been badly punished and had managed to mark his man severely. The winning punch was a short left to the jaw. Corbett dropped like weight and was clear out.”
Six decades later, Floyd Patterson etched his name in one-punch-knockout lore.
Patterson had lost the heavyweight title to Ingemar Johansson in 1959 after being knocked down seven times in the third round. On 20 June 1960, he tried to succeed where all others before him had failed and become the first man to reclaim the heavyweight throne. Patterson was hurt in the second round. He dropped Johansson in round three but, given his own fragile chin, the fight was still up for grabs. Then, in round five, he landed a devastating hook flush on Johansson’s jaw.
“It was a frightening sight,” said Arthur Mercante, the third man in the ring that night. “Johansson was unconscious. His foot was twitching and blood was dribbling out of the side of his mouth. I really thought it was the end, and I don’t just mean his losing the fight.”
WBA heavyweight champion John Tate suffered a fate similar to Johansson when he defended his title against Mike Weaver in March 1980. Tate was undefeated. Weaver had nine losses on his ring resume. After 14 rounds, Tate was comfortably ahead on the judges’ scorecards.
“My manager reminded me I was running out of time,” Weaver said. “And it was now or never so you better do it. I recited the 23rd Psalm to myself and asked the Lord to give me the strength to knock him out.”
With one minute left in the 15 round, a left hook deposited Tate face down on the canvas. Weaver gave his opponent a tap as he fell but Tate was already unconscious.
Lennox Lewis and Hasim Rahman traded one-punch knockouts. On 22 April 2001, Rahman journeyed to South Africa and, in round five, interrupted Lewis’s championship reign with one big right hand.
“The punch was a great punch,” Lennox said. “But I never put my left hand in position to block it. My defense wasn’t like it should have been. I wouldn’t say I was cocky or arrogant. I think those are the wrong words. But I may have taken him a bit lightly and didn’t realize he was able to throw a punch like that.”
Seven months later in Las Vegas, Lennox exacted revenge. One punch – a crushing right hand – ended matters in round four. Amidst the tumult, Dr Margaret Goodman of the Nevada State Athletic Commission entered the ring to tend to Rahman. Bleary-eyed, lying on his back, the deposed champion’s first words were: “What happened?”
“You got knocked out,” Goodman told him.
Looking up at the giant video screen above him, Rahman watched a replay of the knockout. “Wow!” he said to no one in particular. “He’s the real champion.”
Never before had such dramatic knockouts with such dramatically opposite results been juxtaposed in championship bouts between the same two men.
On occasion, superstar reigns have ended with unexpected one-punch knockouts. Roy Jones was boxing’s pound-for-pound king and widely regarded as one of the greatest fighters ever. In late 2003 he’d fought through adversity to win a majority decision over Antonio Tarver. That led to a May 2004 rematch. Jones won the first round on each judge’s scorecard and was controlling the action in round two when a straight left landed flush on his jaw and drove him to the canvas. He rose at the count of nine, stumbled into the ropes, and referee Jay Nady halted the bout.
“One shot,” Jones said in his dressing room after the fight. “I know exactly what happened. I threw a right hand and tried to come back with the left. He read it and fired his gun first. My right hand was up and I couldn’t see the punch coming. No excuses. I just got caught.”
Four months later, Jones returned to the ring against Glen Johnson and was knocked unconscious in round nine by an overhand right to the side of his head. Superman was no more.
Manny Pacquiao found himself in a position similar to Jones in a December 2012 encounter with Juan Manuel Marquez. Pacquiao and Marquez had fought to a draw in their first bout. Pacquiao won majority decisions in the two fights that followed. That led to Pacquiao-Marquez IV. Manny was leading on each of the judges’ scorecards in round six and seemed to be in control when Marquez landed a crushing right hand over a sloppy jab. Pacquiao pitched forward and landed face first on the canvas, unconscious.
Later that night, watching a DVD of the fight in his hotel suite, Pacquiao told his companions, “Spoiler alert. I don’t think you’re going to like how this ends.”
Dick Tiger was light-heavyweight champion of the world when Bob Foster ended his reign with a left hook that left the suddenly-former champion flat on his back and unable to rise in round four of their May 1968 encounter.
“So that’s what it feels like to be knocked out,” Tiger said afterward.
Donald Curry was leading Mike McCallum on all three judges’ scorecards in round five of their July 1987 WBA 154lbs title bout when McCallum knocked him senseless with a left hook.
“I just got careless,” Curry said.
Herol Graham was in control of his November 1990 WBC middleweight title bout against Julian Jackson. Both of Jackson’s eyes were closing. In the corner after round three, the ring doctor told Julian, “You have one more round.”
One more round was all Jackson needed. Graham threw a sloppy jab and Jackson landed a highlight-reel counter right. Graham was unconscious before he hit the canvas.
Bernard Hopkins, who usually wore opponents down through attrition, wasn’t known for his one-punch knockout power. But that doesn’t mean he couldn’t deliver when it was needed. On 18 September 2004 “The Executioner” defended his four middleweight championship belts against Oscar De La Hoya. The judges’ scorecards were split through eight rounds. In round nine, a Hopkins hook to the liver made the judges irrelevant.
“I took the life out of his body,” Bernard said. “He wasn’t getting up.”
De La Hoya had a more nuanced explanation. “We’re talking about the whole psychological aspect of where I was in my life at that time,” the Golden Boy said years later. “The fight was competitive. But it was a very unhappy time in my life. He hit me with a good body shot. I went down. I’ve asked myself a thousand times since then, ‘Could I have gotten up?’ And the answer is ‘yes.’ But I wanted everything to be over. Not the fight. Being the Golden Boy, everything. It wasn’t something I consciously thought out when the referee was counting. But those conflicts inside me caused me to stay down. You have to go really deep into the root to understand.”
There was nothing nuanced about Sergio Martinez’s November 2010 knockout of Paul Williams in a WBC middleweight title defense. One minute into the second round, Martinez and Williams (both southpaws) launched left hands. Williams cocked his arm and raised his chin as he punched. Martinez fired a textbook overhand left that landed flush. Williams plummeted face-first to the canvas. The fight was over and everyone in the arena knew it (except Williams, who didn’t know much of anything at that point).
Amir Khan was on the receiving end of a one-punch knockout courtesy of Canelo Alvarez in May 2016. Through five rounds, Khan’s speed gave Canelo problems. The judges were split. In round six, Canelo timed a huge right hand over a sloppy jab and Khan crashed to the canvas, unconscious.
Carl Froch enjoyed one-punch glory in his May 2014 rematch against George Groves. The IBF and WBA 168-pound titles were at stake. Six months earlier, Froch had beaten Groves on what the latter’s fans claimed was a premature stoppage with their man narrowly ahead on the judges’ scorecards. The rematch was contested in front of 80,000 raucous fans at Wembley Stadium. Through seven rounds, the judges were divided. Then Groves, who was backed into a corner, threw a left hook, oblivious to that fact that Froch had launched a straight right of his own. Fight over. There was bedlam in Wembley.
“Right now I wish I was Carl Froch,” said Paulie Malignaggi on the TV commentary.
Boxing fans might question why Pacquiao’s devastating one-punch knockout of Ricky Hatton isn’t mentioned above. The answer is that Pacquiao had knocked Hatton down twice in the previous round and the end seemed inevitable. Ditto for Thomas Hearns’s demolition of Roberto Duran, punctuated by a fight-ending overhand right.
Dillian Whyte was on the receiving end of one-punch knockouts in his first fight against Alexander Povetkin and his challenge to Tyson Fury. But Whyte-Povetkin I lacked historical significance. And the outcome of Fury-Whyte wasn’t in doubt.
Then there are the great power punches that don’t quite end in knockouts. Perhaps the most famous of which came in Deontay Wilder’s first fight with Fury.
In December 2018, Wilder and Fury were battling for the American’s WBC heavyweight crown. The 12th round was a time-capsule stanza. A right-hand-left-hook combination drove Fury to the canvas. Fury lay on his back, barely conscious. Wilder shimmied to a neutral corner. The fight appeared to be over.
“Credit to him,” Fury said afterward. “He caught me flush. But I got a good fighting spirit and I never say die. I ain’t gonna lay down just because I got punched in the face and knocked down. I’m gonna get back up and fight. As long as there’s life left in this body, I’ll continue to fight.”
Fury rose to his feet just before the count of 10, a heroic effort that evoked images of a barely conscious Larry Holmes climbing off the canvas against Earnie Shavers and Renaldo Snipes. Referee Jack Reiss let the fight continue. And Wilder couldn’t finish. A minute later, Fury shook Wilder with a clubbing right hand that had the champion holding on. The judges ruled the bout a draw. It was Fury who went on to thrive: he knocked Wilder out in their next two encounters.
Thomas Hauser’s most recent book – The Universal Sport: Two Years Inside Boxing – was published by the University of Arkansas Press. In 2019, he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
