Best Performance you ever saw in a boxing ring?

Floyd Mayweather vs Diego Corrales

 

Here’s one that never gets mentioned......Felix Trinidad vs Fernando Vargas ....that was an excellent performance from a “ PUNCHER “

 

From memory they were 10-1 in favour of Ali, but can't give you a source on it.

 

Yeah. Add that to my list. A complete domination with real bite. Loved this version of Floyd.

 

Duran v Palomino
Duran v Moore
Hagler v Sibo
Chaves v Rosario
Frazier v Quarry #1
Off the top of my head that hasn't been listed

 

Came here to say this.

Love that era. And that fight is one that I watch often.

 

Sugar Ray Robinson vs Gene Fullmer, May 1 1957, great left hook in round 5.

 

Many of these picks see a naturally better fighter putting on a good performance against an inferior opponent so, while there are some great shouts in here, often it's a demonstration of their skill against a good showcase.

For me, it's all about the overall performance and I give kudos to fighters who, physically, were underdogs and, on paper, shouldn't have won but this one performance pulled it out of the bag for them.

So I look for perfect strategy and the calm to execute it, guile, use of overall game - defence and attack and just having the absolute perfect game plan and the mental strength and physical preparation to execute it.

Ali v Foreman is the obvious pick by these criteria but as it has already been mentioned, I'll go with Holmes v Mercer and Holyfield v Tyson. Both times the winners used IQ as much as their physical tools - tools which they got the most out of in these performances. There was nothing in their performances you could really fault. I know in both cases, the subsequent careers of both losing fighters take something out of the magnitude of the victories but, before each fight, that hadn't been played out and who knows how things might have panned out for Mercer and Tyson Mark II but for these humblings?

 

from a sack puncher

 

@William Walker get in here: I want your take.

For me, I’ll divide it up with a couple of fights I saw with my own eyes and a couple that I didn’t:

Live (in person):

Mike Tyson vs. Michael Spinks: Tyson was about the most fearsome thing I’ve ever seen in my life for those 91 seconds.

Evander Holyfield vs. Dwight Qawi: Dwight threw the kitchen sink at Evander, who countered with the stove, the fridge, the plates and utensils. I mean Qawi was so good that day … but Evander was just that much better. Best fight I ever saw live.

Not in person:

Tokyo Douglas was three steps ahead of Mike all night. He got up from the uppercut and didn’t miss a beat.

There are a lot of Duran fights mentioned (DeJesus III is a quantum leap where the savage became a skilled and cunning boxer … who was still a savage) but I’ll throw in Palomino. Carlos was still in his physical prime, not shopworn and was a legit championship-level welter and Roberto dismantled him.

And while I haven’t seen it, I think we call can say Billy Fox was masterclass against LaMotta to beat him up and stop him like that.

 

Kalambay vs McCallum I

 

A past prime Julio Cesar Chavez holding a prime, difficult southpaw- and arguably great- fighter in Whitaker to a draw is an underappreciated performance.

 

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Calzaghe v Lacy.
Now fair enough Lacy turned out not to be the monster the pre fight hype was churning out, but the general consensus across the board was that Calzaghe was going to get iced.
What we saw was total domination and the most one sided sustained beating ever seen in a big fight especially by the underdog.
His punch output and ring smarts were off the wall.
Although Lacy probably wasn’t as good as the hype he was never the same.