29 years ago: Sung Kil "Beast of Yeongam aka 돌주먹 (Stone Fist)" Moon vs. Hilario "Bujía" Zapata Pérez

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Short and...well, sweet if you happen to be Korean, not so much if Panameño/a.

By this point a hard-worn 34 with several miles of bad road behind him since the conclusion of his third world title reign - managing to go just 8-3-1 in a stretch of a dozen bouts fought exclusively at home and, Bassa rematch aside, not at that high a level - the southpaw didn't have anyone too strongly convinced he could walk into Seoul and burgle the nation's second-favorite pugilist son of the day of his super fly green belt. Not many expected he would last anywhere near twelve full rounds - but at the same time, it was a surprise just how quickly and emphatically the "Sparkplug" did indeed get sparked.

Despite flashes of the vintage anticipation, reflexes and control of range by the challenger, from the opening bell it felt like only a matter of time before Moon connected with something flat on the button and jumbled his circuits. It came in the form of a left hook the champion timed in a sequence just moments before that first knockdown - from then on it was, despite valiant efforts to continue by Zapata, pretty much game over. Moon didn't go about finishing things prettily; that isn't what he did generally anyway. He just kept pouring in hooks and looping right hands with little separation between them, unrelenting, waiting for one to catch as big a piece of the discombobulated victim as that first hook. The coin toss - and contest - would be won by a looping right, and this would be the last fall of Zapata's career (having made a habit of getting off the canvas since his rookie years in the late seventies, doing so in two early points victories).

Leaving aside the circumstances of size and primes, this just wasn't ever going to be the most auspicious match-up for Zapata on paper, despite a conventionally limited and slower fighter like Moon seeming at first glance to be practically a silver platter feast. When you have in one corner a man who can both give and take a quite tremendous shot, and in the other someone who very much cannot do either, the outcome is fairly well set in stone barring a bit of luck and/or young, fresh legs. Neither in play here.

This would knot Zapata up at 2-2 lifetime versus Koreans, all world championship tilts. Moon would end up having faced two Panamanians, kayoing both.

There was/is a higher quality version of this on YT; which the asiaboxing.info article on this fight links to. It has apparently been made private by the uploader for some reason.