40 years ago today: Rafael “Bazooka” Limón Burgos vs. Rolando "Bad Boy of Dadiangas" Navarrete

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Arguably the best Mexican vs. Filipino world title match until Érik Morales vs. Manny Pacquiao an entire generation later (for reference: a person conceived on the night of Limón vs. Navarrete would have already graduated college by the first meeting between "El Terrible" and "Pacman"! ). Honorable mention shoutout to Gerry "Fearless" Peñalosa vs. Jhonny "El Ratón" González, though. Perhaps also the most fun and competitive all-southpaw championship tilt since the birth of yours truly five months later - or at least until Josh Taylor vs. Regis Prograis just a couple of years ago.

Midway into the fourth the play by play commentator, Tim Ryan, inadvertently uttered perhaps the first documented usage of "shook" as standalone description of a passive state in a boxing context. He anticipated its widespread vernacular usage by over twenty years, in any event.

That right hook of the Bad Boy's was such a quietly destructive tool. It didn't snap out with much ferocity, thrown with a casualness that belied his opponents' responses to it. Ultimately, of course, the body shot investment and merciless, lunchpail-and-hardhat work-rate of Bazooka would carry the day. The challenger actually started to knock some bricks loose and let some daylight through in round eight, but credit to Rolando for hanging in there and not relinquishing his prize without a struggle. And what a bevy of bilateral uppercuts to put that struggle to an end!

With all due respect to Stevenson, Gutiérrez, and Ogawa - you won't convince me that either of these guys couldn't hop in a Delorean, cruise four decades into the future, and snatch a belt off anybody in the present super featherweight division. Both the versatility of skill-sets and stamina on display here aren't really to be found at 130lbs today.