Best Individual Performance of the 21st Century?

In a title fight, I presume? There are some great contenders, Calzaghe vs Lacy is one of them if we are talking about one-sided obliterations. Crawford against Spence is another. One punch KO-wise, there's Pacquiao vs Marquez IV. If we're talking pure magnitude and size of fight, then it has to be Floyd vs Manny, even though it was a drab affair. Floyd against Marquez and Canelo is up there, too.

 

Kostya Tszyu v Zab Judah.

Tszyu was the underdog against the undefeated knockout artist he went to Judah's home country and ended him in two rounds making him do a rendition of the funky chicken dance.

 

Hopkins vs trinidad or hopkins vs calzaghie
Both masterful

 

Lomachenko Linares is still my favourite fight to watch from recent years. Dunno about best but its my go to.. beautiful high level skill on both sides...

 

Pacquiao Barrera I.

It is stil the only fight this century where a guy moved up in weight and absolutely thrashed an ATG in their prime.

 

I would say that throwing over a 1000 punches and not being able to KO an opponent is a bit of a disappointment, especially in your own weight class.

If you're talking about the most impressive singular performance against an ATG opponent, I would go for Corrie Sanders versus Wlad. When you see what Wlad went on to do, and what Sanders did to him that night, it's hard to beat that.
Yeah it wasn't some comprehension exhibition of skills and his style looked a bit weird sometimes.
But he destroyed Wlad and didn't have a mark on him.
The only other people to destroy Wlad took massive damage in the process and none of them did it as cleanly as Sanders.

Sanders could also destroy Wlad at golf, which adds to the win.

 

"Best performance of the millenium" title should be exclusive to performances over proven elite opponents before and after their fight.

Pac over Barrera is the most likely candidate. Floyd over Corrales and Canelo, B-Hop over Trinidad are good shouts as well.

Rigondeaux UD Donaire is the hipster pick.

 

Some of the best include Usyk-Dubois this year - perfect performance.

There are too many great ones to choose just one: Calzaghe-Lacy, Bivol-Canelo, Lomachenko-Walters, Bivol-Ramirez, Pacquiao-Barrera, etc.

Hopkins started at light heavyweight, and Trinidad started at lightweight.

That was a size mismatch.

And Hopkins clearly LOST to Calzaghe, his faking a low blow and other weak-minded tactics clearly did not amount to a "masterful" performance.

 

but he didn't do much, really. cory beat up a massively overrated super big guy who never really beat the man himself. who did he beat that was actually good that was feared? wlad/fury is one of the weakest mutual support machines ever constructed in our fair sport. their respective "great" wins are based on the most shameless of mutual self interest and it was a disgrace of a heavyweight fight. more punches thrown between tank davis and his gf in the elevator ffs

 

I second this. He was big underdog, basically tune up fight, and kicked his ass! Glad you mentioned it because I would not have remembered it.

 

It wasn't really a great performance.

It started with a deliberate blatant head butt from Sanders, that stunned Klitschko and he never never recovered from it.

And instead of holding, Klitschko tried to fight fire with fire, but in his stunned state, he couldn't cope with the hard-punching southpaw. He hadn't sparred with any southpaws before the fight, thanks to his garbage Universum management.

 

Pac-Barrera was something else, but also Pac-Cotto. Floyd-Corrales, Crawford-Spence... While the quality of the opp wasn't the same, Loma taking the soul of Walters is also one for the ages. Inoue-Donaire 2 wasn't half bad either.

 

Usyk Gassiev was incredible too. To be 200 pounder and maintain that workrate and accuracy over a high level fighter is impressive.

 

Love Dubois 2 as well. Thought an improved Dubois could give an ageing Usyk at least some tough moments, instead Usyk put on a clinic.