Classic chess matches.

Leonard vs. Benitez

 

Greetings! I'll leave the comments to those who may (or probably) have more knowledge and depth on this one as myself.
From my recollect, most 'pure boxer' vs. 'pure boxer' bouts do turn into a chess match and often a rather boring one.
A good post though!
With two sluggers, however, it's a whole different story!
Being from Indy, I followed Marvin Johnson's career seeing his first 6-7 fights live at the Armory in downtown Indy.
If anyone hasn't seen it, I would recommend the FIRST Johnson-Matt Franklin fight in Philly (before Marvin put his title on the line against Franklin here in Indy)
For 10 rounds they went at it so aggressively that it was almost impossible to score the fight! Marvin finally 'wilted' towards the end.
Back to thread. I'm trying to think of a classic boxer vs. boxer matchup. I can only come up with fantasy matchups between two great boxers.
I've mentioned this before but one fight that, IMO, would have been the ultimate 'snoozefest' would have been Ernie Terrell and Joe Bugner in their primes. Look at the similarities: Both good chins, both good jabs, both had good stiff right hands, both boring. "Hey Jowcol? Ya want a ringside seat for this one?
Only if you gave me free dogs and free beer throughout!
My apologies, back to thread.
I'll let the more intelligent posters respond instead of my 'ramblings'.

 

Both Leonard vs Hearns fights were chess matches where each fighter had to make adjustments and they were still exciting bouts.

The same goes for the Toney vs McCallum fights, some of the fastest chess I've ever watched.

 

Jose Napoles - Hedgemon Lewis I
Lionel Rose - Fighting Harada
Terry Norris - Donald Curry ( a hard punching chess match)
Lupe Pintor - Albert Davila II
Ronnie Harris - Alan Minter

 

Thats always my pick for best chess match.

 

all the various fights between toney mcallum & kalambay (and kalule kalambay)

 

Barrera-Marquez

 

Kasparov-Topalov
Tal- Larssen
Nakamura - Loyte

 

Whitaker-McGirt I.

 

I watched that fight this morning. It was a lot more aggressive than I remember. Both guys were unloading earlier in the fight. I thought about it as a chess match but it had a lot of action. Too bad McGirt had a bum shoulder. He might have upset the Whitaker apple cart.

 

lol
Morphy - Anderssen
Capablanca - Alekhine
Karpov - Kasparov
Fischer - Spassky

 

Curry - McCallum.

High level skill throughout until The Bodysnatcher makes the final check mate move.

 

McCallum VS Watson - Watson started strong, McCallum broke him down by adjusting and using the uppercut to the body and eventually finished it once the wind was taken out of his sails.

 

Ezzard Charles Harold Johnson