Which fighter put in the gutsiest performance in a losing cause, Not neccesarily should have won, but just hung in there and never gave up.
Minus the steroid use, Richard Hall against Roy Jones. Edwin Rosario against Julio Cesar Chavez Arturo Gatti often in his losses. That cut against Angel Manfredy was pretty grotesque. The one against Joe Hutchinson was probably worse, but it was allowed to go on and Gatti won the decision in Canada.
Vito Antuofermo, I don't know if he deserved the draw or not, but that rally was a thing of beauty to give Hagler a very tough fight.
Judging by the reports of the time, I might be inclined to go with Battling Nelson in his fourty round loss to Ad Wolgast back in Feb of 1910, which save for a few rounds (like the 22nd when he dropped Wolgast with left to the jaw), was a fight that he reportedly took a horrible one-sided beating all throughout. A badly bloodied mouth from the second round on, a busted up nose, a left eye closed completely shut, left cheek area swelled up quite a bit, a cauliflowered ear that opened up, a right eye beginning to close, etc., etc. Nelson's face was said to be quite the mess after everything was all done, and it's also worth noting that Nelson was very, very vocal in his disagreement with the referee's stoppage, as well the reports of him refusing to allow his manager, John Robinson, to throw the sponge in on numerous occasions from around the 34th or 35th round of the fight when Robinson was insistent on stopping it. "I could not bear to see Nelson subjected to an unmerciful beating. I think too much of him. I knew he was game and would fight till he could not stand up, but it was awful to see him being punched around that ring in the condition he was." - said Robinson after the fight As one San Francisco sportswriter, Williams Slattery, stated in his heading for his writeup on the fight; "BATTLING NELSON, GAME TO THE LAST, DIES WITH BOOTS ON"
On the other side of that coin, Marciano fighting on , and winning! against Charles, with a badly cut nose! Talk about Gutsy!
Christy Williams vs Battling Nelson, 26th December 1902. Williams managed to knock Nelson down 9 times, however he went down himself 42 times before finally getting KO'd in the 17th,