Perhaps a better punch than the one that took the title from him. I cant think of many punches in heavyweight title fights that conmpare. The left hook landed on Ezzard Charles was the perfect left hook, so short, compact, fast and explosive. And landed out of nowhere. I played in on a loop on my DVD player to fully appreciate it. Watched it about 20 times in 20 seconds. Walcott was awesome that night. I've seen highlights of all the other Walcott-Charles fights, and Jersey Joe was far less aggressive in 1st, the 2nd and 4th fights, but I've got to say Charles was excellent in the 1st fight. But in this 3rd fight, Walcott was aggressive, punching accurately, and in amazing shape, he seemed to have Charles figured in this one. Luckily the film of this fight is crystal clear like a top-quality black & white movie, the picture is so sharp, so you can see so much detail.
That was an absolute peach of a punch. Perhaps no other heavyweight champion in the history of the division lifted the title with a single calculated booby trap punch like that.
....ezzard had trouble with punches to the body, so got very good at defending against them. in this fight, walcott got a good solid body punch through in the previous round, and ezzard was protective after that. walcott was aware of that and came off the ropes and caught ezzard with that perfect hook. when i asked ezzard if that was a lucky punch, he smiled and said "not for me, it wasn't!" i saw that fight on live tv. erzzard was and is my all-timer favorite fighter. i think he recovered from the punch better than i did.
