Who took the worst beating in victory?

There's a picture of Billy Conn somewhere on the net (perhaps on the Billy Conn website) where he's reading the newspaper after his fight with middleweight champ FRED APOSTOLI (this was before Conn won the light-heavy championship), and his whole head is wrapped up in bandages, just like a mummy.

Referees in those days used to let the guys bust each other up !
And those guys didn't hold back, especially when it was an Irish guy and an Italian guy going in front of their supporters.
The picture is really worth checking out. I'll try to find it.

 

Quarry-Zanon.

 

A guy that took a frightful beating in the rounds leading up to his sensational title winning, one punch 14th round victory for the undisputed bantamweight title back in 1973, was Arnold Taylor of South Africa, over Romeo Anaya of Mexico. Taylor was battered unmercifully for most of the 13 rounds preceeding the 14th round finish by Anaya. He was deck numerous times, and was even the recipient of a long count in one of the rounds, but persevered to pole axe the Mexican with a right hand in the 14th and last round.