2D Boxing game

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Briggs won the linear world title and ended George Foreman's career when he got an extremely questionable points decision over the lardy legend.  As one of the worst linear World champs in history Briggs was not expected to challenge for the title again after he lost his title Lennox Lewis back in the late 1990s.  In fact some cruel observers have suggested that Briggs biggest wins in recent years have been in nightclubs.

The arrival of Briggs as WBO champion is unlikely to take us any nearer to identifying the first undisputed World Heavyweight champ since Lennox Lewis retired in 2003.  We need a tournament between the current champs.  Last night Wladimir Klitschko gave a demonstration of high quality heavyweight boxing as he disposed of Clavin Brock in seven rounds depite being badly cut in the sixth.  Klitschko looks like a world champion Briggs does not.  Of course in boxing looks can be deceptive.  The only way to prove anything is to get these guys in the ring with each other.

Klitschko, Valuev, Maeskev and Briggs now is the time to prove yourselves true champions by signing up for meaningful contests that will give the boxing public a genuine World Heavyweight Champion for the first time in 3 years.  Will it happen, lets hope so.

Shannon Briggs v Sergei Liakovich 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl4a1PNoxgw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwOda_TzZ4Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-9FRR8JjM8

Wladimir Klitschko v Calvin Brock
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anZl1n8AQpI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoXS3yzovCw&mode=related&search=

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The discipline required to be a world class boxer is no longer attractive to young Americans, black or white. Overall prosperity and a variety of less intense but equally lucrative options are available in sports such as baseball, football and basketball. Earning a million bucks a year as a ball player is a lot more attractive than fighting for a living, and a lot less dangerous.

The question now is whether Eastern Europe's stay at the pinnacle is a long term shift. With four champs it looks like they will be around for a while. Of the four champs I can't pick out anyone with the potential to become the undisputed champ yet. Maybe one of them will emerge as the division's dominant force by the end of this. I hope so, my money's on Liakhovich.

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Liakhovich's win follows the 7'3" Nicolai Valuev's capture of the WBA crown from John Ruiz. The Eastern European takeover of the heavyweight division is not finished yet. Ukrainian Wladimir Klitschko fights America's IBF champion Chris Byrd on 22 April and is strongly expected to take the title. WBC title-holder Hasim Rahman has to make a mandatory defence against Kazak fighter Oleg Maskaev at some stage this year. If Klitschko and Maskaev both win we could have the almost unheard of situation where the USA does not even own a share of the World heavyweight title.

A few non Americans such as Lennox Lewis, Ingemar Johansson, Max Schmeling and Bob Fitzsimmons have managed to wrest the undisputed World heavyweight championship away from the USA. Though only Lewis managed to reign for any length of time. This sudden rise of the white Eastern European heavyweight is a major change. Since the heyday of Joe Louis African Americans have dominated heavyweight boxing. Admittedly the Cold War prevented any Eastern Europeans from competing as professional heavyweights. Even the Great Ali was only ever champion of the Western World.

In the same period White Americans virtually withdrew from Heavyweight boxing. With the notable exceptions of Jerry Quarry and Gerry Cooney there has not been a competive white American heavyweight since Rocky Marciano retired in 1956. By the late 1980s White heavyweights were joke figures who rarely got anywhere near the world title. There was a perception that 'White men simply couldn't fight'.

Legendary promoter Bob Arum clarified the point by saying it was White Americans who couldn't fight. Arum pointed out that eastern Europe produced plenty of tough white boxers who could fight. No-one took him too seriously. George Foreman predicted that there would be a Russian World Heavyweight champ by the end of the 20th century, people laughed.

Well it looks like those guys weren't kidding after all. The question is now whether the USA can respond to this new challenge and reclaim its dominance of Heavyweight boxing. The answer may be no. For decades boxing has been declining in the USA. The power base for heavyweight boxing looks as if it may remain behind the old Iron Curtain for the forseeable future.

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Things could have been different if Jim Johnson had been rightly judged to have beaten his namesake. A stroll through boxing history shows that the lineage of the World Heavyweight title would have been very different during the period 1913 to 1925 if Jim Johnson was retrospectively awarded victory over Jack Johnson. Jim would lose his title to the legendary black boxer Sam Langford in March 1914. Langford would reign for just over a month before in May 1914 he lost to the up and coming Harry Wills a man who was studiously avoided by the White Heavyweight champions Willard and Dempsey. Langford would regain the Championship from Wills in November 1914 before losing it to his great rival Joe Jeanette in April 1915, another man who never got a shot at the official World Championship because of his colour.

A year later in May 1916 Sam Langford would become the first man to win the World Heavyweight title three times (62 years before Ali offically achieved this goal) by beating Jeanette. In January 1917 Langford lost the title to Bill Tate. However the indomitable Langford took the title back from Tate in May 1917 becoming the only man to win the World Heavyweight title four times. A month later in June 1917 Sam became the only man to lose the title four times when he lost to Fred Fulton. Fulton would be the first white heavyweight champion since Tommy Burns lost to Jack Johnson in 1908. In December 1917 Fulton lost the title to little known Harry "Texas" Tate. In a January 1918 rematch Fulton avenged his defeat to Tate and regained the Championship.

In a surreal twist Fulton lost to the up and coming Jack Dempsey in July 1918. At this point logic would suggest that the two versions of the World title would merge and Dempsey would become undisputed champ in 1919 when he defeated Jess Willard. This story however has another few twists, in September 1918 Dempsey lost to Willie Meehan, a white journeyman he had frequently struggled with. Meehan's reign as champ was short, Fred Fulton took the crown from him in November 1918. Fulton's third reign as champ was his longest, lasting until July 1920 when Harry Wills beat him to become champion for a second time.

Wills second reign as champ lasted until January 1922 when he lost to Bill Tate. Tate's second spell as champ lasted until June 1922 when was defeated by Jack Thompson. Thompson's reign was similarly brief, George Godfrey took the crown in December 1922. Godfrey's time at the top was even shorter. Jack Renault beat him in March 1923.

Renault hardly had time to declare himself champ before he lost to Ted Jamieson in June 1923. Jamieson managed to stay unbeaten until May 1924 when he lost to future World Middleweight champ Tiger Flowers. Flowers then lost the title to his legendary rival Harry Greb in August 1924.

Greb held the title until Gene Tunney outpointed him in March 1925. Tunney's defeat of Greb meant that when he stepped into the ring with Dempsey in 1926 it was essentially a unification bout between the two rival claimants for the World heavyweight title. Tunney's victory possibly could be construed as proof that his alternative version of the Championship was the more legitimate. Certainly the quality of some of the champions is undeniable: for example Langford, Jeanette, Wills and Dempsey.

I developed this alternative version of the Linear championship based on actual results recorded in BoxRec. Jim Johnson's first defeat after his draw with Jack Johnson was against Sam Langford. Using the principle that a heavyweight champ cannot have a non title fight. I had the title change hands each time the 'title holder' lost. Obviously this produced a few odd names such as Harry 'Texas' Tate and Willie Meehan but overall the genuine big names of the era all appear on the list, partly because the line follows by coincidence the Coloured Heavyweight Championship. What is significant is the appearance of big name white fighters Fulton, Dempsey, Greb and Tunney.

I accept that if Jim Johnson had officially got the decision Jack Johnson would have done his utmost to get a rematch. However Jack Johnson was at the peak of his unpopularity in 1913 and I really can't see Jim Johnson's management risking a chump change re-match with Johnson in Paris when they could return the title to the USA and generate a far more profitable match with a white hope or failing that tour the world fighting the likes of Langford and Jeanette.

The main drive of this piece is to illustrate that Johnson, Willard and Dempsey's title defences barely scratched the surface of the talent operating during the period 1913 to 1925.

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Vitalyi Klitschko has announced his retirement due to a knee injury. Klitschko had been scheduled to defend his title against Hasim Rahman on 12th November 2005. This fight was postponed a few days ago due to Klitschko's injury. Klitschko who has not fought for a year was given 90 days to go ahead with the fight or be stripped of his title. It would appear that Klitschko saw no point in continuing.

The heavyweight division is now wide open Klitschko was considered the best of the current group of heavyweights. His departure hopefully will generate some form of unification tournament to identify the new World Heavyweight Champion, a title which has been vacant since Lennox Lewis retired at the end of 2003. With Klitschko retired I would expect Lamon Brewster the current WBO champ to emerge as the World's number one heavyweight if he fights Chris Byrd, the IBF Champ. I think Brewster and Byrd have the edge over the other title claimants John Ruiz and James Toney. Former champ Rahman, denied an opportunity to dethrone Klitschko is an outside bet as is Klitschko's younger brother Wladimir who recently defeated tough Nigerian contender Samuel Peter.

Brewster though has the inside track having previously defeated Wladimir Klitschko. My current prediction is that Brewster will be recognised as World Champ by Autumn 2006.

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Klitschko gave Lewis a tough fight before losing on cuts and won the WBC title vacated by Lewis by stopping the then WBO champ Corrie Sanders. Since then Klitschko has made one defence against Danny Williams. Is this enough to make him the new World Champ, no! Maybe if he survives his next fight against Hasim Rahman we will know how good Vitalyi is. The weakness on his record is a stoppage defeat to IBF Champ Byrd caused by a shoulder dislocation, despite this Ring magazine rates Klitschko as the World Champion.

Chris Byrd is a classy boxer who despite being small for a modern heavy at 6’1” and just over 200lbs is able to outbox much larger opponents such as the erratic Pole Andrew Golota and a fading Evander Holyfield. Byrd has beaten everyone put in front of him but because he is not contracted to Don King he cannot get fights with the big names.

Lamon Brewster’s stock is growing he emerged on the scene by beating Wladimir Klitschko, Vitalyi’s younger brother with a shock fifth round stoppage. He has subsequently KOd Golota in one round and now needs to face one of the other champions to strengthen his claim to be the number 1 heavyweight in the world.

John Ruiz probably has the weakest claim of the five. He only holds the WBA belt because it was stripped off James Toney for failing a drug test. Ruiz has won and lost this title a couple of times beating names like Holyfield, Kirk Johnson, Rahman and Golota along the way. He has also managed to lose the title to much smaller men like Roy Jones and James Toney. Toney’s failed drug test has given Ruiz a lifeline but he is unlikely to emerge from this pack as the World Heavyweight champion.

Toney has done well at heavyweight for a blown up middleweight but one has to expect that when he meets a genuinely heavy puncher his run will be over. However he did beat Ruiz in the ring and has subsequently outpointed Dominick Guinn another big heavyweight so he is a competitive heavyweight. His stoppage of Evander Holyfield was impressive but Holyfield was well over the hill by that stage.

Hopefully over the next year the real champ will emerge. The media favour Klitschko though I would only agree if he managed to beat both Byrd and Brewster. I don’t really believe Ruiz or Toney have a shot against these three. The question is who will make the first move towards a unification fight.

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Hasim Rahman is one of those boxing stories that just don’t occur that often. In other sports they are as rare as honest politicians or ninety yard field goals. Imagine the scenario average contender gets lucky shot at superstar champ. Superstar champ’s ego gets out of control he disrespects his opponent and doesn’t train hard enough. During the fight he takes it easy smiles a lot, knows that his opponent is no threat. The challenger on the other hand trains hard and comes in seeking a victory. Suddenly mid fight the champ starts mugging for the cameras and leaves his guard down. The determined challenger ignores the script steps in and tags the superstar on the chin. The referee counts and the underdog is champ.

Before meeting Lennox Lewis in April 2001 Rahman was a fringe contender who had been stopped in two of his previous attempts to move into the world class against David Tua and Oleg Maskaev. In May 2000 he got his first big break when he stopped South African contender Corrie Sanders in seven rounds to win something called the WBU Heavyweight title. Lewis gave him a title shot and most experts predicted an easy win for Lewis. The rest of course is history.

Post fight Rahman got a little carried away and started to believe the publicity. The rematch in November 2001 was a different affair Lewis turned up ready to fight and stopped Rahman in four rounds. Post fight Rahman’s reputation yo-yoed back to zero.

Since losing to Lewis his career looked as if it was heading downhill. In June 2002 he lost on an eight round technical decision to Evander Holyfield, followed by a ten round draw with David Tua in March 2003 and a points defeat to John Ruiz for the WBA title. Since then things have improved, Hasim has put together a six fight winning run against average opposition. He is now scheduled for a shot against Vitalyi Klitschko for the WBC title in November 2005.

As Hasim is still active it is difficult to make an assessment of his standing in the heavyweight world. At present it would be safe to say he was one of the poorer champs. Other than Lewis and Sanders he has never beaten any other name opponents.

It is interesting to note that at 6’2” and 235lbs he was physically larger than some of the toughest champs such as Sonny Liston and even the young George Foreman. Proof possibly that size really doesn’t matter when you are talking about heavyweights.

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The spectre of the 6’5” 235lb Lennox Lewis dominated the Heavyweight division from 1993 to 2003. Lennox was the challenger no champ fancied and the Champ everyone feared. The first sign that Lewis’ path to the top would not be straightforward was when Riddick Bowe the man he beat in the Super Heavyweight final at the Seoul Olympics theatrically dropped the WBC belt in a trash can rather than fight Lewis the WBC’s No 1 Contender. This pattern continued throughout the Nineties, the only title Lewis got to fight for was the WBC crown he picked up when Bowe relinquished it and again when Mike Tyson relinquished it rather than fight Lewis. George Foreman despite his isolation from the Don King controlled heavyweight scene never offered Lewis a title shot. Foreman’s conqueror Shannon Briggs to his credit took on Lewis in his first defence of the World Title he won from Foreman. Predictably Lewis lived up to his reputation as a dangerman by blowing Briggs away in five one sided rounds.

Evander Holyfield made no real attempt to fight Lewis until March 1999 when they met for the undisputed title with Holyfield’s WBA/IBF belts on the line against Lewis’ WBC and World Heavyweight title. Holyfield fought well but Lewis looked to have had the edge in a close fought contest. The judges thought otherwise and Evander escaped with a contentious draw. In a rematch in November 1999 Lewis got the decision and finally became undisputed world heavyweight champion.

Why did it take Lennox a big name Olympic Super Heavyweight Champion so long to reach the top? The first problem was that he was not an American. Born in London and brought up in Ontario, Canada Lewis was never a part of the US fight scene. As an Amateur he fought under the Canadian Flag. He sparred with many of his US contemporaries on the way up including Mike Tyson. At the 1988 Olympics Riddick Bowe was the favourite for the Super Heavyweight Title. Bowe and Lewis were the same height and weight but Bowe was a smoother talker and a slightly more polished boxer. In the final Lewis overwhelmed Bowe with his strength and power. At this point Lewis would have been the casual observer’s tip to be World Champ.

Bowe reached the top first because he chose a New York based career where he was close to the mainstream boxing media and the best sparring and trainers. Lewis on the other hand decided to turn pro as a British fighter based in London. This made him a star in Britain but did nothing for his boxing skills. The British press had an ambivalent attitude towards him because they regarded him as a transplanted Canadian who had come to London for an easy ride.

His London Management team failed to work on his weaknesses as a boxer. As an amateur he was powerful and strong but his balance was poor and his punching technique was unorthodox. He had a decent jab but his right hand was wild, he delivered his main power shot like a cricket fast bowler in a huge arc which gave his opponents plenty of time to get out of the way. Bowe’s people meanwhile developed their man into a relatively smooth boxer and it was this extra quality that took Bowe to the title in 1992. Despite his lack of polish Lewis beat everyone he faced and beat Tony Tucker on points to win the vacant WBC title in May 1993. He defended this title twice with stoppages of Frank Bruno and Phil Jackson. Against Bruno particularly he did not convince. The British media felt that Bruno, a homegrown hero, had come close to an upset win.

Lewis’ crudeness was not fully exposed until September 1994 against Oliver McCall. McCall a one time Mike Tyson sparring partner who was now being trained by Emmanuel Steward from the Kronk Gym in Detroit. Steward had noted that Lewis was vulnerable when he threw his big right and trained McCall to counter with a quick left. In the second round with Lewis bearing down on McCall looking for a KO, Steward’s strategy came to fruition. McCall caught Lennox on the chin with a left hook as he was in the process of delivering a big right. Lennox went down like he was shot; beat the count but the ref decided he was not fit to continue. McCall was the WBC champ and Lewis had a lot of thinking to do.

Fortunately defeat did not destroy him, an intelligent man who enjoyed playing chess when he wasn’t boxing, Lewis assessed his career and realised he needed help to make it to the top. He identified Emmanuel Steward as the man best placed to help him. Lewis knew Steward from his amateur days and recognised Steward’s role in preparing McCall. Steward for his part had always been a Lewis fan and with Tommy Hearns nearing the end of his career needed a big name to act as a figurehead for the Kronk Gym. Steward transformed Lewis the boxer, the crudeness disappeared, his punches got shorter but retained their power. His defence improved. However he still didn’t get the big fights. He fought three times in 1995 beating Levi Billups, Justin Fortune and Tommy Morrison. In 1996 he fought only once a fierce brawl with Ray Mercer, which he won narrowly on points. Rather than fight Lewis, Mike Tyson’s people paid Lennox $4 million to step aside in late 1996. This gave Lennox another opening as WBC Champ. In February 1997 he met Oliver McCall for the vacant WBC title. McCall had followed his defeat of Lewis with a points win over legendary former World Champ Larry Holmes and a close points defeat to British favourite Frank Bruno. So both McCall and Lewis were looking to get back into the big time. The difference this time was that Lewis was better prepared and a more skilful boxer than he had been in 1994. The result was a one sided contest that was stopped in the fifth with McCall in tears.

Lewis consolidated his position as one of the top heavyweights over the next two years beating Henry Akinwande in five rounds, Andrew Golota in one round, Shannon Briggs in five and outpointing Zeljko Mavrovic the European Champ. The two fight series with Holyfield was the culmination of his rise to the top. After disposing of Holyfield he made two further easy defences blowing away 6’9” Michael Grant and the South African Francois Botha. He then outpointed the rugged Tysonesque David Tua with a twelve round display of boxing that just didn’t suit Lewis. While he was a competent boxer he looked ungainly dancing around the stubby Tua. In April 2001 in his next defence against the unheralded Hasim Rahman, this attempt at developing a casual boxing style was punished when in the fifth round Lennox retreated with his hands down smiling at Rahman. An amazed Rahman stepped in and landed a big right that left a shocked Lewis on the floor counting his brain cells. Yet again Lewis responded positively to his defeat by signing for a rematch with Rahman seven months later. The result was never in doubt as the real Lennox Lewis squared off against Rahman in November 2001 and crushed Hasim in four rounds. Lewis fought twice more an eight round destruction of Mike Tyson and a surprisingly difficult six round cuts stoppage of the giant Ukrainian Vitali Klitschko in June 2003. The Klitschko fight convinced Lewis that it was time to retire.

Lewis is a member of one of the most unique clubs in boxing, he has retired undefeated as World Heavyweight Champ something only Gene Tunney and Rocky Marciano managed to do. Others have tried but found the lure of the ring too enticing. The precedents are not good: Jeffries lasted five years before taking on Jack Johnson, Joe Louis lasted a year or so before he got in the ring with Ezzard Charles, Ali came back to face Larry Holmes. The only thing Lewis has in his favour is that like Tunney he is an intelligent man who always had more interests than simply boxing.

As a man Lennox was quiet and gentlemanly, not for him the brash boastful behaviour of his American rivals in their public and personal lives. As a result he has avoided most of the disasters that have befallen the likes of Tyson, Bowe, Holyfield and McCall outside the ring. In Britain he remains an enigma respected but not loved, Frank Bruno and Henry Cooper remain the British media’s favourite heavyweights. Plucky losers who were always available to provide good copy post fight. Lewis like Bob Fitzsimmons before him has never been forgiven for not growing up in Britain and learning how to lose heroically.

Where does Lewis rate in the all time heavyweight pantheon, well on his good days he would certainly be in the top ten. He was big enough and good enough to beat any heavyweight who ever lived but he has always been vulnerable. His chin is suspect and a committed and durable opponent like Evander Holyfield could pressure him. The big names like Ali, Holmes, Johnson and Louis would probably have too much for him. How he would have coped with a peak Dempsey is anyone’s guess.

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Shannon Briggs won the title from 48 year old George Foreman in November 1997 with a unanimous points decision. In doing so he became one of the least known and least regarded World Heavyweight Champions ever. Only Marvin Hart has a lower profile than Shannon Briggs. Briggs' World Title win was devalued in the public's eyes by the fact that Foreman had been stripped of the Alphabet Titles (WBC, WBA, IBF) for refusing to kowtow to their demands that he fight their favoured contenders.

The main Alphabet Bodies(WBA & WBC) have been effectively under the control of US Promoter Don King for the best part of the last twenty five years. Their motivation in stripping Foreman of their version of the Heavyweight title was to make space for King's top fighter Mike Tyson, who was released from prison in 1995. Tyson certainly wanted no part of a fight with Foreman, a man who despite his age was lethal against short heavyweights like Tyson. With Foreman sidelined by King's machinations it was therefore no surprise that by mid 1996 Tyson had won both titles.

Foreman meanwhile did himself no favours by refusing to agree to a rematch with the IBF main contender Axel Shultz in Germany following their close fight in April 1995. The end result was that Foreman did not defend the World Title again until November 1996 against Crawford Grimsley. After beating Grimsley and Lou Savarese in April 1997, Foreman viewed Briggs as another easyish payday.

Unfortunately for George, Shannon proved a little to young and quick for him and ground out a points decision. Foreman hasn't fought since. Beating Foreman made Shannon the World Heavyweight Champion but unfortunately the media wasn't interested. Evander Holyfield had completed a remarkable resurgence by beating Mike Tyson and Michael Moorer to become the WBA and IBF Champion and Lennox Lewis had won back the WBC title. Compared to these guys Shannon Briggs was a nobody. He wasn't a top contender before he fought Foreman. His career to that point was based on a stream of KO wins against the heavyweight division's bottom feeders, the journeymen. Before facing George, Shannon had never fought anyone rated as a top 10 contender. No surprise therefore that he didn't receive much acclaim as champion.

To Shannon's credit he chose to make his first title defence in March 1998 against Lennox Lewis the man that Holyfield, Bowe and Tyson had all managed to avoid over the previous six years. A courageous decison which resulted in his reign as World Champ being one of the shortest on record, just over four months. When they entered the ring it looked like an even match up, Briggs at 6'4" and 228lbs was about the same size as Lewis. Unfortunately when the bell rang Lewis' edge in experience, boxing skills and power proved too great for Shannon. Briggs was down three times before the fight was stopped in the fifth. Lewis now the World Champ and the WBC Champ went on to dominate the division for a further five years.

Shannon Briggs has never reached the same heights again. Since losing to Lewis he has fought sixteen times winning 13 losing 2 with one drawn. He has only faced three more 'name' opponents Francois Botha, Jameel McCline and Ray Mercer. He drew with Botha, lost to McCline and in his most recent fight in August 2005 stopped a 44 year old Mercer. He also lost to someone called Sedreck Fields in April 2000, very much a journeyman.

What are we to make of Shannon Briggs a man who was briefly World heavyweight Champion but has never beaten a ranked heavyweight aged under 44. I would have to say that Shannon is the worst heavyweight champion ever, I doubt very much whether he could have even troubled Primo Carnera or Leon Spinks. Despite his shortcomings as a fighter Shannon has had a reasonably successful career in the media as a TV analyst, occasional actor and as a recording artist. He is an articulate, well presented man almost the antithesis of his Brownsville compatriot Mike Tyson. Brownsville must have been some place in the late sixties and early seventies to have bred three World Heavyweight champions: Mike Tyson, Riddick Bowe and Shannon Briggs.

Long term Shannon's name will certainly survive in history as the answer to a number of boxing trivia questions:

- Shortest Reigning Champ
- Man who retired George Foreman
- Third Champ from Brownsville.

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Michael Moorer is one of the those fighters whose career seems to have progressed fairly successfully without ever capturing the public's imagination. Moorer appeared on the boxing scene in the late eighties as an aggressive, hard punching light heavyweight. Moorer was one of a batch of quality fighters developed by Emmanuel Steward at the Kronk Gym in Detroit on the back of Tommy Hearn's fame. The image of Hearns as a ring warrior attracted the toughest kids to the Kronk Gym. Among Moorer's contemporaries were the tragic Gerald McClellan and Dennis Andries the British Light Heavyweight who won the WBC title three times during the late eighties and was renowned for his toughness.

Like his Kronk spar mates Moorer projected an image as hard, no holds barred fighter. As a light heavyweight he progressed quickly winning the lightly regarded WBO title in December 1988 in his twelth pro fight, just nine months after turning professional. His opponent Ramzi Hassan a Jordanian had a reputation for durability and had been a pro for six years the last two spent campaigning at world class. Moorer stopped him in five rounds, his twelth straight KO win. Moorer made nine defences of the WBO title before deciding in December 1990 after beating Danny Stonewalker that he would be more comfortable as a Heavyweight. At 6'2" Moorer was tall for a light heavy and had to work hard to keep his weight below 175 pounds.

In April 1991 he fought Terry Davis at heavyweight, Michael weighed 213lbs and looked in reasonable shape despite being almost forty pounds heavier than he had been in his last outing. Davis was despatched in two rounds. Moorer racked up five more easy wins against journeymen before he challenged for the vacant WBO Heavyweight title against Bert Cooper in 1992, who had recently been stopped by Evander Holyfield in a World Heavyweight title bout. Moorer put Bert away in five rounds and began to campaign actively for a fight with Holyfield. In the meantime Holyfield lost the title to Riddick Bowe and then won it back a year later in November 1993.

Michael carried on bowling over journeymen and veterans and demanding a title shot in the press. It is significant that before he fought Holyfield the toughest heavyweights Michael had fought were Bert Cooper and former Alphabet champ Bonecrusher Smith who was at least six years past his prime.

In April 1994 Michael's prayers were answered when Evander selected him as the first challenger of his second reign as champion. Michael was a big underdog pre fight. The fight itself was a dull affair Evander floored Moorer in the second before drifting out of the fight for periods. Moorer won a close decision and became the World Heavyweight Champion. Post fight medical tests suggesting that Holyfield had suffered a heart problem during the fight and it was Holyfield's name that dominated the media coverage. Moorer the first southpaw to become World Heavyweight Champion was denied the acclaim a new champ expects.

In an attempt to raise their man's profile and earn a massive purse Moorer's people selected George Foreman for his first defence in November 1994. Foreman's comeback had been derailed somewhat by his defeat to Holyfield in 1991. He had continued fighting but had lost his last fight to Tommy Morrison June 1993 for the WBO heavyweight title Moorer had given up to pursue Holyfield. Morrison had won comfortably on points so Moorer's team saw George as an easy win. For nine and a half rounds Michael hit George at will and racked up a huge lead on points.

A single right hand from probably the hardest hitter in boxing history changed everything. Michael collapsed to the canvas and was counted out. Foreman's legend had been enhanced and Moorer's place in history had been secured but not how he had intended.

To his credit Michael reacted fairly well to the loss of his unbeaten record by managing a successful return to the ring six months later in May 1995. He got a shot at the vacant IBF title against Axel Shultz when that organisation stripped their title from Foreman for refusing to agree to a re-match with Shultz in Germany. In June 1996 in Dortmund, Michael won a close split decision against Shultz and became an Alphabet Champ again. Foreman remained the World Champion.

By this point it was clear that though Michael had been a devastating puncher at Light Heavyweight he simply didn't hit hard enough to put the top heavyweights away. As a light heavy he had racked up 22 straight KOs, since moving up to heavyweight his record showed 8 KOs, 7 points wins and a KO defeat. Life as a heavyweight was proving to be hard work.

As IBF champ he successfully defended against Francois Botha in November 1996 winning on a final round stoppage. In March 1997 he outpointed Vaughan Bean, an unbeaten contender. It looked as if the Moorer bandwagon was back on track. He then signed to fight the comebacking Holyfield who had spectacularly revived his career by beating Mike Tyson twice in the previous year.

In November 1997 Moorer entered the ring hoping to stake his claim as the top heavyweight in the world. Foreman was still the World Champ but had been frozen out of the mainstream by promoter Don King. Foreman would lose his title to the lightly regarded Shannon Briggs two weeks after Moorer faced Holyfield.

For Moorer the Holyfield rematch was a disaster. Evander knocked him down five times before the Ringside Doctor intervened in the eighth round and recommended that the fight be stopped. Revenge for Holyfield and a one way ticket to "palookaville" for Moorer.

Moorer retired after the Holyfield fight. Unfortunately he couldn't stay retired and in November 2000 Michael returned to the ring and racked up five wins against journeymen before in August 2002 he took on up and coming contender David Tua, a stocky Tysonesque New Zealander. At a career heaviest 243lbs Michael was in poor shape for this fight. Tua took full advantage and crushed Michael within thirty seconds of the opening bell. A humiliating defeat for a once proud champion.

Undeterred Moorer returned to the ring in 2003 and bowled over three nobodies before losing a points decision in Miami to Eliseo Castillo, a Cuban heavyweight. With his glory days seemingly far behind him Michael signed to fight Vasiliy Jirov, a former IBF Cruiserweight champ, in December 2004. Michael stopped Jirov in nine rounds. He has not fought since and we can only hope that he has retired for good before he gets hurt.

How good was Michael Moorer? Well to be honest he was average, he wasn't a heavy puncher and in a tougher era he probably would never have got a title shot at all. He managed to win the World Title and lose it in his first defence and also hold a couple of Alphabet titles, achievements which rather exceed his abilities.

The sad truth is that the only tough heavy he beat was an unfit Holyfield. He lost the rematch to Holyfield and was KOd by Foreman and Tua. He never came close to meeting any of the other dangermen operating in the nineties such as Lewis, Bowe, Tyson, Tucker, McCall, Tommy Morrison, Seldon or even Frank Bruno. A clear sign that his management were not that confident in their man's abilities.

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Riddick Bowe first came to the attention of the general sporting public during the 1988 Olympics where he reached the super heavyweight final. Bowe’s psuedo Ali behaviour made him a favourite with the sporting press. The fact that the quiet Canadian Lennox Lewis stopped him in the final was subtly ignored by the US Media.

Bowe turned pro to the usual fanfare accorded for US Olympic Champs. He rattled through 18 easy wins before he faced his first name opponent former WBC Champ Pinklon Thomas in September 1990. Thomas was stopped in nine rounds and Bowe’s stock rose considerably.

The next two years saw Bowe emerge as the number one contender for Evander Holyfield’s World title. After beating Thomas, Bowe ran up 12 wins against assorted opposition before signing to meet Holyfield in November 1992. At 6’5” and 235lbs Bowe towered over Holyfield and appeared to have the equipment to blow the smaller man away. In reality it was a close fight fought inside at a high tempo. Bowe won because he was a stronger and more effective in-fighter.

As champion Bowe and his manager Rock Newman made many outlandish statements and generally got carried away with the thrill of winning the richest prize in sport. Newman was very protective of his client and it showed in the title defences Bowe made during his year as champ; washed up ex Alphabet Champ Mike Dokes and has been Jesse Ferguson were nowhere near championship quality. Lennox Lewis after a slow start to his pro career emerged as a top contender in 1993, rather than fight Lewis Bowe theatrically relinquished his WBC belt by throwing it into a trashcan at a press conference. Lewis gratefully accepted this scrap winning the vacant WBC shortly afterwards.

Chasing the money Bowe agreed to fight Holyfield a year after they last met. There was no suggestion that Evander had improved enough to beat Bowe so Riddick and Rock Newman were extremely confident of victory. Unfortunately Holyfield had not read the same script, working furiously in training Evander had developed a strategy of slick movement and fighting in bursts that negated Bowe's advantages in height, weight and in-fighting. Despite an unscheduled interruption by a skydiver Holyfield won a close points decision.

Bowe took defeat badly. He returned to the ring in August 1994 a diminished fighter. His comeback bout ended in disaster as he hit Buster Mathis jnr when he was on the floor. Bowe should have been disqualified; instead the bout was called a No Contest. Undeterred Bowe carried on getting into scrapes in the build up to his next three fights against Larry Donald, Herbie Hide and Jorge Luis Gonzalez. He beat all three and captured Hide’s worthless WBO Title in the process. He then fought Holyfield a third time in November 1995. At this point both men were out of the title picture. George Foreman was the World Champ and Mike Tyson was out of prison and chasing Alphabet Titles. Bowe produced the result of his career by knocking Holyfield out in eight rounds, the first time Holyfield was stopped.

Sadly this impressive result was not the herald of a new dawn for Bowe. Tyson avoided him and he continued to duck Lennox Lewis. Bowe’s next fight was against an up and coming Polish fighter called Andrew Golota in July 1996 at Madison Square Garden. In a brutal match the 6’4” and 240lb Golota pummelled Bowe for six rounds with a combination of legal and foul blows before the Pole was disqualified for persistent fouling in the seventh round. Post fight Bowe was barely coherent a beaten man who couldn’t believe he had won. They met again in December 1996 with Bowe promising to sort the Pole out. This time Golota gave him an even more concentrated beating over eight rounds before inexplicably getting himself disqualified again. Bowe was never the same again Golota had beaten all the confidence out of him and almost certainly caused long-term damage.

After the second Golota fight Bowe retired and began behaving bizarrely. He joined the Marines and lasted only a few days. His marriage collapsed and his feuding with his wife culminated in Bowe kidnapping his children in 1999. As a result he went to jail for 18 months. He made a comeback in 2004 and has managed two wins so far against nobodies. It is anyone’s guess whether Bowe will continue. Hopefully he will stay out of the ring and avoid further injury.

Riddick Bowe is another of boxing’s sad stories a young fellow who had the world at his feet and then blew it. Maybe if he had been a little braver as champion and fought Lennox Lewis he would developed the strength of character to have avoided the decline he suffered in the mid nineties. Bowe could have beaten many of his predecessors on paper but it is questionable whether he would have troubled the likes of Ali, Louis and Dempsey. These men were flinty hard whereas Riddick always had a soft centre. Like his homeboy Mike Tyson when the going got tough their self-belief evaporated.

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Evander Holyfield was the dominant heavyweight boxer of the 1990’s the man who either held the world heavyweight title or was a leading contender for 10 years. The names on his record speak for themselves. During the period 1990 to 2000 in Evander beat:
· Buster Douglas
· George Foreman
· Larry Holmes
· Riddick Bowe
· Ray Mercer
· Mike Tyson
· Michael Moorer
· John Ruiz

The fact that he is the only man to face Foreman, Holmes and Tyson is a great achievement in itself. That he beat all three and also managed a draw with Lennox Lewis makes him a superman. It's hard to believe now that Holyfield was once considered too small to be a good heavyweight. His career in many ways has been overshadowed by the myth that is Mike Tyson, despite all Evander's achievements the general public and some sections of the media labour under the delusion that Mike Tyson was the greatest heavyweight of the last twenty years. Tyson's image as the charismatic monster simply had more impact than Holyfield the Warrior who would fight and beat anyone.

In addition to being one of the greatest Heavyweights of all time Evander was also a lauded Olympian who was denied a gold at Light heavyweight when he KO'd his semi final opponent with a punch delivered after the bell rang to end the round. Holyfield won Bronze but was still recognised as a major talent in an Olympic team that included future stars like Pernell Whitaker, Meldrick Taylor, Mark Breland and Tyrell Biggs. Mike Tyson incidentally failed to make the 1984 Olympic Team losing to Tyrell Biggs in the Super Heavyweight division.

On turning pro as a cruiserweight standing 6'2" and weighing 177lbs, Holyfield chewed up the division, winning the WBA Cruiserweight title in his 12th pro fight against veteran champ Dwight Muhammad Qawi who had previously been a world light heavyweight champ. The Qawi fight was a 15 round war with Holyfield emerging victorious on a split decision. Evander had five further title fights as a cruiserweight ultimately unifying all three Alphabet titles in April 1988 when he KO'd Carlos DeLeon the WBC champ in 8 rounds.

Throughout his charge through the cruiserweights Holyfield had his sights set on a move into the heavyweight division where Mike Tyson had emerged as the new undisputed World champ after he defeated Mike Spinks in June 1988. Tyson's people were not too interested in Holyfield an untried heavy at this point. By 1989 Evander was the top contender for Heavyweight title having crushed notables like Mike Dokes, Pinklon Thomas and Alex Stewart.

As talks with Tyson progressed during 1989-90 the bottom fell out of the super fight when Buster Douglas knocked out Tyson in 1990. Holyfield re-directed his efforts towards a fight with new champ Douglas. In October 1990 Holyfield turned up in magnificent condition to fight Buster Douglas the Giant Killer and instead found himself facing a fat out of shape champ. Douglas collapsed in the third round to the first heavy punch Evander landed in the fight. Holyfield was champion but the spectre of a match with Tyson loomed. The press under-rated Holyfield, in their eyes Tyson's defeat by Douglas was a freak result. The press believed that Iron Mike would blow Evander away.

Mike Tyson's financial demands and his out of control lifestyle prevented the fight from happening in 1991. By the end of that year Tyson was heading for prison in Indiana. In the meantime Evander kept busy defending the title against George Foreman, Bert Cooper and Larry Holmes during 1991 and 1992.

In Tyson’s absence a new star emerged from Brooklyn, the 1988 Olympic Super Heavyweight silver medallist Riddick Bowe, a tall boxer puncher with a talkative style. At 6'5" and 225lbs Bowe had the attributes to be a great heavyweight. He was a decent jabber who fought well on the inside too. His persona was quite articulate somewhat like a poor man's Muhammad Ali. The media loved him. His weakness was that he maybe didn't quite have Ali's substance or fighting heart. Lennox Lewis who had not matched Bowe's rapid progress as a professional crushed Bowe in the 1988 Olympic Super Heavyweight final. Bowe had laughed this defeat off and frequently denigrated Lewis in press conferences. By July 1992 Bowe was a top contender having beaten names like Pinklon Thomas, Tony Tubbs and Pierre Coetzer.

In November 2003 Evander stepped into the ring against Bowe and came out as a former champ. Bowe outfought Evander to win a close majority decision over twelve rounds. A disappointed Holyfield went away trained hard, beat Alex Stewart in a tune up in June 1993 and signed to fight Bowe again in November 1993. Bowe meantime had spent the year defending against has beens Mike Dokes and Jesse Ferguson whilst ducking a fight with Olympic foe Lennox Lewis. To avoid Lewis Bowe relinquished the WBC version of the title.

Evander mauled a complacent Bowe who entered the ring 11lbs heavier than he was in the first fight a year earlier. The fight ended in a majority decision for Evander but in the eyes of most fans he was a clear winner. The fight was punctuated by a surreal moment when a parachutist landed in the ring. The unfortunate exhibitionist took a beating from security and fans at ringside. After a short delay the fight continued.

Evander joined Floyd Patterson and Muhammad Ali as the only men to regain the World Heavyweight title. At the peak of his fame he made his next defence against Michael Moorer in April 1994. In a weird fight Evander performed like a zombie and lost a majority decision to Moorer. Post fight Evander's career was in doubt when medical tests suggested he was suffering from a heart condition.

Holyfield didn't get the all clear to fight again for several months. He returned to the ring in May 1995 and beat Ray Mercer on points. His career entered another trough in November 1995 when he lost again to Riddick Bowe. This time Bowe stopped him in eight rounds. By now both men were out of the championship running. George Foreman had taken the World Title from Michael Moorer and the alphabet bodies had promptly stripped their recognition from George. Lennox Lewis was in the process of winning and losing the WBC crown, and nobodies like Bruce Seldon had emerged from the pack to claim the WBA title.

Holyfield didn't fight again until May 1996 when he beat Bobby Czyz the former light heavyweight champ in five rounds. In the meantime Mike Tyson had emerged from jail in Indiana. Don King had guided Tyson to the WBA and WBC titles with defeats of Bruce Seldon and Frank Bruno. Michael Moorer meanwhile had re-emerged as the IBF champion. Tyson appeared to be back on top of the Heavyweight heap though he had made no real attempt to fight Moorer, Foreman, Lewis or Bowe. The big money and the safest fight seemed to be against the washed up Holyfield. The WBC title was given up rather than face Lewis.

In November 1996 they finally met in the ring in Las Vegas. Tyson was the betting favourite. After the first round it was clear that this was fight of equals. Evander wasn't scared of Tyson and was prepared to fight Mike all the way. By the eleventh round Evander was miles ahead on points and Tyson's stamina and resolve had ebbed away. Tyson sank to the canvas and Evander had finally been redeemed. For eight years he had waited for a fight against Tyson and now it was over and he was the winner. In the rematch in June 1997 Tyson's courage ran out after three rounds and he fouled out by biting Evander on both ears rather than face another beating.

In November 1997 Evander avenged his defeat to Moorer and annexed the IBF title with an eighth round KO. He defended his WBA and IBF alphabet titles against Vaughn Bean in September 1998. In the meantime Lennox Lewis won back the WBC title with a fifth round stoppage of Oliver McCall. George Foreman finally lost the World Title to Shannon Briggs in November 1997. Lewis then captured the World Title with a five round KO defeat of Shannon Briggs in March 1998. Lewis was the only show in town for Holyfield. Bowe had faded away, Tyson was finished and no young contenders had emerged.

Holyfield and Lewis finally met in Madison Square Garden in March 1999. Lewis at 6'5" and 245lbs towered over Holyfield. The fight however was close and Evander emerged with a draw. One judge scored for Lewis, one for Holyfield and one went for a draw. Most observers felt Lewis shaded the fight. They met again in Las Vegas in November 1999 and Lewis emerged as the winner on points. Evander had fought well but Lewis proved too good on the day.

For most fighters this would have been the end of a great career. For the 37 year old Holyfield it was just another setback. The Alphabet brigade obliged Holyfield's quest for more titles by stripping Lewis of the WBA and IBF titles on some technicality or other. Evander gleefully accepted the opportunity to grab another title by beating John Ruiz on points to become WBA champ again in August 2000. In a March 2001 rematch Ruiz beat Holyfield on points to become WBA champ. Losing to a limited brawler like Ruiz should have deterred Evander from carrying on. Instead he fought Ruiz again in December 2001 but could only draw with the Puerto Rican. By now it was clear to fans and the media that Evander was on the slide, he was taking too many punches and just didn't have the speed or power to compete with younger heavyweights.

In June 2002 Evander was back in the ring against Hasim Rahman who had briefly been World Champ in 2001 when he had KO'd Lewis on to lose the rematch seven months later. Evander beat Rahman on a technical decision over eight rounds and secured yet another title fight. This time he was up against Chris Byrd the light punching slick boxing IBF champ. Byrd easily beat Holyfield on points in December 2002. By now the clamour for Holyfield to retire was a crescendo but still he refused to listen.

His career reached a nadir in October 2003 when he was stopped in nine rounds by former middleweight champ James Toney. He looked as if his reflexes and punch resistance had deserted him. Aged 42 he fought one time contender Larry Donald in November 2004 and lost a one sided points decision. Donald and Toney could never have lived with Holyfield five years earlier. Evander despite all the advice intends to continue boxing with a fight against someone called Frank Wood scheduled for October 2005.

Despite earning almost as much money from boxing as Mike Tyson, Evander just can't stop. He is now a tragedy waiting to happen. He will either end up a mumbling punch drunk zombie or a ring fatality. Evander differed from Mike Tyson in that he was a dignified man of substance throughout his career. He now seems unable to accept that the glory days are over. We can only hope that somebody makes him see sense soon.

Holyfield must rank somewhere in the top ten heavyweight champs of all time. His courage and determination would have made him a fearsome opponent for any of his predecessors.

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James Buster Douglas like, it would appear the bulk of modern American, was a junk food addict. After beating Mike Tyson in one of the greatest upsets in Boxing history Douglas spent the following eight months indulging his love of fast food and ice cream. He trundled into the ring against the perfect physique of Evander Holyfield looking more like a sumo wrestler than a boxer. Holyfield made life easy for the out of shape Douglas by flooring him with a sharp right in the third, Douglas sensibly made no effort to get back up. It was Buster’s last outing in Boxing’s upper echelons.

Before he clobbered Iron Mike, Buster was a contender who had never managed to win a big fight. He had all the attributes to be the next Larry Holmes but he had an aversion to training and he seemed to fade when the going got tough. When in shape he was a formidable opponent at 6’4” and 230lbs he had the size and boxing skills to beat anyone. In their May 1987 fight Douglas dominated Tony Tucker the early rounds then ran out of steam and got stopped in the tenth. Douglas beat a few decent fighters during the eighties such as Randall Tex Cobb, Greg Page, Mike Williams, Trevor Berbick and Oliver McCall. No-one gave him a chance of beating Tyson.

Buster only got a shot against Tyson because Iron Mike had cleaned the division up so successfully that Buster and Evander Holyfield were the only big names left who Tyson hadn’t fought. The Holyfield fight had been on the cards for some time but had fallen through several times at the purse negotiations stage.

Buster grabbed the Tyson fight with both hands. He had had a bad year with his mother dying of leukaemia in the build up to the fight. Pre-fight he seemed calmly confident whilst Tyson was erratic and apparently neglecting his training. Rumours abounded that Tyson was so out of shape that his sparring partners were beating him up in training. Tyson however entered the ring in Tokyo as a major favourite.

The fight went Buster’s way from the start. Tyson as many critics had observed didn’t cope well with tall mobile opponents. However Tyson’s mystique was such that most fans watching the fight expected him to produce a fight saving KO punch at some point. In the eighth he almost managed it. Douglas went down and got up slowly. The ref was slow starting the count and Buster regained his feet before the ref reached 10. Buster weathered Tyson’s assaults for the rest of the round. In the ninth he attacked Tyson and soon found he could hit the champ at will with jabs and power shots. Tyson staggered back to his corner on shaky legs at the end of the ninth round. In the tenth Buster battered Tyson to the canvas. The sight of Iron Mike crawling on all fours searching for his gumshield as the referee counted him out was an image that fight fans will never forget. The Iron Man had been humbled by a fatboy underdog who people said had no chance.

Post fight Tyson’s unscrupulous promoter Don King tried to pressure the boxing authorities into stripping Douglas of his newly won title on the grounds that he should have been counted out in the eighth round. After some wavering the Alphabet crew (IBF,WBA,WBC) rejected King’s demands. Douglas was the undisputed World Heavyweight Champion.

As champ Buster enjoyed the publicity and fame for a while. He also indulged his love of food. When he lost to Holyfield eight months later he didn’t seem too bothered, he had made a fortune from his one and only title defence. For the next six years he lived on his winnings and overate so much that at one point he ended up in a diabetic coma. There were fears that he might not pull through. After recovering from the coma experience Buster went back into training and made a ring comeback in June 1996. A run of six wins against assorted journeymen was ended when fringe contender Lou Savarese knocked out Buster in one round in June 1998. Buster had two further fights, both wins before he retired for good in February 1999.

Rating Buster is difficult as on his day he could have beaten many of his predecessors the only problem is that Buster was only that good once in his career. He was not the worst heavyweight champ by any means.

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Mike Tyson is one of the most recognisable sporting figures of the past 25 years. His name is a byword for heavyweight boxing and excitement of the dangerous kind. Not all Tyson's thrills have been in the ring and he has been involved in some simply squalid incidents, which have done nothing to further his reputation as a law abiding citizen or indeed a human being.

Mike came to boxing when he was discovered in a New York state approved school where he ended up after hanging out with the brutal street gangs in his home neighbourhood of Brownsville New York. Mike was lucky he went to jail early before he was a teenager, if he had stayed on the streets he would be dead or a murderer by now.

He was a big heavy kid who was allegedly a proficient mugger before going to jail. Inside he learned basic boxing from a warder with connections to Floyd Patterson's manager Cus d'Amato. At this point in the late seventies d'Amato was virtually retired. However, in Tyson he saw a future heavyweight champ with the potential to be better than Floyd. Cus took Tyson in and began to smooth off his rough edges and make him a more socially acceptable character. Tyson remained close to his mother and sister back in Brownsville though he had only had limited contact with his father Jimmy Kirkpatrick since childhood.

Like so many things related to Mike Tyson even his surname is not what it seems, his father's name was Kirkpatrick and his mother's maiden name was Smith. At some point in her youth she had been married to a man named Tyson but that marriage ended several years before Iron Mike was born. However Lorna Smith retained the surname Tyson and never married Jimmy Kirkpatrick. It is questionable whether Mike would have had quite the same impact if he were announced as 'Iron Mike Smith' or maybe 'Irish Mickey Kirkpatrick'.

D'Amato used his coaching skills to make Tyson one of the top amateur heavyweights in the USA by 1984. He narrowly missed out on a spot in the 1984 Olympic Team losing to Tyrell Biggs in the trials. As Tyson's fame grew D'Amato convinced two leading businessmen Jim Jacobs and Bill Cayton to come on board as managers and financial backers. Jacobs were big boxing fans and Jacobs possessed a massive collection of early fight films. Mixing with Jacobs Tyson became an avid boxing historian with an extensive knowledge of old time champs and their fighting styles.

Mike developed a Patterson-esque style complete with a high peek-a-boo guard and flurries of combinations delivered with lightning hand-speed. He was a proficient bobber and weaver who could slip punches easily. In the first three years of his professional career he rarely took an unnecessary blow. His style perfectly suited his physique, at 5'10 and 210lbs he was short and squat by the heavyweight standards of the 1980s where everyone seemed to be the regulation height of 6'2" or more and 220lbs plus. His reach was short only 70 inches compared to the 80" plus reach of fighters like Larry Holmes. It was no surprise really that d'Amato made him develop the peek-a-boo style; it was the safest way of getting into punching range within taking punishment.

D'Amato became even closer to Tyson when his mother died. The old veteran trainer and his partner Camille Ewald adopted the young fighter. After missing out on the Olympics Mike turned pro in early 1985 and embarked on a run of quick KOs. His public profile grew quickly too with spreads in Magazines and Sunday Supplements. In those days he had an image as a reformed gentle giant, whose favourite pastime was keeping pigeons. Presumably for convenience he was portrayed as an orphan who had never known his father.

By May 1986 he had blitzed his way through a succession of KOs, he had never been extended beyond six rounds and no opponent had finished on his feet. The level of opposition was poor with only three of his first nineteen opponents having anything resembling a decent reputation. His twentieth opponent James Tillis a former world title challenger was a more difficult proposition. Tillis took Tyson the full ten rounds losing a points decision. Tillis even managed to survive a fourth round knockdown. As if to signify that the apprenticeship was over Tyson's management put him in with another up and coming contender Mitch 'Blood'Green 17 days later.

Green was a notorious hard case with a background in New York's street gangs. Green was 6'6" and 220lbs and had only lost once. Tyson ground out a convincing points win over 10 rounds but Green did enough to identify some of the weaknesses that would eventually be Tyson's undoing. If a tall fighter could keep Tyson at arm's length with their jab then Mike would struggle. Unlike Dempsey, Marciano and Frazier he was not prepared to take punishment to get inside and attack his opponent's body. Tyson could be discouraged if you hit him hard enough and often enough. Green only managed this for brief periods and let Tyson dictate the pace of the bulk of the fight. Afterwards it was clear that Green felt he should have won. Green's career went downhill afterwards and his animosity against Tyson grew. They would have another fight but not in the ring. In 1988 outside an all night clothing store in New York at 5am Mitch called Tyson out and ended up with a busted face. This kept Green's face in the news for a while and was an indication that Tyson's life outside boxing was getting wilder.

Two months and three more KOs later Mike hit the headlines with a devastating 30 second KO of Joe Frazier's son Marvis. Smokin Joe in his son's corner was impressed but reserved judgement on Tyson's potential. By November 1986 Tyson was in the ring with WBC champ Trevor Berbick and at 21 years five months he was the youngest man to ever challenge for a version of the World Heavyweight title. His mentor Cus d'Amato didn't live to see his protégé reach the top, he died in 1985. Another d'Amato alumni Kevin Rooney took over as Tyson's trainer and Jim Jacobs became more closely involved in managing Tyson.

Tyson blew away the veteran Berbick and became an instant superstar; his fights were now major media events. Through 1987 he participated in a tournament to produce an undisputed World Champ for the first time since Ali in 1978. In 1987 Tyson defeated WBA champ James Bonecrusher Smith, former WBC champ Pinklon Thomas, IBF champ Tony Tucker and top contender and former amateur opponent Tyrell Biggs. In early 1988 he became the only man to stop Larry Holmes and the KO'd ex WBA champ Tony Tubbs in Tokyo. In June 1988 in a long awaited contest he took on Michael Spinks the World Heavyweight Champion who had opted out of the unification tournament. It was one of the richest fights ever with each man picking up multi-million dollar purses. The fight was an anti-climax with Spinks counted out after 90 seconds. Tyson was now the undisputed World heavyweight champion, it was downhill all the way from here.

His personal life started to fall apart. He had an unhappy marriage to actress Robin Givens punctuated by bizarre events such as crashing his Rolls Royce into a tree, being humiliated on talk shows by his wife and mother in law, fighting with Mitch Green and allegedly hitting people in car parks. Jim Jacobs died in March 1988 and Bill Cayton and Kevin Rooney were unable to keep Mike on track. By the time of Tyson's defence with Frank Bruno in Feb 1989 Rooney had been sacked and Givens had filed for divorce. Bruno managed to tag a ragged Tyson before being stopped. Tyson's polish had gone he looked like a brawler not the multi-skilled boxer he had been a year earlier. A one round stoppage of Carl Williams five months later masked Mike's decline. Outside the ring he was running wild, chasing women and getting into scrapes. He had begun to live like his boxing idols John L Sullivan and Jack Dempsey, trying to be a tough guy in and out of the ring.

In February 1990 Tyson entered the same ring in Tokyo that he had defeated Tony Tubbs two years earlier. His opponent this time was another eighties fatboy James 'Buster'Douglas. Buster Douglas was known as good boxer who consistently lost the big fights. Keen observers however noted that Douglas had the three attributes that Tyson had the most problems with; height (6'4"), mobility and a strong jab. On the other hand Douglas had lost to Tony Tucker, Jesse Ferguson, Mike White and David Bey; decent fighters but only Tucker would be considered anywhere Tyson's class.

Douglas however entered the ring highly motivated following the death of his mother in the build-up to the fight. Tyson barely trained at all. In his corner instead of Kevin Rooney he had two old pals Aaron Snowell and Jay Bright; two clowns who had no business working a champ's corner. Their inexperience told as Buster danced round Mike peppering him with jabs. Tyson was confused he hadn't been in this situation before. His corner couldn't help because they had no idea what to do. As Mike's eye began to swell they tried to control the swelling with a bag of icy water instead of the Endswell used by the leading cutmen. Tyson meanwhile was befuddled in the ring. Since breaking with Rooney he had lost the ability to bob and weave and instead continued to plod forward looking to land a power shot. In the eighth he got through Douglas's jab and landed with a terrific right uppercut. Douglas went down and the ref made a mess of the count. Douglas got up before the ref reached ten and rather than folding like Tyson's usual victims he fought back and survived the round. In the ninth he went after Tyson pounding him round the ring. In the tenth an exhausted Tyson slumped to the canvas and was counted out. Mike Tyson's reign as World heavyweight Champ was over. He would never again be the undisputed champion of the world.

Later promoter Don King and other Tyson supporters would argue that Douglas was down for longer than 10 seconds in the eighth and ask for Douglas to be stripped of his title. After much vacillation the Boxing authorities confirmed Douglas as the champion. For Mike Tyson things were to get much worse.

After a couple of quick comeback wins in 1990 Tyson had two hard fights against Jamaican Donovan Ruddock in 1991. Tyson achieved a dubious stoppage in the first fight and managed a unanimous points decision in the second. The fights were punctuated by some bizarre threats made by Tyson to Ruddock including an offer to make the big Jamaican his girlfriend. In each fight Tyson's defence was non-existent and Ruddock landed numerous big left hooks. If Ruddock had possessed some more boxing ability he would have beaten Tyson.

After beating Ruddock Tyson was expected to fight new champ Evander Holyfield who had easily defeated Buster Douglas in late 1990. Tyson was a big favourite to win the title back. Unfortunately Mike's next opponent was a lot tougher than Holyfield; the State of Indiana. Whilst training for the Ruddock fight Tyson was charged with the rape of Desiree Washington, Miss Black Rhode Island. In February 1992 he was found guilty of this charge and sent to jail in Indiana for 6 years. He served three years and was released in 1995.

In his absence heavyweight boxing had trundled on with the World Heavyweight title being passed from Holyfield to Bowe to Holyfield to Moorer to Foreman. In addition a number of alphabet champs had emerged. After a couple of comeback fights against journeymen in March 1996 Tyson took the WBC title from his old opponent Frank Bruno who froze against Tyson and was stopped in three one sided rounds. In September 1996 Mike became the WBA champ by defeating Bruce Seldon in one round.

In November 1996 he defended his new titles against Evander Holyfield a fight that should have happened five or six years earlier. Pre fight most experts tipped Tyson and the general consensus was that Evander faced a serious beating. Instead Evander fought Mike to a standstill and stopped him in the 11th.

They met again in June 1997 and Holyfield was winning comfortably when Tyson cracked in the third round and bit off a chunk of Holyfield's ear. After a warning from the referee Tyson bit a chunk off Holyfield's other ear. The referee disqualified Tyson and he subsequently had his boxing licence suspended for a year and he was fined $3 million.

From this point on Tyson was in terminal decline marrying several times and ending up back in prison in 1999 for assault. He was accused of a number of other offences though none resulted in further imprisonment. In the boxing ring he built up a run of wins against average fighters that got him a shot against Lennox Lewis for the Undisputed World Heavyweight title in June 2002. Lewis crushed Tyson in 8 one-sided rounds. Mike was pathetically gracious afterward. After defeating another journeyman in early 2003 Mike took on former British heavyweight champ Danny Williams in July 2004. In an embarrassing upset Williams stopped Iron Mike in four rounds. For a sensible man this would have been the end but Tyson was by now broke owing the taxman millions despite having earned a rumoured 400 million dollars in his career. Divorces, Lawsuits and Don King had soaked up his fortune.

In June 2005 Mike stepped into the ring with Irish journeyman Kevin McBride and suffered another humiliating defeat in six rounds. For Tyson's sake we can only hope this is the end of his boxing career. A sporting superstar who fell victim to temptation that goes with the fame. The last act of Mike's life has yet to be written and we can only hope that he doesn't meet a tragic end. Maybe like Dempsey he will slowly become a wise old man or like John L Sullivan he will start to preach against the dangers of drink and drugs. The spectre of Sonny Liston and his lonely death though continues to hover on Mike's shoulder.

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Michael Spinks is a sporting enigma. He was a great Olympian winning gold like his brother Leon at the Montreal Olympics. He went on to be a great World Light Heavyweight Champion and topped his career off by wrestling the World Heavyweight title away from an all time great. Despite these achievements Spinks' name is rarely mentioned when great fighters of the past are discussed.

The fundamental reason would appear to be his 90 second capitulation against Mike Tyson in 1988. Sonny Liston was accused of collapsing to a phantom punch against Ali in 1965 but at least Liston had the manhood to get back up and continue fighting before it was decided at ringside that he had been counted out. Spinks after negotiating a huge purse and contributing to one of the biggest pre-fight build-ups in history entered the ring with the bulk of the viewers expecting him to give Tyson a fight for at least a few rounds. Spinks performance was pathetic Tyson hit him a couple of times and then he fell over; end of story.

While Tyson was a very intimidating presence whose baleful glare put many a weaker opponent on the canvas before a blow was landed, for a fighter as experienced as Spinks to be psyched out was a shock. Pre fight Spinks sounded like a man with a plan that he believed in. Post fight cynics suggested that he had executed his plan, ie spend as little time in the ring as possible. Since 1988 his reputation has not recovered.

He was a great light heavyweight and and at heavyweight he developed a strategy that Larry Holmes just couldn't fathom in their first fight. Larry never the heaviest puncher had to wear his opponents down with a high volume of punches but Spinks never let him settle into a rhythm. Spinks kept moving side to side and in and out hitting Holmes with flurries of light punches. In the re-match it looked as if Holmes had won but again Spinks had used his lateral movement to keep Holmes out of dangerous punching range.

Spinks cagey style was sufficient to overcome two other challengers European Champ Steffan Tangstead and the comebacking Gerry Cooney. The Cooney who fought Spinks however was nothing like the 6'7" monster that Holmes stopped in 13 rounds in 1982. The Holmes defeat had left Cooney a broken man and he went on an alcoholic bender for a long period afterwards. It would be no lie to say he fought Spinks just for the money. Mike Tyson was probably the first live and dangerous heavyweight puncher Spinks faced.

Only Mike Spinks knows what happened in the Tyson fight, only he knows if he was genuinely hurt enough to be stopped in the first. The sad thing for his fans was that he didn't even manage to land a scoring punch. History will probably rate Spinks as a below average champion who lucked out by beating a fading veteran. I can't see Spinks losing to the Carnera's of this world but the likes of Jack Sharkey would probably have a little to much grit for him.

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Larry Holmes is remembered as a long reigning heavyweight champion. Due to factors outside Larry's control he never quite gets the acclaim he deserves. Coming between Ali and Tyson he never really had the charisma to make the cutover into mainstream popularity these men managed. He was also hampered by a division full of faceless heavies many of whom never reached their full potential. He did however manage to make successful 20 defences of the title he won from Ken Norton and came one fight short of equalling Rocky Marciano's 49 fight unbeaten record.

Larry the man has been a great success after growing up one of a large poor family in Easton, Pennsylvania. A parent himself by his late teens he boxed as an amateur until 1973. Once his pro career took off he invested his earning in a variety of businesses in Easton and became the leading light of the local business community even owning the bank.

When Duane Bobick a seventies white hope stopped Larry in the trials for the Munich Olympics, Larry decided to turn professional. His career was unheralded for most of the mid seventies. He earned a decent living as Muhammad Ali's sparring partner for a time and was not expected to hit the big time.

Unlike a lot of sparring partners Holmes learned a lot from working with Ali. He was soon convinced he was good enough to beat the Greatest. After beating Rodney Bobick on the undercard of the "Thrilla in Manilla" in October 1975 he began to slowly climb up the heavyweight ratings. The seventies was a tough time to break through as a heavyweight when tough guys like George Foreman, Joe Frazier, Ken Norton, Joe Bugner, Jerry Quarry, Jimmy Young, Ron Lyle and Earnie Shavers blocked the road to the top. Fortunately most of these guys faded away by 1977 and he was able to secure a shot at Norton by outpointing Earnie Shavers in March 1978.

Ken Norton was expected to become the undisputed champion as soon as he got a shot at Ali or new champ Leon Spinks. The 15 round split decision Holmes won over Norton was acclaimed as one of the great heavyweight championship fights. Holmes defended his title twenty times over the next 7 years, only Joe Louis had a longer run of championship defences. The purists would say that Holmes did not become the true World Heavyweight champion until October 1980 when he stopped Muhammad Ali. Taken from this point his record as champion of 12 defences over 5 years is still unmatched by anyone other than Joe Louis. As WBC and later World champ he defeated tough guys like Norton and Shavers, future alphabet champs such as Mike Weaver,Trevor Berbick,Tim Witherspoon and James 'Bonecrusher' Smith, unbeaten fighters like Ossie Ocasio, Leroy Jones, Renaldo Snipes, Gerry Cooney, Scott Frank, Marvis Frazier, David Bey and Carl Williams.

During his reign the World Boxing Association (WBA) had a succession of champs who fell by the wayside such as John Tate, Mike Dokes, Gerrie Coetzee and Tony Tubbs. For various reasons a unification fight with Holmes never came off. Holmes himself ditched the WBC title in 1983 when they refused to sanction his defence against Marvis Frazier. This created another line of WBC champs such as Pinklon Thomas and Trevor Berbick. Holmes meanwhile provided legitimacy to yet another sanctioning body called the International Boxing Federation (IBF) by declaring himself the IBF World Heavyweight Champion. This expansion in titles and titleholders is the prime reason why Larry Holmes is not remembered as a truly dominant figure.

He was accepted as the best heavyweight in the world but he was never able to pin down a fight with the rival claimants to become the undisputed champion. Until the 1980's the World Heavyweight Title was a metaphorical concept, it was not controlled by a single sporting organisation or governing body. It passed from the defeated champion to the man that beat him with the champion's promoter and the most powerful media groups identifying the challengers. Some bodies such as the New York State Athletic Commission and the NBA/WBA had made attempts to assume control of the title but neither had succeeded. By the eighties any belief in an undisputed championship had evaporated. Each sanctioning body wanted a cut of the title and a chance to promote their favoured fighters. In another era Larry Holmes would have been recognised as the greatest heavyweight of his time. Unfortunately for Larry the claims of the likes of Greg Page and Tony Tubbs very given equality with his. Of the rival claimants only Tim Witherspoon who lost a close points decsion to Holmes really emerged as a championship quality fighter winning a couple of Alphabet titles.

Larry's other problem was his personality. He was not a man who could keep quiet when he felt he had been slighted. He offended many boxing writers by belittling Rocky Marciano's record and suggesting Rocky wasn't fit to carry Holmes' jockstrap. When Holmes lost his title in his 49th fight he was one fight short of equalling Rocky's record. Many in the boxing world were glad deeming Holmes verbal tirade against Marciano as virtual blasphemy. That Larry lost in September 1985 to light heavyweight champ Michael Spinks, Leon's brother, was considered poetic justice. Holmes having accused Marciano of only fighting little guys found himself the first man to lose the heavyweight championship to a champion from a lower weight class since Jim Corbett lost to Bob Fitzsimmons in 1897.

After losing a dubious points decision to Spinks in their April 1986 rematch Holmes retired and most people thought he would stay retired. In the interim a new heavyweight star appeared, Mike Tyson. Tyson blitzed his way through the heavyweight division beating WBC Champ Trevor Berbick, WBA champ James 'Bonecrusher' Smith and IBF Champ Tony Tucker by the end of 1987. In 1988 seeking a fight against Spinks for the undisputed World title, Spinks having opted out of the unification tournament by renouncing the IBF title, Tyson's people found that the negotiations had stalled. To maintain momentum they coaxed Holmes out of retirement to fight Tyson in January 1988.

At this stage Larry had been out of the ring for two years. He took the fight without a warm up fight and essentially went in cold against Tyson. Like Jeffries who lost 100lbs before fighting Johnson he was in no shape to fight the best heavyweight in the world. Larry however did put up a reasonable account of himself in the four rounds he lasted and displayed some of the chinks in Tyson's armour that Buster Douglas would exploit two years later. In the first two rounds Holmes met Tyson with a tight defence and quick left uppercuts inside, negating the younger man's notorious opening assault. In the third he started to jab and move with some success. In the fourth he got over confident started to hit and hop round Tyson. Iron Mike waited until Holmes 38 year old legs tired a little and tagged him with a right. Holmes went down like a ton of bricks. Unlike Tyson's previous opponents he got back up and continued to fight. Tyson floored him again and again Larry got up fighting. With the round almost over it looked like Holmes would survive but Tyson trapped him in the corner and tagged him just as his hand got caught in the ropes whilst throwing a right uppercut, Holmes went down again. The referee leapt on Larry chest and refused to let him get back up. Post fight Larry was calm and reflective it loked like he was definitely finished. He certainly sounded like he was heading back to his business empire in Easton for good. As for Tyson in retrospect this was probably his finest performance no-one else managed to stop Larry or put him on the floor so often.

In 1991 with George Foreman's comeback going well Larry laced the gloves on again. In February 1992 after five easy wins he took on Ray Mercer 1988 Olympic Heavyweight Champ a tough unbeaten contender. Larry outboxed the younger man and won by a unanimous points decision. This led to a title shot in June 1992 against the undisputed World Champion Evander Holyfield who had beaten Foreman the previous year. Larry lost a tough fight to Holyfield who wasn't able to hurt the ex champ with his best shots.

The veteran still didn't retire. In April 1995 after another seven wins he took on the new WBC Champ Oliver McCall who had KO'd Lennox Lewis to win the title. Yet again he finished on his feet losing a close decision to McCall. He fought on until 2002 beating old foes Bonecrusher Smith and Mike Weaver along the way. In his last nine fights he only lost once a dubious split decision to Danish Champ Brian Nielsen in Denmark. It is now three years since Larry last fought and he is surely retired for good now though rumours of a golden oldies fight with George Foreman still appear from time to time.

Where does Larry stand in the heavyweight pantheon? Very close to the top I suggest, his first career showed him to be one of the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time with a masterful jab and superb movement, he had a granite chin that withstood the power of renowned punchers such as Shavers, Norton, Weaver, Snipes, Cooney, Witherspoon and Smith when he was young. Only Tyson ever kept him on the floor but a trained and motivated Holmes in the his nineties comeback showed that the Tyson defeat may have been a fluke as Larry overcame succession of young tough fighters in his forties and early fifties. Certainly his performances against Mercer, Holyfield and McCall would suggest that Tyson would have struggled to repeat the four round knock out if they had met again. Only Holmes and Foreman have proved to be competitive heavyweights well in to middle age. All the other greats with the exception of Jack Johnson and Bob Fitzsimmons were safely retired before their 40th birthdays.

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Leon Spinks came along at just the right time. He would never have beaten any other heavyweight champ but the 36 year old Ali. A man who had simply run out of gas. Leon was a tough kid from St Louis who had boxed his way out of the housing projects to an Olympic Light Heavyweight Gold medal. As a pro he stood 6'1" and weighed 200lbs.

He was young and fearless back in 1978 but he wasn't that good. By February 1978 after turning pro in the aftermath of his Olympic triumph Leon had compiled a record of six wins and a draw from seven pro fights. He had managed five KOs. Ali's management looking for an easy night for their man chose Leon because at least he had some public recognition as an Olympic hero.

The fight was poor Ali was like a sleepwalker whilst Leon fought like a duracell powered windmill. Youthful energy overcame The Greatest's fading skills and Leon won a split decision. The boxing world reacted with uproar, the World Boxing Council stripped Spinks of their title in favour of their Number 1 contender Ken Norton who many felt had beaten Ali in 1976.

Spinks went wild with his new found wealth and fame. He developed a huge entourage of 'hangers on' who ultimately bled him dry of his boxing winnings. Big cars, mink coats and jewellery were Leon's trademarks. His press was terrible. In mid 1978 Ken Norton defended his WBC title against Larry Holmes, Ali's former sparring partner. Holmes beat Norton in a classic fight and gained considerable support for his claim to be the true champ.

In September 1978 Ali eased the title away from Spinks. Ali promptly retired and Leon the ex champ went into a downward spiral South African Gerrie Coetzee KOd Leon in one round during the World Boxing Association heavyweight tournament to identify a successor to Ali.

Leon struggled on and managed to secure a fight with Larry Holmes in June 1981. Holmes had by now established himself as the World Heavyweight champion by beating a stream of challengers including the 38 year old Ali. Leon really had no chance against Holmes who was 2 inches taller and had an eight inch advantage in reach. Holmes stopped Leon in three rounds.

After the Holmes fight Leon fought on intermittently until 1995. He suffered drug problems and ended up broke a few times. His name as an ex champ got him a shot at the WBC Cruiserweight title in 1986 but he lost in six to Dwight Muhammad Quawi.

Leon would never be described as a great fighter but he has his place in history as the man who beat Ali. He would have struggled to compete with any of the other champs.

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George Foreman the tough street kid from Houston, Texas who joined the Civilian Conservation Corps discovered boxing and had a wonderful life is a story that has been told frequently over the past ten years. George is now a great success a man who has made more money from selling electric grills than he did in the ring. In many ways he is the only heavyweight champion to successfully crossover into the USA's celebrity mainstream. Even Muhammad Ali has never really become part of the establishment. George on the other hand represents Mr Everyman hence his success with the grills. Big fat men trust other big fat men especially if they are also Christian Ministers.

George has always been a patriotic American, his flag waving at the Mexico Olympics was no show, he meant it. Whilst Ali was a rebel George was a conformist, a man seeking success and comfort. Again this does relate back to background, Ali in many ways was a product of the middle class. His family were comfortable in a way that most black Americans were not in the 1950s. Like his contemporaries in the Student Anti-War groups he possessed the confidence to question the world that a comfortable upbringing brings. Poor people don't develop that confidence pursuit of empirical truths is secondary to the pursuit of the wealth required to live comfortably. As a result sportsmen from poor backgrounds tend to adopt an extremely conformist approach to life. Joe Frazier and George Foreman for example never developed the links to black nationalism Ali had even though personally they had far more in common with the average black man than Ali.

So George the conformist developed into the more devastating heavyweight puncher of all time a man promoted like his one time training partner Sonny Liston as a destructive giant intent only on clubbing his opponents to the canvas as fast as possible. Certainly George looked the part as he swamped his opponents with huge power punches from the opening bell. His opposition however was poor, of the 37 men he defeated before challenging Joe Frazier the only names a modern fight fan would recognise are; Chuck Wepner, Gregorio Peralta and George Chuvalo. Wepner was a club fighter, Chuvalo had been a contender in the sixties and George did well to stop him. Peralta was a former light heavyweight contender, a crafty boxer who took George to a close decision in their first fight and succumbed to a tenth round TKO in their second fight. So George whilst he had built a record of quick KOs was not particularly experienced when he met Frazier and as a result Frazier was the favourite in January 1973.

After the fight no-one could believe that Frazier had been crushed so emphatically. Ali had never come close to flooring Joe in 15 wild rounds whereas George had battered him round the ring like a rag doll. George was now acclaimed as the hardest hitter in history an confirmed this with quick KOs of Jose Roman and Ali's conqueror Ken Norton. Defeat on Ali was deemed inevitable. Of course in that October night in Zaire Ali withstood everything George threw at him and then left George on the canvas for the first time in his career. Ali regained his super human status with sports writers and George went from hero to zero, derided as a "plodding banger with a suspect chin".

George took defeat hard his personal life collapsed, his wife left him and he closed himself from the world for a time. After 14 months out of the ring he made his comeback in January 1976 against Ron Lyle an ex-convict who had served time for murder. Like Foreman Lyle was a powerful puncher. The fight was torrid with both men going down several times before George finished Lyle in the fifth. George hoped that this would dispell the media accusations that he had quit against Ali. In his next fight in June 1976 he blew away Joe Frazier a second time. He followed this up with defeats of fringe contenders Scott LeDoux and Dino Denis later in the same year. Despite this Ali deftly refused to consider a rematch with George. George carried on his comeback in 1977 beating Pedro Agosto in January and then taking on Jimmy Young in March of the same year in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Jimmy Young was a cagey boxer who felt he had been cheated out of the heavyweight title when Ali had been awarded a dubious points win in April 1976. Foreman had struggled against cagey boxers like Young in the past and this night was no exception. In a curious parallel with Zaire Foreman found acclimatising to the tropical heat of Puerto Rico difficult. The result was the worst performance of George's career. He plodded after Young seemingly unable to lift the pace or pressure Young. By the twelth round Foreman was exhausted and a mile behind on points. Young added to George's misery by flooring him briefly before the end of the round. After leaving the ring the defeated Foreman had what he claims was a religous visitation where he saw God and found religion. His trainer at the time Gil Clancy suspected that George was hallucinating due to dehydration.

Whatever the truth the Young fight was the end of George's first career. Inspired he turned to religion with a passion becoming a born again christian and ultimately a minister. He re-married and began to live a simple life back in Humble, Texas. Occasionally a reporter or promoter would track him down and try and start rumours of a comeback. nothing came of this and four ten years George lived the life of a simple preacher.

In the mid 1980s George announced he was coming back to raise funds for his church. Still a big name he soon found a promoter and media supporters. In March 1987 he stepped into the ring against club fighter Steve Zouski in Sacramento. Zouski lasted four rounds against the new George Foreman, bald and fifty pounds heavier than his prime not all of it fat. Somewhere along the line George the muscle man had gotten fat and taken up weight lifting. His biceps were now a massive 19 inches compared to 15 inches in his prime. His chest was about 6 or seven inches wider. After Zouski George toured the country blowing away veterans and has beens without being taken too seriously. In January 1990 still unbeaten in his comeback he KOd eighties heavyweight contender Gerry Cooney who had been tempted out of retirement to fight Foreman. Cooney was in terrible condition but the fight raised George's profile and caught the media's attention.

George had a big following with fans of every age, class and race. His image as the giant middle aged bald guy won a lot of advertising deals. He was making as much money from advertising as he was from fighting. This super high profile won him a title shot against Evander Holyfied which many viewed as a cynical money making exercise by Team Holyfield. The critics were proved wrong when Old George fought Holyfield to the final bell in Atlantic City in April 1991. The 'plodding banger with the suspect chin' had transformed into a national hero.

Instead of retiring George boxed on against high quality opponents. In June 1993 he lost on points against tough brawler Tommy Morrison for the WBO version of the heavyweight title. Even this was not the end for George, his next fight was a shot at the real World Heavyweight title against Michael Moorer who had taken the title from Holyfield.

Now aged 46 George stepped into the ring against 27 year old Moorer in November 1994 with nothing to lose. Moorer hit the old man at will for nine rounds before he walked into a Foreman right and was counted out. Foreman had become the oldest heavyweight Champion in history twenty years after he lost it to Ali. Before Foreman only Patterson, Ali and Holyfield had ever regained the title but no-one had done so so long after their first win.

George was now a sensation, marketing money rolled in. Between April 1995 and April 1997 he defended the title three times against average fighters. In the meantime the Boxing authorities stripped Foreman of their titles in favour of the likes of Mike Tyson. When George made his last defence against Shannon Briggs there was little interest, mainstream boxing was focused on Holyfield, Lewis and Tyson. Shannon Briggs beat George on points and became the heavyweight champ but the mainstream ignored him. George retired to concentrate on his celebrity career.

Since 1997 George has remained a major figure in US life selling his grills, commentating on boxing or apearing on chat shows. In the background he has sustained his ministry and still preaches enthusiastically. In many ways George is the epitome of the American dream, proof that you can go from zero to hero and stay there.

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Smoking Joe Frazier was the antithesis of Ali where Ali was tall graceful and articulate; Joe was short (5'11"), squat(200lbs) and quiet. Ali talked fights up Joe did his talking with his fists. Joe was a sharecropper's son Ali's father was a self employed sign writer.
Joe was handicapped by a childhood injury to his left arm which meant he couldn't straighten it, Ali was one of the most agile fighters ever.

Ali considered himself a spokesman for Black America even though he had an Irish great grandfather. Joe Frazier was all black,but against Ali he was seen as a tool of White America. Joe had his own political views but he kept them to himself.

Joe was the epitome of the Philadelphia fighting style, head down attacking the body with an endless stream of short hooks and uppercuts. Joe took punches to get inside but once in there he was hard to shift and usually wore down his opponents resistance. His crooked left arm was a lethal weapon, it formed a perfect left hook that Joe could throw with abandon. It was Joe's signature punch and the one that put Ali on the canvas in the 15th round of their first fight. The vision of Ali on his back, boot tassels waving in the air is one of the most indelible images in boxing history.

Joe started boxing as a teenager in Philadelphia to lose weight. He had always been a heavy kid. He progressed so well that he won the Olympic Heavyweight gold in 1964. Joe turned pro just as Ali reached his mid sixties peak. Joe pursued Ali in a light hearted manner similar to Ali's pursuit of Liston. They knew each other and were almost friends at one point.

When Ali was stripped of his title Joe hoovered up the other contenders to become world champ. Along the way he became a target for the exiled Ali who took every opportunity to describe Joe as an "Uncle Tom", a white man's nigger. Joe found Ali's assaults hard to deal with. He had a young family and he didn't appreciate having to explain Ali's insults to them. Ali of course was probably not 100% serious, his focus even during his exile was on the box office. He built a huge demand for a fight between him and Joe Frazier. Joe meanwhile built up a reservoir of resentment against Ali.

Joe's fighting style meant he took more punishment than boxers like Ali. Jerry Quarry and Oscar Bonavena hurt him before he overcame them. Joe looked happiest when the fighting was most furious. Against Ali he found his greatest challenge a man like himself he would fight until the bitter end.

Joe's defeat of Ali in 1971 was one of those fights that no one can ever forget. Joe's brutal aggression wore down Ali. After beating Ali, Joe was never the same again. His defences against Ron Standers and Terry Daniels were short slug fests where Joe seemed to lead with his face. He stepped into the ring against George Foreman in January 1973 as the favourite. When the punching started it was clear Joe was up against something completely different. Unlike Ali Foreman had the strength to keep Joe on the outside and the power to put him on the canvas at will. George gave Joe a thorough beating putting him down six times in two rounds and lifting him off his feet on one occasion.

After Jamaica Joe lost a rematch to Ali, re-grouped with defeats of Joe Bugner, Jerry Quarry and Jimmy Ellis before a rubber match with Ali in Manilla. The 'Thrilla in Manilla' was a great but strangely tedious bout. Joe and Muhammad were so evenly matched that they were able to punch each other incessantly without any noticeable effect. By round fourteen they were both spent forces fighting on memory. Joe's corner cracked first when trainer Eddie Futch kept Joe on his stool at the start of Round 15. Frazier's eyes where shut and Ali had started to pound him at the end of the 14th. Another round could have been fatal.

After Manilla the absurdly brave Frazier took on the comebacking George Foreman. This time he lasted five wild rounds against a man whose style he just couldn't beat. After fighting Foreman Joe retired and stayed retired until 1981 when he came back and drew with Floyd Jumbo Cummings a clubfighter who would later be remembered in Britain as the first man to really tag Frank Bruno.

Cummings convinced Joe that the show was over. Since then he has dabbled as a trainer, his sons Marvis and Hector were good professionals. Marvis is remembered for his failed Heavyweight title challenge against Larry Holmes who stopped him in one round. Marvis was also blown away by the young Mike Tyson. Joe will always be remembered as the man who made Ali a legend, without Joe Frazier to pressure him Ali would have never made the impact he did in the 1970s. Joe would have given every heavyweight that ever lived a good fight though George Foreman would always beat him.

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Muhammad Ali is one of the most written about and photographed men in history. He said he was the Greatest and pretty much backed that up with his performances. Only after 1975 did his performances slip to average. Jimmy Young and Ken Norton can both reasonably claim that they should have beat Ali in the mid Seventies. The last days against Richard Dunn, Evangelista and Leon Spinks were examples of how poor heavyweight title fights could be. The comeback against Larry Holmes was a sad exercise that really was just for the money. As for the Berbick fight was it really Muhammad in there?

The past twenty-five years have shown us a different Ali, revealed in little ways the genuine depth of the man's character and his impact on the world. He is quieter now his rapier wit stilled by Parkinson's Disease but he still speaks with great sense on issues, he is no punch drunk bum despite the best efforts of the world's media to portray him as a mindless tragedy.

It is strange really that the world's best know Muslim is an American Super hero in a world where the USA and Islam are at war. It was not always thus his conversion to Islam after beating Sonny Liston would have ruined the career of a lesser man. The cute kid who "whupped the Bear" became Public Enemy Number 1. At his peak as champ between 1965 and 1967 every fighter he faced was a "Great White Hope". White America was desperate for a hero, black or white who could shut "that nigger Clay's mouth".

If you look at the men he saw off in that period they would have given many of his predecessors terrific fights. Sonny Liston, Floyd Patterson, George Chuvalo, Henry Cooper, Brian London, Karl Mildenburger, Cleveland Williams, Ernie Terrell and Zora Folley. Only Joe Louis, Tommy Burns and Larry Holmes defended their titles as frequently but the quality of their opposition was nowhere near as high. Of his challengers only George Chulvalo and Ernie Terrell went the distance. Terrell only survived because Ali chose to give him a sustained beating and Chuvalo because he had a iron jaw. Ali simply was the best heavyweight of this era.

How good was Ali well the young man who won the Olympics and made Sonny Liston quit had a combination of size, speed, boxing skill and power. Before Ali a 6'3" 210lbs heavy would have been a lumbering boxer puncher at best or a clubber. The arrival of a big man who moved and punched was a shock only Walcott, Tunney and Corbett were remembered as movers or dancers but none of them moved as fast as Ali. Jack Johnson was a blocker using a high guard and deft footwork to block punches and leave opponents off balance. Joe Louis slipped punches; by using slight movements to evade punches but remain in punching range. Ali however was a heavyweight combination of the middleweight Sugar Ray Robinson and featherweight Willie Pep. Ali's style involved carrying his hands low and dancing round the ring rapidly whist hitting his opponent with quick jabs and combinations. Normal heavies were mesmerised their traditional style was to advance to the opponent and exchange blows, blocking as many as they could. Instead of slipping to the side to avoid blows like Louis Ali leaned back like Robinson, a dangerous tactic but no one other than Sonny Liston in their first fight managed to land successive power shots on his chin during the 1960's. Ali was lucky though that during this period he never met anyone prepared to attack him with sustained body punching like Marciano or Frazier, or a lightning jab like Louis or a cagey boxer like Johnson. The Karl Mildenburger fight was a good example of how a quick well-schooled boxer could put Ali under pressure.

In 1967 Boxing became academic, Ali in what seemed an outlandish decision at the time refused to accept being drafted into the US army for combat in Vietnam. An unheard of event, a black man who was refusing to do his patriotic duty. Joe Louis had set the expected standard back in WWII proud to wear the uniform, using his title defences to generate sales of war bonds he was a national hero doing his duty like a true American. The difference was that Vietnam was a colonial style war not a defence of America's liberty, there was no threat to US society except in the minds of the Containment Strategists in the Pentagon and the State department. The Domino Theory was a great idea but it had very little substance when the events on the ground were analysed dispassionately. The Viet Cong whilst Marxist were not the vanguard of a great wall of Communism that wanted to take control of Asia; they simply wanted to run their own country their way. It may not have been right but there were more of them than there were supporters of the South Vietnamese regime that was very much a military dictatorship.

Ali broke the non-political mould of the Black sportsman he was actively challenging the US government's policies and doing so in an extremely articulate manner. His only supporters were student activists who had moved their attentions from the Civil Rights movement to campaigning against the war. The government responded to his draft refusal by prosecuting him, withdrawing his passport and pressurising the boxing authorities into stripping of his title. He became an even greater target for White extremists than he had been before. Black Americans were divided, traditionalists hated him but the younger generation adored him, no surprise as they were the prime victims of the Vietnam Draft.

In his absence the National Boxing Association (NBA) and the New York State Athletic Commission (NYASC) held tournaments to identify the new World Heavyweight Champion. Jimmy Ellis Ali's sparring partner and childhood friend from Louisville won the NBA tournament and Smoking Joe Frazier from Philadelphia won the New York version. Frazier then beat Ellis to become acknowledged as the undisputed Champion. Ali remained a major spectre on the horizon for Frazier, a big money fight that couldn't happen unless the politics changed.

In 1968 Nixon replaced Johnson as president, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinated and public opinion began to move Ali's way. It became acceptable to oppose the War, even Nixon was looking for peace. Ali filled the vacuum left by the murders of King and Kennedy as the mouthpiece of radical America. He suffered financial problems but stuck to his beliefs. In 1970 Georgia granted him a licence to box again. He made his comeback in October 1970 with a cuts stoppage of tough Irish American Jerry Quarry, a world-class heavyweight. He followed this up in December 1970 with a 15th round stoppage of Argentine hardman Oscar Bonavena who had given Joe Frazier real problems. Ali was the first man to stop Bonavena. Despite his victories he was not the fighter of old, he was heavier and slower, Quarry and Bonavena both managed to tag him with decemt shots.

The clamour for a fight with Frazier was immense. In March 1971 after a frenetic build up Ali entered the Madison Square Garden ring against Joe Frazier, the first time in boxing history that two undefeated champions met for the World Heavyweight title. The fight that followed was immense, neither man had ever fought at such a pace and intensity. For the first time since the Liston fight Ali took a series of heavy punches on the chin. The difference was that this time Joe Frazier kept on hitting Ali, he didn't quit like Liston. Ali to his credit stood his ground and hit Joe as often as Joe hit him. It was clear Ali wasn't as fast or nimble as he used to be. He did though demonstrate a level of courage and durability no one believed that he possessed. In the 15th round Frazier floored him with a left hook, the first and only time he was floored in a championship fight. At the end with both men battered, bruised and swollen Joe Frazier won a unanimous points decision. Ali had lost for the first time but in many people's eyes he became an even greater champion in defeat than he had ever been in victory. Post fight he was a humble but dignified presence acknowledging Joe Frazier's achievement and promising to come back stronger.

Ali then had a tough 3 and a half years fighting other contenders worldwide. In March 1973 after a ten fight unbeaten run he lost on a split decision to tough ex marine Ken Norton who broke Ali's jaw early in the fight. The re-match against Frazier had never materialised and in January 1973 Frazier was blown away by George Foreman the Olympic Heavyweight champ of 1968, a devastating power puncher who floored Joe six times in Kingston, Jamaica.

Ali beat Norton in the rematch on a 12 round split decision. In January 1974 he beat Joe Frazier in battle of the former champs, this time Ali got the points decision in close fight. Beating Frazier won him a shot at new champ Foreman who had developed the same aura as Liston 10 years earlier. The consensus was that Foreman was an unbeatable monster. His performance in title fights appeared to confirm this, knocking Frazier down six times, crushing Jose Roman inside a round in Tokyo and blowing Norton away in two rounds in Caracas. Ali was deemed to have little chance. Bizarrely the fight venue was to be Kinshasa, Zaire maintaining Foreman's unique record of never having a title fight in the USA. Ali was unconcerned he had been a regular traveller fighting in Europe, Japan and Indonesia previously. An edge to the fight was Foreman's waving of the Stars and Stripes after he won the Olympic title in Mexico which was seen as a counter protest to the Black Power Salutes from the US sprinters Carlos and Smith earlier in the Games. Foreman was an establishment darling and Ali the outsider again.

This appeared to be a near impossible challenge for Ali. At 6'3" and 220lbs the men were the same size but there the similarity ended. Foreman was all muscle with huge arms and shoulders whilst Ali was leaner and less toned. Ali was no longer the dancing master of the sixties; he danced sporadically and spent a lot of time on the ropes absorbing punishment. Against Foremen the experts believed he would have to dance constantly for 15 rounds to have any hope. Lying on the ropes and absorbing the punishment Foreman was capable of was deemed to be madness. George Foremen could punch huge dents in the heaviest punch bags; most observers felt Ali would be dented at the end of this encounter.

The conditions were far more difficult to acclimatise too than expected and Ali settled better than Foreman who suffered from fluid loss throughout the training period. The fight was delayed a month when Foreman sustained a cut and both fighters found themselves trapped in Zaire until Foreman recovered, Zaire's President Mobutu had no intentions of letting the fight slip through his fingers. The prolonged stay did nothing to improve Foreman's condition.

When the fight now know as the 'Rumble in the Jungle' went ahead in October 1974 Foreman started a prohibitive favourite. Nothing that happened in the first 6 rounds changed any observer's opinion. Ali tried to dance in the first but Foreman cut off the ring and battered him to the ropes. Ali responded with terrific right hands but Foreman ignored them. From the second onwards Foreman bulled Ali to the ropes and unloaded volleys of heavy punches against Ali who tried to block and sway back from as many as he could. Foreman probably hit Ali more often than everyone Ali fought between 1965 and 1967 did.

In the seventh round Foreman looked visibly tired but so did Ali. The difference was that Ali still seemed able to produce some variety to his punches hitting Foreman with lefts and rights. Foreman continued to bull forward flailing with both hands. In the eighth Foreman kept grinding forward until Ali attacked with a flurry of lefts and rights. Foreman toppled then sunk to the floor for the first time in his career. The ref counted Foreman struggled to get up but the 10 count arrived before he was on his feet. Ali was back the Zairian crowd went wild and the world couldn't believe that another giant had been slain.

After the fight numerous stories arose, Angelo Dundee Ali's trainer claimed he loosened the ropes so that Ali could lean further back away from Foreman and avoid most of the punches. Foreman said he was dehydrated. The truth was he fought a bad fight by failing to change tactics early when it was clear that Ali was not going to succumb to heavy pressure on the ropes. Ali won because he was probably the most durable and resilient man ever to hold the World Heavyweight title.

After Foreman, Ali had an easy defence against club fighter Chuck Wepner who had lost to Sonny Liston in 1970. He then stopped the rugged Ron Lyle in 11 and outpointed Joe Bugner the durable British champ. In October 1975 he had his final bout with Joe Frazier in Manila. This was a contest that delivered the most evenly matched heavyweight title fight ever. For fourteen rounds they hammered each other until Frazier's corner pulled him out because his eyes had swollen shut. At the end Ali collapsed and both men spent time in the hospital post fight. For Frazier this was the end, he never challenged again. Ali carried on for too long a shadow of his former self. Norton and Young should have beaten him, Earnie Shavers could have killed him, and Leon Spinks should never have got near him. During his last three years as champ he simply didn't have the punching power to deter opponents yet he kept on winning.

Where does he rate in the heavyweight spectrum, at or near the top. Only Johnson, Lewis, Marciano, Dempsey and Holmes could really believe that they had a chance of beating him.

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Sonny Liston was a big muscular man standing 6'1" and weighing 210lbs. He wasn't the biggest heavyweight but for some reason the boxing media of the 1950's and 1960's considered him a giant. Sonny played on this perception by wearing piles of towels under his robe when he entered the ring some opponents were psyched out by this image of great size, particularly Floyd Patterson. When things went well for Sonny in the ring he crushed his opponent in no time.

His reputation was made more frightening by his criminal record he had served a few terms for violent offences. He was rumoured to have been employed as a strike breaker and as an enforcer for the Mafia. He began boxing whilst in prison in the late forties and found he had a real talent for it. Boxing changed Sonny's life for the positive. As the son of an Arkansas sharecropper he grew up hard. He was one of seventeen children whose father worked them hard on the farm. Aged 13 he ran away to live with his mother in St Louis and it was on the mean streets of that city that he drifted into crime like many a runaway farmboy had before him.

Sonny's violence on the street was tempered by the fact that in private with his family he was a quiet gentle man. He was illiterate which left him at a great disadvantage when dealing with the press. George Foreman who trained with Sonny as a young boxer recounted a story of the 37 year old Liston becoming enraged about a newspaper article that a fellow sparring partner had claimed described Sonny as a 'Mother's Boy'. The article said nothing of the kind but it demonstrated how easily a non reader like Liston could be manipulated. Sonny therefore was a very defensive figure when faced with authority or the establishment and it is no surprise that the press viewed him as a broody sinister character. His criminal record attracted police attention wherever he went.

How good was Sonny the boxer? Well if you believe his current reputation he was a deadly puncher who crushed everyone in his path until he met the young Cassius Clay in 1964. The truth is a little more complex. Sonny was a good boxer with a heavy left jab and a clubbing right hand. Unlike Ingemar Johansson who could take people out with one shot Sonny wore them down with a combination of blows. Sonny was probably closest in style to Joe Louis though a more muscular slower version. He was very durable, generally able to take heavy shots without flinching, as confirmed by George Foreman who described Sonny as the only man he got into the ring with that he could never force to back up. Good boxers though could confuse and frustrate Sonny as Eddie Machen, Bert Whitehurst and Marty Marshall proved when they took Liston the distance.

In the White USA of the 1960's Sonny was not a welcome presence. He represented the kind of black man they definitely didn't want to see on their TVs's or in their neighbourhoods. He was big, "ugly" and a criminal. Unlike the rather too nice Floyd Patterson who was deemed a 'good negro'. In th 1930s Joe Louis had broken the barriers to black fighters erected after Jack Johnson's reign as champ. Johnson had been deemed an 'uppity nigger' who messed around with white women, two scandalous activities in the 1910s. Johnson though had a lot of charm and didn't seem to intimidate people. Louis' public image was the antithesis of Johnson he was quiet unassuming and didn't publicise his lovelife. As a result Louis became a mainstream American hero and paved the way for black athletes to prosper in all sports. Louis' successors as Champ Ezzard Charles and Jersey Joe Walcott were also unassuming men who did not challenge the racial mores of the 1950's they reigned as champion beat white challengers but didn't revel in their success or project an aggressive image. Sonny's main crime appeared to be that his quiet brooding persona seemed to threaten white America, almost as if there was the likelihood that he would inspire all other blacks to walk around intimidating whites and committing violent crime.

Floyd Patterson managed to avoid fighting him until 1962 because Sonny just didn't have the mainstream support to demand a title shot. Boxing was also conscious that Liston's management's links to the Mafia could take the sport back to the bad old days of the Forties when fights were rumoured to be routinely fixed. The Civil Rights movement didn't want Sonny as champ because he could be a rallying point for the white supremacists who would point to Sonny as the kind of mindless thug they were protecting White America from. Sonny didn't help his prospects much by getting in trouble with the law in 1961 and having his boxing licence suspended for a year.

Eventually the public got fed up with Patterson fighting nobodies like Tom McNeeley and Floyd signed to fight his nemesis. The four minutes and fifteen seconds he spent in the ring with Patterson was the peak of Liston's career. He won the first fight in September 1962 in one round and repeated the trick in July 1963. He then began to enjoy the media attention of being champ and universally described as the toughest man in the world. Life as champ was good he even made a TV commercial for TWA.

In the background there seemed to be no challengers lining up to fight Sonny, he was just too scary. This attitude was summed up by British Heavyweight champ Henry Cooper's manager Jim Wicks who said something along the lines of;
"We don't want no part of that geezer Liston"

Only one man seemed keen to get into the ring with Sonny, a young fighter from Louisville, Kentucky called Cassius Clay. Cassius had become a public figure when he won the Olympic Light Heavyweight title at the Rome Olympics. He was a tall, lean athlete with an unusual fast dancing boxing style and a talent for self publicity. Cassius was a media darling who could make the most boring press conference entertaining. He was vulnerable though, Sonny Banks, Doug Jones and Henry Cooper had all floored him with left hooks. Cooper looked close to stopping him but for the bell's intervention. Cassius though had recovered and beaten everyone he had faced.

Cassius pursued a fight with Liston, turning up at events where Liston was appearing and allegedly turning up at Liston's house in the middle of the night on one occasion. Liston predictably either laughed or growled at Cassius who he appeared to regard as no threat. Cassius' hard work did generate demand for the fight and they signed to fight in Miami Beach on February 1964. Before the fight Liston was a prohibitive favourite. At the weigh in Clay began ranting like a madman, presumably to upset Liston. The fight doctors were of the opinion that Cassius was terrified. However when the fight started it was clear that Clay was taller than Liston with longer arms. This was a new experience for Liston, he simply couldn't physically intimidate Clay.

What happened next was a real mystery Clay outboxed Liston for periods of the fight with his superior speed and reach but Liston also put Clay under pressure landing heavy shots. At the start of the seventh Liston quit on his stool citing a dislocated shoulder as being too painful for him to continue. No-one could believe that the "Big Ugly Bear" would quit on his stool against the "Louisville Lip". There were the inevitable post fight accusations of a fix.

The aftermath of the fight brought about one of the most abrupt changes in a sportsman's public image ever, Sonny went from being an unpopular champ to being White America's hero. The reason being Cassius Clay's announcement that he had joined the Black Muslims, converted to Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Ali. The Black Muslims were a deeply unpopular group who preached a kind of inverse racial separation with Blacks deliberately keeping apart from whites. For some reason this view was deemed distinctly threatening to white America which was just coming to terms with new Civil Rights legislation which focused on integration and equality.

The re-match in May 1965 was one of the most difficult to promote heavyweight championship fights ever. Neither man was popular and Ali's behaviour in the past year had made him deeply unpopular. Eventually the fight went ahead in a high school gym in Lewiston, Maine in front of just over 2000 spectators the smallest audience ever for a World Heavyweight championship.

A controversial contest from the start it became even more controversial when Liston went down in the first from what has been described as a phantom punch. Liston lay on the canvas and Ali stood over him for a period apparently suggesting he should get up. Ali eventually drifted to a neutral corner referee Jersey Joe Walcott began to count over Liston. Liston beat Walcott's count and they began to fight again. At ringside Nat Fleischer editor of Ring magazine and a number of other journalists were screaming that Liston had been counted out by the timekeeper. Walcott finally registered the noise at ringside, spoke to the officials and stopped the fight. Ali and Liston were bemused, as Ali was proclaimed the winner by a knockout.

To this day allegations of a fix dog this fight. Ali never knocked anyone else out in the first, a trick you would have expected him to repeat frequently if he could really bowl over the iron chinned Liston. Liston was never stopped in the first before or since. In fact after this fight he fought on to 1970 losing only once in December 1969 to young contender Leotis Martin on a ninth round stoppage.

The boxing media never forgave Liston for losing in Lewiston despite remaining unbeaten until 1969 he never got close to another title fight. Even when Ali was stripped of the title in 1967 Liston was excluded from a list of contenders that included his old foe Floyd Patterson.

Sonny's personal life continued its flirtation with the underworld. In 1970 he was found dead in his Las Vegas apartment allegedly of a drug overdose though Liston was not known as a heroin user. Speculation has suggested that Liston was murdered by the Mafia but no concrete evidence exists to support this claim. Sonny was a mysterious man in life and in death, even his age has never been confirmed. Some accounts suggest he was born in 1932 whereas others make him five or six years older.

Sonny was a good heavyweight champion who if he turned up motivated could give anyone a tough fight. Fights against Jeffries, Dempsey, Louis, Marciano and Foreman would have been classics.

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Ingemar Johansson the man who was disqualified in the 1952 Olympic Heavyweight final for running away from his opponent Ed Sanders became Europe's best heavyweight since Max Schmeling thirty years earlier. In a tragic footnote Ed Sanders died in 1954 following a knockout defeat. Johansson's cowardice as an amateur disappeared as a professional.

Ingo was a big man standing over 6' and weighing over 200lbs, he wasn't a great boxer but he did possess a remarkably powerful right hand. In Europe he was dominant blowing away the likes of Henry Cooper with ease. He mounted the world stage with a remarkable one round ko of top contender Eddie Machen. This may have been a freak result but stopping Machen was something that proved beyond the likes of Sonny Liston, Zora Folley and Cleveland Williams all remembered for their punching power.

In his first fight against Floyd Patterson in 1959, Ingo's right was a fearsome weapon putting the champion on the canvas every time it landed. After winning the title Ingo enjoyed the spoils like many of his predecessors and turned up for his June 1960 rematch with Patterson in poor condition. Unkind critics suggested that the only exercise Ingo had been taking was night time wrestling with his girlfriend. Patterson on the other hand had trained like a demon and fought like a man possessed.

After he had weathered Patterson's ferocious assault for four rounds Ingo folded in the fifth and finished flat on his back unconscious with his leg twitching. For a brief spell it looked like a tragedy was unfolding, Patterson stopped celebrating and a crowd formed round Johansson. Fortunately after a few anxious moments the big Swede regained consciousness and was able to leave the ring unaided.

The final fight of the Patterson Johansson trilogy in March 1961 was another dramatic affair. Both men went down in the first and then traded power shots for five rounds before Ingo was counted out in the sixth. Ingo never touched the Championship heights again. He went back to Sweden won the European Title again and retired after beating Brian London on points in a fight that is remembered primarily for the fact that London knocked Ingo out seconds before the final bell. In an amazing piece of luck the bell rang before the ref could count Ingo out. Ingo took this as a sign that it was time to hang up his gloves and he never fought again.

Post boxing Ingo lived on the millions he made from the Patterson fights and appears to have been a genuinely good bloke. His ranking in the heavyweight pantheon is difficult to measure because he certainly had a great right hand that could stop almost anyone but if you could avoid being tagged then you could put Ingo on the floor. The only other champ he fought was Patterson so you can only rate Ingo in comparison to Floyd. Floyd pre-Sonny Liston was a brittle fighter who shrank from big punchers. After falling to Liston Floyd changed into a tougher more durable character who gave many of the sixties big names a hard fight. So what does this mean for Ingo well I would say he rates in the lower ranks of heavyweight champs he wasn't the worst by any means. He would easily dispose of the Leon Spinks, Hasim Rahman and Primo Carneras of this world.

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Floyd Patterson is remembered today as the first man to regain the World Heavyweight title, something that previous champs like Corbett, Fitzsimmons, Jeffries, Dempsey, Schmeling, Louis, Charles and Walcott had all failed to achieve.

Floyd was an extremely talented boxer with probably the fastest hands in the history of the Heavyweight division. He was not a huge man standing only 6' and weighing 180lbs. His trainer Cus D'Amato took him in as a kid from the streets and converted him into an excellent boxer and a thoroughly decent human being. Floyd did have one weakness; an extremely suspect chin, almost anyone could put him on the floor. He did manage to get up more often than not but it did make life rather more complicated.

Floyd first came to public attention aged 17 when he won the Olympic Middleweight title at the Helsinki Olympics in 1952. Many observers rated him the best middleweight in the world at that time and reckoned he could challenge Sugar Ray Robinson straightaway. At the same Olympics his future Heavyweight rival Ingemar Johansson was disqualified in the Heavyweight final for running away from his giant American opponent Ed Sanders.

On turning pro Floyd developed quickly beating everyone he met with the exception of the rugged former light heavyweight champ Joey Maxim who beat him on a dubious points decision in June 1954. Floyd's defeat of heavyweight contender Tommy (Hurricane)Jackson in June 1956 allowed D'Amato to manoeuvre his protege into a fight for the vacant World Heavyweight title against Archie Moore, Rocky Marciano's last opponent.

It is indicative of the dearth of talent in the division at this point that the two top heavyweight contenders were a 21 year old and a 43 year old Light Heavyweight Champ. Floyd dismissed Moore the old Master in five rounds and commenced on a run of defences aginst fighters of mixed talent. His first defence was against Tommy(Hurricane)Jackson who was dismissed this time in 10 rounds. D'Amato produced a masterpiece of cautious matchmaking for Floyd's second defence when he signed him to fight 1956 Olympic Heavyweight champ Pete Rademacher. This would be Rademacher's first pro fight, a concept unheard of since before the days of John L Sullivan. Despite Rademacher's inexperience he still managed to floor Floyd in the second before hitting the canvas six times himself. By this stage the boxing public began to be suspicious of Patterson's capabilities.

His next two defences were against average contenders Roy Harris and Brian London who put up reasonably stiff opposition. Seeking another safe challenger D'Amato signed up European Champion Ingemar Johansson from Sweden. A man who had tried to live down his cowardly Olympic performance by beating the best fighters in Europe consistently. Reasonably tough British heavies like Henry Cooper, Joe Erskine and Joe Bygraves had succumbed to 'Ingo's Bingo' as Johansson's right cross was known. Johansson's weakness was that if he didn't get you with his right then he had no other weapons. In September 1958 Ingo blew away tough US contender Eddie Machen in one round, a shock result for Machen was renowned for his durability.

On the back of the Machen result Johansson entered the ring against Patterson in June 1959 with more credibility than any of the previous four challengers. D'Amato expected his man to win in the usual exciting manner. Johansson clearly failed to read the script, after a couple of probing rounds he tagged Floyd with a big right in the third and proceeded to floor him seven times before referee Ruby Goldstein mercifully rescued Patterson with a minute left in the round.

Floyd had always had a fairly quiet and reserved public image, he was not prone to great displays of self belief. The Johansson defeat was a torrid experience for him. He had a long dark night of the soul before he re-emerged as a man determined to prove himself as champion. The re-match against Johansson in June 1960 was a different fight. Ingo had partied the year away confident that Floyd would be the same pushover. He had a rude awakening when Floyd stopped him in five rounds in 1960's fight of the year.

In March 1961 they had a rubber match. It was a torrid affair both men went down in the first, Floyd twice and Ingo once. They swapped blows for a further five rounds before Ingo went down for the 'ten count' in the sixth. After regaining the title D'Amato returned to his safety first strategy by selecting the over matched Tom McNeeley for Floyd's next defence in december 1961 rather than the number one contender Sonny Liston a tough ex convict with reputed links to the Mafia. McNeeley was down 11 times before he was stopped in the fourth.

Patterson rather like Joe Louis before him was rather unfortunate to be deemed a credit to his race, an example of the kind of respectable gentleman young black Americans should aspire to be. Ths added extra pressure to the clamour for him to fight Sonny Liston a man whose history was much murkier and lot less positive. President Kennedy apparently told Floyd he had to beat Liston for the sake of Black social advance. Liston was deemed to be 'a bad nigger' like Jack Johnson, whose reign as Heavyweight champ could only be bad for the Civil Rights movement.

Liston had done nothing to make people view him in a more positive manner. He started boxing when in prison for violent offences. His career as a contender was interupted by a spell in jail after he beat a cop so badly he broke his leg. As a result Liston suffered a lot of police attention. His management was closely linked to the Mafia. All negative publicity in 1960s America whereas today its the standard image for rappers and fighters. Sonny was also the most fierce and intimidating looking man who deliberately played up his size. He was 6'1" and 215lbs of muscle with incredible punching power and strong boxing skills.

Poor Floyd a man whose shaky self belief had only been weakened by D'Amato's over cautious match making was scared of Liston. Rumours suggest that he was so sure he was going to lose to Liston in September 1962 that he brought a disguise with him so that he could escape from the stadium un-noticed after the fight.

With such a mindset it is no surprise that Liston an inch taller and twenty four pounds heavier blew Floyd away within a round. The rematch in July 1963 only lasted a few seconds longer. Floyd's days as champ were over.

To his credit Patterson continued to box and was a contender right up to the early seventies. He shook off a lot of the self doubt that plagued him as champ and went on to beat tough contenders like Eddie Machen, Henry Cooper, George Chuvalo and Oscar Bonavena. He also gave Jerry Quarry and Jimmy Ellis tough fights and squared off against Muhammad Ali twice never taking a backward step.

Floyd had a successful life outside of boxing and cashed in on his fame in Scandinavia by buying the Wimpy Burger franchise for that region. He was also chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission. His adopted son Tracey Harris Patterson became a world champion in the nineties.

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Much has been written about Rocky Marciano the only world heavyweight champion to never lose a professional contest. When Rocky hung up his gloves after stopping Ancient Archie Moore the World Light Heavyweight Champ he had racked up 49 victories with 43 KO's with no defeats or draws. Rocky's caveman style involved wearing opponents down with barrages of heavy punches to the body and head. He was adept at bobbing and weaving his way into punching range and despite his reputation as a face first fighter he didn't take too much punishment.

Marciano defeated three of his immediate predessors as champion, Ezzard Charles, Jersey Joe Walcott and Joe Louis each contest being extremely exciting and frequently rated fight of the year. He held the title for three years from September 1952 through to his sixth and last title defence in September 1955.

His immense endurance allowed him to fight on despite suffering serious facial cuts on several occasions and a gruesome nose injury in his second fight against Ezzard Charles. Allied to his endurance was terrific punching power particularly to the body. He memorably overcame Roland La Starza's tight defence by punching him on the arms so often that blood vessels in La Starza's arms burst.

Joe Walcott was outboxing Marciano comfortably when Rocky produced an immense right hand that left Walcott unconscious midway through the 13th round. In spite of his brutish reputation Marciano was actually quite a small man for a heavyweight, standing 5'10" and weight around 183lbs. He had short arms and really shouldn't have been able to compete against tall heavy weights. Part of the enduring romance of Marciano is this image of the indomitable wee man humbling giants.

Historically Marciano must be one of the top ten heavyweights of all time, he fought and beat everyone of significance during his era. He would have had classic fights against the likes of Frazier, Ali and Foreman. Sadly Rocky was killed in a plane crash in 1969 aged 46 having resisted numerous offers to make a comeback.

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Jersey Joe Walcott was one of the craftiest boxers ever to win a world title. Walcott have a wider range of punches and sidesteps than even the great Ali. Walcott perfected his bag of tricks as he toiled for years in the heavyweight boondocks fighting no-name fighters in no-name towns. Arnold Raymond Cream to give his his real name began his boxing career in 1930 aged 16. He toiled in obscurity for the first 15 years of his career winning more than he lost but never making it into the top grade.

In 1945 things began to change. He started to beat name fighters consistently. The likes of Joey Maxim, Joe Baksi, Lee Oma and Elmer(Violent)Ray began to lose to Jersey Joe whereas before he lost to them. Joe Louis looking around for an easy defence signed to fight Walcott in December 1947. It was regarded as a terrible mismatch by the press. At the end of the fight the great Joe Louis was a dejected figure who believed his reign as champ was over. Jersey Joe the no hoper had given him a boxing lesson, knocked him down in the first and the fourth and busted his face up. The crowd thought Walcott had won but judges gave awarded victory to Louis by a split decision.

There was an immediate demand for a rematch. In June 1948 they squared off again with Jersey Joe again putting Louis under pressure however the great man upped the pace and stopped Walcott in the 11th. Louis immediately announced his retirement, Walcott had exposed him as an ageing fighter.

A year later Walcott lost to Ezzard Charles for the vacant title. Charles was just too slick for Walcott and wasn't as susceptible to Joe's tricks as Joe Louis had been. In March 1951 Charles beat him again. He finally won the world title in July 1951 when he managed to ko his nemesis Charles in 7 rounds. Aged 37 he was the oldest man to win the world hevyweight title a record that stood until 1994 when George Foreman became champ aged 44. In June 1952 he successfully defended his title against Charles beating him on points.

In September 1952 he faced Rocky Marciano a rugged power puncher from Brockton Massacheusetts who ended Joe Louis' career with an eighth round KO. Walcott floored Marciano in the first and was comprehensively outboxing his brawling challenger when Marciano connected with a monstrous right in the 13th which left Joe unconscious. In May 1953 they met again this time Rocky put the grand old man away in the first ending Walcott's career.

After being champion Jersey Joe had a colourful time. He tried wrestling and refereed the infamous Ali v Liston rematch which ended in the first when Liston was floored by a phantom punch. In the resulting chaos Joe allowed Liston to rise and resume fighting before stopping the fight on the say so of the timekeeper and ringside officials who advised that Liston had been down for a ten count.

Walcott chaired the New York State Athletic Commission during the early eighties and was sheriff of Camden New Jersey in the 1970s. He died in 1994.

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Calling Ezzard Charles "the vanilla man" is no insult. Charles was one of the smoothest slickest boxers to become world champion at any weight. Ezzard was equally effective attacking and defending. He was hard to pressure, extremely durable and a solid puncher. He had no obvious weaknesses nor any extremely impressive weapons. Like vanilla his flavour of boxing suited any occasion, he could compete on equal terms with any boxer.

Like his heavyweight predecessors Tunney and Fitzsimmons, Ezzard had been a leading middleweight and light heavyweight before he moved up to heavyweight. Ezzard was the world's best middleweight during the early 1940s and was the top light heavy during the mid 1940s. At each weight the leading contenders and champions avoided him like the plague.

Ezzard found himself fighting on a regular basis against his fellow inmates on "Murderers Row", a group of black middles and light heavies who couldn't get title shots. Fighters like Archie Moore, Lloyd Marshall, Jimmy Bivins and Charley Burley, each one an exceptional boxer or puncher. Only Ezzard and Moore managed to break into the mainstream and get title shots. Ezzard by fighting as a heavy even though he only weighed 180lbs. When Moore finally got a shot at the light heavyweight title in 1953 aged 39, he won the title and held it for the next 10 years beating men half his age in title defences.

When Joe Louis retired as champion Ezzard seized his chance in June 1949 by outpointing Louis' last challenger Jersey Joe Walcott in an eliminator bout for the vacant World Heavyweight title. He followed this win with 8 successful defences in 2 years including another defeat of the crafty Walcott and a 15 round pummelling of the comebacking Joe Louis. Beating Louis convinced the public and the boxing cognoscenti that Ezzard was the real World Heavyweight Champion.

In his ninth defence in July 1951, his third fight against Walcott, he walked into a sucker punch in the seventh round and was counted out. He came back and challenged Walcott again in June 1952 but he lost again on points. This looked like the end for Ezzard, it was unlikely that the boxing public would support a fifth meeting between him and Walcott for the title.

In his next defence Walcott lost the championship to the fierce Rocky Marciano who had previously ko'd Joe Louis in 8 rounds. Ezzard meanwhile carried on fighting the top guys around such as Rex Layne, Nino Valdes, Coley Wallace and Bob Satterfield winning some and losing some. Marciano meanwhile put his stamp on the championship by stopping Walcott in their 1953 rematch. He now sought to clean up the division by defeating Ezzard the only other ex Champ still fighting. Their June 1954 fight was expected to be as easy ko for Marciano. Instead it was a 15 round epic fought at a furious pace. Marciano won a unanimous decision but the fight was close enough for the public to demand a rematch.

In September 1954 they met again in a contest that was voted 1954's Fight of the Year. Yet again the pace was furious with each man delivering huge volumes of punches. Charles was knocked down briefly in the second before recovering and splitting Marciano's nose virtually in half in the seventh. The injury was so serious Marciano's corner wanted to pull their man out before he bled to death. Rocky demanded another round and promptly stopped Ezzard in the eighth.

That was the end of Ezzard's career in the top rank. He continued to fight until 1959 losing frequently to nobodies who could never have touched him in his prime. An element of Ezzard's decline may have been the early onset of the Multiple Sclerosis which left him confined to a wheelchair by the 1970s. Ezzard died in 1975 a great champion laid low by a horrible disease.

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Joe Louis is fondly remembered by boxing fans for many reasons. He was the longest reigning world heavyweight champion; 11 years from 1937 to 1948. He made the most successful title defences, beating off 25 challenges. He was an extremely exciting fighter with fast hands, able to KO an opponent with his left or his right. He was a great boxer with an excellent left jab who was able to evade punches with the minimum of movement. At his peak he was considered the epitome of American manhood. Quite an achievement for a black sharecropper's son from Alabama.

Despite the scale of his sporting achievements it is Joe's cultural impact which has had the most lasting effect. Before Joe Louis black sportsmen were relegated to black only competition, no black faces were seen in baseball, football or basketball. Black athletes like Jesse Owens had broken through in Olympic sports but then as now Track and Field was a minority interest in the USA. In mainstream US sport the unofficial colour bar was rigourously enforced.

In boxing the Colour Bar dated back to 19th century USA, John L Sullivan was allegedly quoted as saying something along the lines of: "I have never fought a black man and I never will". Peter Jackson the leading Black heavyweight of Sullivan and Corbett's day never got a shot at the title. Subsequent Heavyweight champions avoided top black contenders such as Joe Jeanette, Sam Langford, Harry Wills, George Godfrey and Larry Gaines.

Prior to prizefighting being centred in the USA, the sports home was in England where attitudes to race were somewhat different. The English fight fan was more than happy to watch anyone beat anyone else up, former slave Tom Molyneaux got a shot at British champion Tom Cribb in 1810. Similarly British sporting history is littered with leading black athletes during the 19th century. Colour bars and segregation were very much an American invention.

What made Joe Louis so special that he was able to break boxing's colour bar forever? Well good timing was the first element. Boxing has always been the sport of the urban poor, the great champions have generally emerged from the toughest slums and ghettoes. In the USA from the 1840's up to the 1930's America's slums were dominated by the Irish. It is no surprise therefore to discover that the Irish were the leading racial group in professional boxing.

Irish Americans dominated the Heavyweight championship in the period from 1879 to 1937 producing champions such as Sullivan, Corbett, Dempsey, Tunney and Braddock plus numerous contenders. During this period Black Americans were a rural group with only a small presence in the big Northern cities. The industrial boom of the 1920's changed American demographics forever and with it American sport. The arrival of large numbers of Blacks in the Northern Cities coincided with a social rise for the Irish who were now no longer at the bottom of the cultural food chain. Irish stopped being excluded from jobs and started to get richer and began to migrate from the inner cities to more prosperous neighbourhoods. Black Americans now began to form the bulk of America's urban poor. As the Irish got richer they moved away from boxing into other sports. Black Americans filled the void the Irish left.

During the early 1930s the Irish hold on the World Heavyweight Championship slipped. Foreigners such as Schmeling and Carnera won the title. Baer and Sharkey fighters of Eastern European descent claimed the title. The rot was stopped briefly by Jim Braddock's defeat of Baer. If you asked a sportswriter after Braddock's defeat of Baer in June 1935 if Braddock would be the last Irish American World Heavyweight champion he would have laughed at you. No-one in American sport saw the watershed develop.

Joe Louis' exceptional talent allowed him to develop a wide following of black and white sports fans. Losing to Max Schmeling if anything inceased his popularity when set against the racist behaviour of the German Nazi government at the Berlin Olympics. Louis' management also goomed their fighter to be as inoffensive as possible, his trainer Jack Blackburn was a tough lightweight from the 1900's a contemporary of Jack Johnson who understood only too well the barriers erected against previous talented black fighters. Above Louis and any other black contenders was the spectre of Jack Johnson whose reign as champion had caused so much acrimony. Johnson's flamboyance had merely served to antagonise his enemies in the white media, particularly his fondness for white women. Louis' management endeavoured from the outset to mitigate against the Johnson factor by presenting Joe in the most benign manner possible.

They were aided by the fact that Joe was a quiet man and by the fact during the 1920's black fighters had won titles at almost all the lower weights without generating a huge outcry. Some of those fighters such as Battling Siki or Kid Chocolate were almost as flamboyant as Johnson. The Heavyweight title however was the richest prize in sport and to get a shot at it a black man needed to be a combination of saint and one punch destroyer. Joe Louis was that man.

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Jim Braddock is one of those shadowy boxing figures who has disappeared so far into myth and legend that his story only bears a partial relationship to the truth. He is now the subject of a movie starring Russell Crowe which will bend the facts even further.

The legend says Braddock was a nobody fighter during the depression era who was reduced to working as a labourer when he managed to secure a title shot against World Champ Max Baer. Braddock shocked the world by beating Baer and lived happily ever after.

The truth is a little more prosaic Braddock was a leading contender for the light heavyweight title during the late 1920s losing a title challenge to Tommy Loughran in 1929. After losing to Loughran Braddock went into a losing run. Between losing to Loughran in July 1929 and June 1934 he didn't manage to go more than three fights without defeat. In the 30 odd fights he had during this period he lost 19. Most people would have given up and retired but this was the 1930s and Braddock would have earned more fighting than he could just with a pick and shovel. Like all but the top fighters of the time or indeed of any other time, Braddock's boxing earnings supplemented his income he was only a full time professional for short periods of his career.

Braddock's problem was his style; he was a competent boxer not flashy or a heavy puncher. This meant he had to work hard to win fights, generally on points. Boxing then as now frequently produced inconsistent points verdicts, the best man didn't always win. He often lost close decisions to the local favourite.

In June 1934 Braddock had his big moment, thrown in against Corn Griffin a leading contender he ko'd Griffin in three rounds. In his next fight he outpointed future light heavyweight champ John Henry Lewis before beating another contender Art Lasky.

Champion Max Baer's handlers identified Braddock as an easy first defence for their man who had swept Primo Carnera so contempteously to the canvas 11 times the previous year. Braddock was a light puncher who wouldn't trouble Baer. At Madison Square Garden in June 1935 Braddock met the under trained Baer head on and gave him a boxing lesson and won a unanimous decision from the judges.

Braddock now had the difficult challenge of holding on to the title. He did this the easy way by sitting on the title for two years waiting for a big money fight to appear. Ex champs like Baer, Sharkey and Carnera drifted out of contention. A young black heavyweight called Joe Louis began to compile an impressive list of scalps including Baer, Sharkey and Carnera but if Braddock fought him he would break the unofficial colour bar which had existed since Jack Johnson lost to Willard in Havana. Times however were changing black challengers of the twenties like Harry Wills, George Godfrey and Larry Gaines could be ignored because they didn't have much of a mainstream appeal. Louis was different, he was the most exciting heavyweight since Dempsey KO'ing everyone in his path. The other potential name challenger was Max Schmeling the German ex champ, the risk in fighting Schmeling was twofold; firstly he could beat Braddock and secondly Braddock's promoter's were unlikely to get a cut of any of Schmeling's future defences which were likely to be run by the Nazis in Germany.

A solution was for Schmeling to fight Louis, a fight which most observers believed would eliminate Schmeling from title contention; Louis looked too strong for him. When Schmeling gave Louis a thorough beating and stopped him in 12 rounds Braddock's people were stuck. Louis had slipped down the ratings and Schmeling looked a certainty to beat Braddock and take the title back to Germany.

Entreaties from Schmeling for a title shot were ignored on the grounds that the World Heavyweight Title was not suitable for Nazi control. Meanwhile Joe Louis embarked on a seven fight winning run which put him back at the top of the ratings. Schmeling's win weakened Louis in the public's eyes and he didn't start a prohibitive favourite against Braddock. Braddock entered the ring having negotiated one of the best purse deals ever, to give Louis a title shot Braddock received not only his purse for the fight but also a percentage of all Louis' subsequent title defences. By the time Louis had retired as Champ in 1948 he had made 25 successful defences making Braddock comfortably wealthy.

The fight itself in June 1937 was exciting while it lasted. Braddock floored Louis in the first and then weathered huge amounts of punishment before being stopped in the 8th. Braddock fought once more beating Welshman Tommy Farr before he retired.

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Max Baer the kid from California with the big smile was a real sporting celebrity in the hungry thirties. He was a prototype of the seventies heavyweights standing 6'2" and weighing 209lbs of muscle. Max worked his way through the ranks fighting the top contenders and winning most of the time usually by a KO. His right cross was a terrific punch, unfortunately it was the only decent punch Max had. He was not a great boxer nor particularly brave or durable. If Max didn't tag you there was a good chance you could beat him. Max also had a habit of clowning around in the ring, making faces and generally unsettling his opponents. Some observers believe that Baer never fulfilled his true potential because of the trauma he experienced when Frankie Campell died after their fight in 1930.

Despite his antics, neuroses and weaknesses Max went on an unbeaten run between July 1931 and June 1933 during which he beat several top contenders and finally KO'd ex Champ Max Schmeling. The Schmeling win got him a title shot against the giant Carnera who he dismissed with ease in June 1934.

Max now did what many champs had done before and began to enjoy being champ. Life was an endless cycle of parties and movies. In June 1935 he signed up for an easy defence against Jim Braddock, a former light heavyweight contender who had hit rock bottom during the depression and had made a reasonably successful comeback. Braddock was considered no threat to Baer. Max trained poorly and found himself being outboxed by Braddock. At the end of the fight Max was an ex Champ.

Three months later Max was back in the ring against the up and coming Joe Louis. On one of Max's worst nights he froze against Louis was stopped in four rounds. This was the end of Max's career as a title contender, he fought on until 1941 but he never got another shot at the title.

Max remained a celebrity appearing in various movies, TV shows, vaudeville theatres and for a time on radio as a disc jockey. He romanced movie stars such as Jean Harlow and generally seems to have had a great time. He died of a heart attack aged 50 in 1959 whilst preparing to appear in a TV commercial.

Max had some Jewish ancestry and frequently wore a Star of David on his trunks, this and his defeat of Max Schmeling made him unpopular with the Nazis who banned the showing of his films in Germany. Max so far has been the only fighter of openly Jewish descent to become World Heavyweight Champion.

Where does Max Baer rate in the heavyweight pantheon? Somewhere in the middle I suspect. He could beat the average champs such as Carnera, Leon Spinks, Burns, Hart and Willard. He would struggle against the more serious fighters unless he managed to tag them early with his right.

Max Baer v Max Schmeling
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TESRO4P7FBY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvy90u97-hY

Max Baer v Primo Carnera
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrAbY8sjbJI

Max Baer v Jimmy Braddock
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF96Oieo2vE

Max Baer v Tony Galento
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKoarFEmRCU

Max Baer v Joe Louis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCZ0vN14UR4

Max Baer v Lou Nova
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4wI-YSBV2s

Max Baer in the movies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VBPAuGf5dE

Max Baer and assorted boxing clips
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U4FZoi0Qwo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IW5PrbZTnGA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Kcj5qn9rs0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypEeCkUiwp4

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