This week in boxing history, PBC recalls the final chapter of a thrilling heavyweight trilogy, our second-ever fight card and three Fights of the Year, including one deemed the best bout of the 1990s.
March 13, 1961 – Floyd Patterson knocked out Ingemar Johansson in the sixth round to retain his world heavyweight title at the Miami Beach Convention Center.
The bout was Patterson’s first defense in his second title reign, and the third and final meeting between the two champions. The Ring named the first round, in which Patterson was knocked down twice and Johansson once, the Round of the Year.
March 13, 1993 – Michael Carbajal gained a seventh-round KO of Humberto Gonzalez to unify the WBC and IBF junior flyweight titles at the Las Vegas Hilton.
Carbajal was knocked down in rounds 2 and 5, and trailed on all three scorecards when he stopped Gonzalez with a left hook to the chin with one second remaining in the seventh. The Ring voted the thriller Fight of the Year.
March 13, 2015 – Andre Berto stopped Josesito Lopez in the sixth round of a welterweight non-title bout at Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario, California, in the main event of the second-ever Premier Boxing Champions card.
Also featured on the Spike TV broadcast were Shawn Porter’s fifth-round KO of Erick Bone in a 147-pound bout, and Chris Arreola winning a unanimous decision over Curtis Harper in an eight-round heavyweight brawl.
March 17, 1977 – Jimmy Young beat George Foreman by 12-round unanimous decision in a non-title heavyweight bout at Roberto Clemente Coliseum in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Young gained a 12th-round knockdown of Foreman, who would not fight for another 10 years. The Ring named the bout Fight of the Year, and also deemed the final three minutes worthy of Round of the Year.
March 17, 1990 – In one of boxing’s most controversial endings, Julio Cesar Chavez gained a 12th-round TKO of Meldrick Taylor to unify the WBC and IBF junior welterweight titles at the Las Vegas Hilton.
Taylor was leading on two of the judges’ scorecards and would have won a decision, but the 68-0 Chavez knocked him down with less than 20 seconds left in the bout. Although Taylor rose to his feet, referee Richard Steele waved an end to the fight with two seconds left. The Ring not only voted the bout Fight of the Year, but later selected it as Fight of the Decade.
