It’s Halloween, and looking back, there have only been a handful of big fights that took place on October 31: a big night for scares, but perhaps not so much for The Sweet Science. That said, these fights each took place on All Hallows Eve:
Joe Gans DQ5 Jimmy Britt. Oh, if only this wild one had been captured in film! Knocked down no less than four times, world lightweight champ Gans was saved as his challenger belted him as he was rising from the final knockdown, hence the DQ.
John Henry Lewis W15 Bob Olin, to win the world light heavyweight crown.
The great Sugar Ray Robinson pounded out a decision over habitual fouler and genuine tough guy Fritzie Zivic, in a non-title showdown.
Khaosai Galaxy KO 12 Kenji Matsumura. Galaxy is truly one of the underappreciated greats.
Lennox Lewis KO 2 Donovan “Razor” Ruddock. A heavyweight fight/result that sent shockwaves through the division.
Naseem Hamed W12 Wayne McCullough. Hamed’s ring entrance proved controversial, with the graveyard setting being too distasteful for some, coming as it did after the tragic passing of a young boxer. But McCullough – possibly the possessor of one of the sturdiest chins in boxing history- went nowhere when Hamed hit him with his best shots.
And now, here tonight, when it’s dark and the wind may be howling as the kids come calling, screeching out “trick or treat,” let’s take a look back at the five scariest, most frightening of all fighters. Maybe one or more of the above-written about fighters rank for you as one of the scariest ever?
How scary are these guys?
Edwin Valero
Valero really is the stuff of nightmares, and not at all in a fun and friendly, ‘Happy Halloween’ way. Valero, a man who was seemingly possessed, both when he was in the ring and when he was out of it, was actually a good fighter and a potentially great puncher. But his ring achievements aside, Valero is best known today for the brutal murder he committed, with the crazed fighter tragically taking the life of his own wife. There is plenty of hate for “El Inca.”
Sonny Liston
Liston was a man capable of turning a rival fighter’s legs to jelly, both with a punch and with a baleful stare, before hostilities had even got going inside the squared circle. Liston had truly chilling punching power, while one look, one bad look, from Sonny would see many a proud fighter cave in mentally. Yet away from his media-portrayed dark side, Liston was said to be a genuine nice guy, a man who loved kids and had a terrific sense of humour. Liston just might be the most misunderstood fighter of them all.
Mike Tyson
How could Tyson not make such a list? Capable, when in truly crazy mode, of biting a man’s earl, or of trying with all his might to break another ring foe’s arm, Tyson was at one time capable of giving plenty of kids nightmares. Tyson was ferocious in his prime, and he routinely chucked out some scary sound-bites: “I was trying to catch him on the tip of his nose, so his nose would go up into his brain,” Tyson once said of an opponent. Tyson, like Liston, had a genuinely kind side to him, but for many, he will always rank as the heavyweight terror nobody could ever defeat before things fell apart in a massive way, with the entire world watching.
Carlos Monzon
Some say “Escopeta,” or “Shotgun,” deserves to rank as the greatest middleweight of them all. But one thing Monzon did not deserve was his freedom. It was a truly ghastly turn of events that saw the end of both Monzon and his wife, Alicia Muniz, in February of 1988. Monzon, who had already shown a dark side to his nature, strangled Muniz into an unconscious state before throwing her (and himself) off a balcony. Monzon, when confronted by authorities, claimed the incident had been the result of an accident. Monzon, who had cold blood in his veins when he fought, also had a chilling mixture of ice and red-hot rage coursing through his veins when some unfathomable dark side overwhelmed him.
Happy Halloween, and happy nightmares!