In their first meeting, at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, Las Vegas on May 7, 2005, Diego ‘Chico’ Corrales made the first defence of his WBO lightweight title against Jose Luis ‘El Temible’ Castillo, who was, in turn, making the third defence of his WBC lightweight title. Fought on the inside, right from the start, the fight was a brutal encounter, which left both combatants battered and bruised and was later named ‘Fight of the Year’ by ‘The Ring’ magazine.

Despite the punishment metered out, both men kept their feet for the first nine rounds of back-and-forth action but, early in round ten, Castillo landed a flush left hook, which knocked Corrales to the canvas. Corrales spat out his gum shield, earning himself an extra few seconds while it was rinsed and replaced by his corner man. He did so once more when knocked down, again, a few seconds later and incurred the wrath of referee Tony Weeks, who penalised him a point for the repeated infraction.

Nevertheless, in an extraordinary turnaround, Corrales landed a thunderous left hook of his own and followed up with a flurry of powerful shots that left Castillo sagging, defenceless, against the ropes. Weeks quickly stepped in to stop the contest, Corrales winning by technical knockout after 2:06 of round ten.

Read about the fight here

Read about the fight here

On September 16, 2017, at the T-Mobile Arena, Las Vegas, reigning unified WBA (Super), WBC, IBF middleweight champion Gennaday ‘GGG’ Golovkin put his titles on the line against ‘The Ring’ middleweight champion Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez in front of a sellout crowd of 22,358. Heading into the fight, billed as ‘Supremacy’, Golovkin was defending a perfect 37-0-0 record, including 33 knockouts, while Alvarez had a record of 49-1-1, including 34 knockouts, with his only defeatcoming four years earlier, at the hands of Floyd Mayweather Jnr..

Unsurprisingly, the bout was highly anticipated and attracted 1.3 pay-per-view buys. After a tactical start, during which Alvarez fared best, Golovkin took over in the middle rounds but, with both fighters delivering tremendous power shots, few rounds were clear-cut, one way or the other. Indeed, in the closing stages, the crowd rose to its feet to cheer a classic encounter, in which both men everything they had. The result went to the judges and while the first two, Dave Moretti and Don Trella, scored the fight 115-13 in favour of Golovkin and 114-114, respectively, the third, Adalaide Byrd, scored it 118-110 in favour of Alvarez. Byrd was pilloried for her egregious scorecard, but the result remained a controversial draw, by split decision.