When boxing’s hardest knockout punchers collide

By Dan Morley

THERE’S nothing quite like a concussive puncher in the sport to bring intrigue to the unpredictable nature of a fight night. Fighters of all shapes and sizes have been blessed with God-given power across the decades. 

Whilst punching technique and strength and conditioning work can further improve an athlete’s punch, many seem to just be born with the equalising ‘touch of death’. Yet power comes in different forms, from the bludgeoning smashes that wear you down over time to the one-hitter quitters. 

Approaching a fight against a formidable puncher adds an extra layer of tactical nous to preparations. Not only must you out-manoeuvre them, but you must always work in a way that keeps you out of danger.

Rarely do you have a situation where two fighters meet in the centre of the ring, both packing dynamite in their gloves. Most fights fans will expect a knockout finish to be inevitable in these cases. And, of course, many of these bouts have provided chaotic, exciting brawls. Occasionally, at times, the anxiety each other’s power instills can nullify the work, resulting in a tame, dull affair. However, as the following list will show, when fighters with all-time great pop in their shots meet, a KO normally follows.

I decided to dig into the archives to try and compile a list of fights in which bonafide power punchers squared off against one another. To whittle the list down to the most extreme cases, one fighter can not be past their best days, in the case of a Marciano–Louis instance, instead, both men need to have been either at their absolute peak or still capable of knocking the greats out after the fight listed. There are many to choose from, yet I’ll only be mentioning a few standouts here in part one of a mini-series that I rank amongst the highest in this category.

When knockout punchers collide, part one…

Wilfredo Gomez 21-0-1 21KO vs Carlos Zarate 52-0 51KO – (28-10-1978)

Starting off with a bang, both metaphorically and literally. If this list were to be ranked, this classic would undeniably be at the very top. Both Gomez and Zarate have a compelling case for being the hardest-hitting smaller fighter in history. 

Their bout entered the iconic Mexican-Puerto Rican rivalry, which saw many great punchers clash. The Mexican Zarate was one of history’s most unassuming-looking punchers. Tall and very thin, his crushing long right hands and crippling body punches obliterated almost every man he defeated. A phenomenal bantamweight great, Zarate hung the gloves up with 63 KOs in 66 Wins, to just four defeats, displaying terrifying consistency. 

Gomez himself was shorter and stockier, unloading his shots with an explosive, brutish speed. Before losing to the immaculate Salvador Sanchez, he had gone unbeaten, scoring 32 KOs in 32 Wins. Even after he suffered a sole defeat, Gomez would score KOs across all his first 40 victories, eventually retiring with a record of 44-3-1 with 42 by KO. Most impressively, the pair had scored a combined 30 world title victories (Gomez 20 and Zarate 10) by the end of their careers, scoring 28 KOs.

When the pair clashed, they had a combined record of 73-0-1, 72 KOs, a jaw-dropping statistic, strengthened by a combined 15 title wins via KO to that point. After a slow start, the pace instantly shifted when a lunging Zarate fell onto a sharp right hand in round four. Gomez sealed the deal in round five, scoring three knockdowns along the way.

Carlos Zarate 45-0 44KO vs Alfonso Zamora 29-0 29KO – (23-04-1977)

One of the reasons the previously mentioned Zarate vs Gomez super fight was so highly anticipated was because both men had proven themselves, and their fight-ending punches, against top opposition. In the case of Zarate, just one year before he would collide with Puerto Rican legend Gomez, he met Alfonso Zamora in an all-Mexican tear-up. 

Zamora was a proven top fighter and a devastating puncher. An Olympic gold medalist, who had won the bantamweight world title as a professional, knocking out champions in Hong Soo-Hwan and future featherweight king Eusebio Pedroza in nasty fashion.

 A similar build to Gomez, the shorter, stout Zamora applied pressure, bobbing his head into range early before, bizarrely, a fan entered the ring. After a group of police yanked the intruder out of the fight zone, the pair met once again in the centre of the ring and traded hooks up close, with Zamora staggering Zarate, sending him to the ropes. 

Zarate responded with his own excellent work, returning the favour in an action-packed four rounds. Zarate closed the gap finishing the fight with three stunning knockdowns against a backed-up Zamora, dropping him with a right before finishing the fight with a left uppercut in the fourth round of an action-packed battle. Although Zamora would never win another title, he maintained frightening punching power, finishing his career with 32KOs in 33 Wins to 5 defeats.

Thomas Hearns 28-0 26KO vs Pipino Cuevas 27-6 24KO – (02-08-1980)

The iconic right hand Thomas Hearns owned is nowadays regarded as one of boxing’s most devastating punches. Being the only man to ice Roberto Duran so grotesquely with it was just a standout amongst a career littered with super fights and super KOs. Yet the 2nd round KO over the ‘Hands of Stone’, was a replica of an earlier fight in ‘The Hitman’s’ career – his crowning moment against ferocious welterweight champion Jose ‘Pipino’ Cuevas. 

Cuevas had pulled off the remarkable feat of winning the welterweight world title at 18 years old after suffering multiple defeats early on in his career. Entering his defence against the overwhelmingly huge challenger Hearns, Cuevas had scored 12 consecutive world title victories, with 11 KOs. Cuevas’s near four-year reign holds a unique record, with the champion breaking more facial bones of challengers than any other fighter in history, typically allowing the bombs detonated from his left hooks do the damage.

When the two met in the centre of the ring, Cuevas instantly tried to clatter the far bigger Hearns with his signature left hook. When Hearns retaliated, the fight became a short-lived, one-sided beatdown. ‘The Hitman’ established the centre of the ring, dissecting Cuevas with cruel straights and crisp combinations. Through the second round, just as he would do with Duran years later, Hearns teed up the left before unleashing a catastrophic right hand that hit the champion so hard, he wobbled momentarily before crashing to the canvas and losing the title. 

The brutal fists of Tommy Hearns had made their mark and would continue to terrorise many divisions for years to come. He had easily dispatched of the man considered to be the most dangerous of the time, which is impressive, considering Duran was prevalently massacring those at lightweight and welterweight during that era.

Gerald McClellan 27-2 25KO vs Julian Jackson 46-1 43KO – (08-05-1993)

When a junior middleweight holds the unofficial title of ‘Boxing’s hardest ever puncher’, you know there will be serious dynamite packed into each fist! This was the case with Julian Jackson, a lean, mean puncher who compiled one of the scariest knockout highlight reels in history. 

Brilliant fighters like Terry Norris and Herol Graham were completely blown away by Jackson, who, across 47 fights, had lost just once to the phenomenal Mike McCallum, in two rounds. 

Gerald McClellan, on the other hand, would refuse to back down from Jackson, himself building a fearsome reputation as boxing’s middleweight monster. All 10 of McClellan’s prior fights heading into the bout had ended via KO within three rounds, with a total of 17 first-round KOs already scored. The G-Man had scored five, first-round KOs consecutively at one point, including a demolition job over John Mugabi, who had absorbed so much punishment from Marvin Hagler.

McClellan entered the bout as as the aggressor in the first, but Jackson landed huge punches of his own in the second, which caused McClellan a great deal of trouble. In the fifth, McClellan connected with a lead right hand that staggered Jackson and instantly pounced for the kill, snapping a jaw-shattering left hook that sent ‘The Hawk’ flying to the canvas. Amazingly, Jackson rose but was quickly dispatched of in the coming seconds. 

Upon the end of their careers, both Jackson and McClellan had scored 54 KOs within the first three rounds. 13 of these KOs from Jackson came in the first round alone, whilst McClellan scored 20 first-round KOs, including a dominant rematch victory against Julian Jackson.

27 April 1994: Gerald McClellan in Los Angeles, California (Al Bello /Allsport)