97 Fights
A History of Modern Boxing
John SutherlandA charged, ringside chronicle of boxing’s heroes, scandals and ever-shifting future
The noble art of boxing is the world’s oldest contact sport. Its Big Bang moment was the arrival of Thomas Alva Edison, whose pioneering feature film Men Boxing was produced in 1891. From that seed, boxing grew to become the first truly global sport.
97 Fights is a thrilling, no-holds-barred account that considers all the greats – Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali, Nicola Adams and Oleksandr Usyk among them. Modern boxing has weathered the storms of mob fixing, wayward fighters and personal tragedy, in and out of the ring. With signature precision and humour, and the passion of a true fan, John Sutherland charts the sport’s precipitous climb, its golden era and its uncertain future, from the ‘Thrilla in Manila’ to the unedifying spectacle of Logan Paul’s ‘Bragging Rights’. Ultimately, the book asks: where will boxing go? Or will it just go? These are the two questions to which Sutherland’s authoritative survey leads, and to which he supplies authoritative answers.
A charged, ringside chronicle of boxing’s heroes, scandals and ever-shifting future
The noble art of boxing is the world’s oldest contact sport. Its Big Bang moment was the arrival of Thomas Alva Edison, whose pioneering feature film Men Boxing was produced in 1891. From that seed, boxing grew to become the first truly global sport.
97 Fights is a thrilling, no-holds-barred account that considers all the greats – Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali, Nicola Adams and Oleksandr Usyk among them. Modern boxing has weathered the storms of mob fixing, wayward fighters and personal tragedy, in and out of the ring. With signature precision and humour, and the passion of a true fan, John Sutherland charts the sport’s precipitous climb, its golden era and its uncertain future, from the ‘Thrilla in Manila’ to the unedifying spectacle of Logan Paul’s ‘Bragging Rights’. Ultimately, the book asks: where will boxing go? Or will it just go? These are the two questions to which Sutherland’s authoritative survey leads, and to which he supplies authoritative answers.
-
'
From his keen eye to his precise style, Sutherland sets the standard for modern-day boxing books with this compendium of great fights. By using angles, sharp context, and in-depth research, Sutherland takes the reader on a nostalgic journey that leaves you yearning for 97 more! There is no doubt about this one – it is a must-read.
'Christian Giudice, author of Hands of Stone: The Life and Legend of Roberto Durán
Introduction
FIAT LUX
1 Unnamed Boxers, 1891
2 Jack Cushing vs Michael Leonard, June 1894
3 Peter Courtney vs James J. Corbett, 14 June 1894
4 James J. Corbett vs Bob Fitzsimmons, 17 March 1897
5 Joe Gans vs Terry McGovern, 13 December 1900
WILD WEST AND WEST END
6 Joe Gans vs Battling Nelson, 4 September 1906
7 Tommy Burns vs Gunner Moir, 2 December 1907
THE COLOUR AND COLOR OF BOXING
8 Jack Johnson vs Tommy Burns, 26 December 1908
9 Jerry Jerome vs Arthur Cripps, 13 August 1910
10 Jack Johnson vs Jim Jeffries, 4 July 1910
11 Sam Langford vs Bill Lang, 21 February 1911
12 Abe Attell vs Johnny Kilbane, 22 February 1912
13 Jess Willard vs Jack Johnson, 5 April 1915
14 Joe Beckett vs Billy Wells, 27 February 1919
15 Georges Carpentier vs ‘Battling Siki’, 24 September 1922
16 Ted ‘Kid’ Lewis vs Georges Carpentier, 11 May 1922
17 Benny Leonard vs Lew Tendler, 27 June 1922
18 Pancho Villa vs Jimmy Wilde, 18 June 1923
THE GREATER FIGHT
19 Eugène Criqui vs Johnny Kilbane, 2 June 1923
20 Paul Munting vs Moe Herscovitch, August 1920
THE DEMPSEY ERA
21 Jess Willard vs Jack Dempsey, 4 July 1919
22 Jack Dempsey vs Georges Carpentier, 2 July 1921
23 Jack Dempsey vs Luis Ángel Firpo, 14 September 1923
24 Gene Tunney vs Tommy Gibbons, 5 June 1925
25 Gene Tunney vs Jack Dempsey, 23 September 1926
26 Jack Dempsey vs Gene Tunney, 22 September 1927
BOXING BECOMES WORLD HISTORICAL
27 Victor ‘Young’ Perez vs Jackie Brown, 31 October 1932
28 Max Baer versus Max Schmeling, 8 June 1933
29 Primo Carnera vs Paulino Uzcudun, 22 October 1933
30 Primo Carnera vs Max Baer, 14 June 1934
31 Walter Neusel vs Max Schmeling, 26 August 1934
32 Max Schmeling vs Joe Louis, 19 June 1936
33 Tommy Farr vs Joe Louis, 30 August 1937
34 Max Schmeling vs Joe Louis, 22 June 1938
WAR AND BOXING
35 Billy Conn vs Joe Louis, 18 June 1941
36 Freddie Mills vs Len Harvey, 20 June 1942
POST WAR: MIDDLEWEIGHT SUPREME
37 Jake LaMotta vs ‘Ray Robinson’, 2 October 1942
38 Dick Turpin vs Mark Hart, 5 February 1948
39 Tony Zale vs Rocky Graziano, 10 June 1948
40 Jake LaMotta vs Billy Fox, 14 November 1947
41 Jake LaMotta vs Marcel Cerdan, 16 June 1949
42 Freddie Mills vs Joey Maxim, 24 January 1950
43 Sugar Ray Robinson vs Jake LaMotta, 14 February 1951
44 Sugar Ray Robinson vs Randolph Turpin, 10 July 1951
45 Rocky Marciano vs Don Cockell, 16 May 1955
THE DIVIDED REIGN OF MUHAMMAD AND TEÓFILO
46 Cassius Clay vs Zbigniew Pietrzykowski, 18 August 1960
47 Ingemar Johansson vs Floyd Patterson, 20 June 1960
48 Cassius Clay vs Henry Cooper, 18 June 1963
49 Cassius Clay vs Sonny Liston, 25 February 1964
50 Joe Frazier vs Muhammad Ali, 8 March 1971
51 Teófilo Stevenson vs John Tate, 29 July 1976
52 Muhammad Ali vs George Foreman, 30 October 1974
53 Muhammad Ali vs Joe Frazier, 1 October 1975
THE FEMALE FIST
54 Barbara Buttrick vs Phyllis Kugler, July–August 1957
55 Lucia Rijker vs Chevelle Hallback, 22 March 1997
MEANWHILE IN BRITAIN
56 Alan Minter vs Marvin Hagler, 27 September 1980
57 Bob Foster vs Chris Finnegan, 26 September 1972
58 John Conteh vs Jorge Ahumada, 1 October 1974
THE HISPANIC ZONE: MONZÓN TO ARGÜELLO
59 Carlos Monzón vs Nino Benvenuti, 7 November 1970
60 Ismael Laguna vs Ken Buchanan, 13 September 1971
61 Roberto Durán vs Sugar Ray Leonard, 25 November 1980
62 Alexis Argüello vs Alfredo Escalera, 28 January 1978
FIGHTING TO FIGHT
63 Dallas Malloy vs Heather Poyner, 30 October 1993
64 Christy Martin vs Deirdre Gogarty, 16 March 1996
65 Jane Couch vs Lucia Rijker, 21 June 2003
66 Laila Ali vs Jacqui Frazier, 8 June 2001
67 Nicola Adams vs Maria Salinas, 27 September 2019
A FISTFUL OF KINGS
68 Marvin Hagler vs Thomas Hearns, 15 April 1985
69 Gerrie Coetzee vs John Tate, 20 October 1979
70 John Mugabi vs Marvin Hagler, 10 March 1986
71 Marvin Hagler vs Sugar Ray Leonard, 6 April 1987
THE DARK SIDE
72 Mike Tyson vs Trevor Berbick, 22 November 1986
73 Mike Tyson vs Michael Spinks, 27 June 1988
74 Mike Tyson vs Frank Bruno, 25 February 1989
75 Mike Tyson vs James ‘Buster’ Douglas, 11 February 1989
76 Mike Tyson vs Evander Holyfield, 28 June 1997
THE HISPANIC INGREDIENT
77 Julio César Chávez vs Meldrick Taylor, 17 March 1990
78 Julio César Chávez vs Oscar De La Hoya, 7 June 1996
79 Oscar De La Hoya vs Manny Pacquiao, 6 December 2008
BRITANNIA RULES (AGAIN)
80 Chris Eubank vs Nigel Benn, 18 November 1990
81 Lennox Lewis vs Tommy Morrison, 7 October 1995
82 Lennox Lewis vs Mike Tyson, 8 June 2002
83 Joe Calzaghe vs Chris Eubank, 11 October 1997
84 David Haye vs Nikolai Valuev, 7 November 2009
85 Ricky Hatton vs Kostya Tszyu, 4 June 2005
86 Naseem Hadem vs Wayne McCullough, 31 October 1998
87 Amir Khan vs Andreas Kotelnik, 18 July 2009
88 Anthony Joshua vs Andy Ruiz Jr, 1 June 2019
89 Tyson Fury vs Wladimir Klitschko, 28 November 2015
SLAVA UKRAINI
90 Vitali Klitschko vs Corrie Sanders, 24 April 2004
91 Wladimir Klitschko vs Chris Byrd, 14 October 2000
92 Oleksandr Usyk vs Anthony Joshua, 25 September 2021
93 Oleksandr Uyk vs Tyson Fury, 18 May 2024
WHITHER BOXING? WITHER BOXING?
94 Floyd Mayweather Jr vs Logan Paul, 6 June 2021
95 Tommy Fury vs Jake Paul, 26 February 2023
96 Mike Tyson vs Jake Paul, 15 November 2024
97 Katie Taylor vs Amanda Serrano, 15 November 2024
Conclusion
References
Acknowledgements
Photo Acknowledgements
John Sutherland, the Emeritus Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature at University College London, is a much-published author and journalist and a familiar figure in the literary world. He has long had the wish to write on boxing, the most hurtful sport, and what it has come to mean in his own lifetime.
