LAS VEGAS — Culling three decades of treasured boxing moments from the premier arena of the world's greatest fighting city is no easy task, especially for someone who has been up close and personal with all the epic action.
So when longtime HBO boxing commentator Jim Lampley was asked by his new specialty website, PPV.com, to choose the most memorable fight he'd seen at Las Vegas' famed MGM Grand Garden Arena, he had less than a minute to choose.
On Saturday night, the venue will celebrate its 100th championship fight card, as WBA lightweight titleholder Gervonta “Tank” Davis (29-0, 27 KOs) defends his belt against Frank Martin (18-0, 12 KOs) in the pay-per-view main event.
The card also includes unbeaten David Benavidez (28-0, 24 KOs) moving up to light heavyweight to face former champion Oleksandr Gvozdyk (20-1, 13 KOs).
This fight will be tough to crack on the top five list Lampley published for BoxingScene.
5. Shane Mosley vs. Oscar De La Hoya II, 2003: “My personal gut feeling was that Oscar was the more aggressive one. He pursued the issue more aggressively and deserved to win the fight,” Lampley said. “All three judges disagreed with me. What's interesting is that all three judges came to the same score, 115-113 Mosley. And when you look at the scorecards, all three judges came to the 115-113 score using completely different formulas.”
The decision created a great deal of controversy, De La Hoya's promoter at the time, Bob Arum, said he would investigate, and De La Hoya was upset.
In the press room after the fight, De La Hoya's publicist and a veteran reporter who had previously been friendly with him argued over the scoring and approached each other, possibly to exchange blows.
At that moment, a veteran television producer who was close to the pair had just left the ladies of the night, tried to separate the men and ease their animosity, and when he turned around to return to the ladies, they were both gone.
Later that night, the writer and publicist were seen laughing and enjoying each other's company at a poolside party beneath a cabana at the MGM Grand's pool.
The TV producer approached the hilarious friends and said hotly: “You guys owe me a blow job!”
4. Marco Antonio Varela-Erick Morales III, 2004: “In his third fight, I thought Barrera put in the performance of his career, a fantastic fight from start to finish, defeating Morales by narrow decision, making him two wins in three fights and establishing himself as one of the great boxers of his generation,” Lampley said.
3. Manny Pacquiao vs. Miguel Cotto, 2009: This was Pacquiao's first bout at welterweight since submitting De La Hoya in a catchweight victory.
Pacquiao knocked Cotto down early in the bout and won by TKO in the 12th round.
“I wasn't sure Manny Pacquiao could really fight Miguel Cotto until they got in the ring. Cotto was obviously the stronger and more physically superior of the two, but at the end of the day, Manny was Manny. He was just as good at welterweight as he was at 122 pounds or featherweight, and he beat Miguel in a great fight,” Lampley said.
2. Juan Manuel Marquez vs. Manny Pacquiao IV, 2012: As I told Lampley during our chat at PPV.com, “You're talking about a trilogy or more, which was a plus.”
Marquez had never knocked Pacquiao down in the previous 36 rounds, but after a heartbreaking loss on the scorecards, he teamed up with Ángel “Memo” Heredia, a key figure in the Barco performance-enhancing drug scandal, and returned much more muscular, taking Pacquiao down early in the fight and delivering some ferocious blows that left the immobilized Pacquiao believed to have died on the spot.
Ranking second on Lampley's list was “a stunning knockout, one of the most breathtaking moments I've ever seen in a boxing match. I'll never forget how Debra wasn't the only one in the arena who thought Manny was dead. The way he fell to the canvas, the lightning-fast punches Marquez landed on him. [with]”The amount of momentum that those two brought to that moment, that physical confrontation. … She wasn't the only one in the arena gasping, out of breath, thinking, 'Oh my God.' It was a great fight and a great example of the effectiveness of powerful counterpunching.”
1. George Foreman-Michael Moore, 1994: Lampley was there to provide play-by-play commentary of Foreman's incredible knockout victory as his longtime broadcast partner, “Big George,” 45, became the oldest heavyweight champion in history when he reclaimed the heavyweight title he had lost to Muhammad Ali nearly two decades earlier in the famous “Rumble in the Jungle.”
“We were very close, [Foreman] Very accurately, “George, how are you going to beat Michael Moore? Michael Moore is a counter puncher, he's a mover, he's a southpaw. What's your plan?”
“George would say to me each time — and I'll never forget it — these exact words: 'Jim, look, he came up to me at the end of the game. Let me “I'll knock him out.”
“Watching the YouTube video again, it's amazing to see that that's exactly what happened. He forced Moore to move, stepped forward and got his right hand behind his back to land a jab – straight from the shoulder, no arc. And he knocked Moore out.”
Lampley's legendary cry was “It happened.”
“'It happened' was a response to the fact that he was telling me how this would happen.”
Great memories, and more to come from Saturday night.
