There are few things more thrilling in sports than when a fighters is taken off their feet by an opponent. In some fights it happened more than what seemed natural, and some fighters just couldn’t stay upright.
On one hand, getting knocked down loses the affected fighter a point in the round and at best, the optics aren’t great. But sometimes the embarrassment and shock of hitting the deck wakes a fighter up in the short-term. And in the long-term, the best fighters use it as a lesson.
Perhaps the fighter most famous for soaking up the knockdowns was heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson. He was a smaller heavyweight with a good punch, but a clean shave could bowl him over. Even so, that’s part of what made him an exciting fighter.
Beyond Patterson, many fighters made their names on soldiering through adversity by peeling themselves off the canvas. There have also been fights from yesteryear that featured surprising amounts of knockdowns, and those can’t be left out.
On this episode of the Knuckles and Gloves Boxing Radio podcast, boxing historians Patrick Connor and Aris Pina speak a bit on Ryan Garcia’s victory over Luke Campbell from a few weeks back before discussing knockdowns. A whole lot of knockdowns.
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