When Angelo Leo detonated a left hook on Luis Alberto “Venado” Lopez’s jaw in the 10th round on Saturday night in Albuquerque, it brought a close contest to the most clear-cut conclusion possible — but made another close contest instantly less clear cut.
What is 2024’s knockout of the year? There were three devastating finishes to debate among prior to Saturday, and now there are four.
With a single hook, Leo flattened a featherweight titleholder who’d never before been knocked down, never mind out. Three weeks earlier the little-known Lucas Bahdi used a combination of two rights, a left, and a superfluous right to turn hot prospect Ashton Sylve into a bearskin rug six rounds into a fight in which Sylve had won just about every second of every round. In June Gervonta Davis did what Gervonta Davis so often does – leveling Frank Martin with a left hook in the eighth round to suddenly pull the plug on a tight fight. And in March, Anthony Joshua showed Francis Ngannou what’s supposed to happen when novice heavyweight boxers and elite heavyweight boxers clash, folding him with an all-business right hand in the second round.
Which one is your favorite? Well, it depends on your personal criteria for what makes an iconic knockout.
For me, violence comes first. Everything starts with the aesthetic value of the way the punch – or punches – land and the gruesomeness of the resultant crumpling.
Then there are three other significant factors, in no particular order – the magnitude of the fight (this is where something like Joshua-Ngannou has an edge over something like Bahdi-Sylve); the drama of the moment (this is where an out-of-nowhere reversal like Bahdi-Sylve has an edge over a saw-it-coming-a-mile-away finish like Joshua-Ngannou); and the matter of just how knocked out the victim was (barely budging before the ref tolls 10 certainly tops beating the count and the ref waving it off).
So, again: what is 2024’s knockout of the year?
We have another four-and-a-half months to decide.
In the meantime, let’s dig a little deeper: What are the best knockouts of the 21st century?
Counting down from 10 to 1, here are my picks, with one caveat – I don’t want to make up my mind about the 2024 knockout of the year yet, so I’m leaving all of the 2024 contenders off. I can’t say for certain that any of those four leading larrups would have cracked the top 10, but I’ll defer on those decisions as I give myself more time to absorb the impact (figuratively, not literally, thank goodness) of each.
Here, then, are the top 10 knockouts from 2000 through 2023…
10. Naoya Inoue KO 1 Juan Carlos Payano, October 7, 2018
If you were wondering why they called this kid from Japan “The Monster”, this World Boxing Super Series fight ended that suspense quickly. Inoue only landed two punches in this contest. That was all he needed to land. Against Payano, a well-regarded former titlist whose only previous loss came by majority decision, a perfect one-two one minute into the fight led to a 10-count and an official time of one minutes, 10 seconds of the opening round – and the shortness and suddenness of the “two” in the one-two was particularly extraordinary. Even in slow motion it looks fast. Inoue has knocked out nearly every man he’s faced – many of them viciously – but this remains the best of the bunch.
9. Hasim Rahman KO 5 Lennox Lewis, April 22, 2001
This was not named the 2001 knockout of the year — indeed, it was not even the best knockout in a Rahman-Lewis fight in 2001 (sorry for the spoiler about what’s to come on this countdown). But for earth-shaking magnitude, not much can beat the heavyweight title changing hands via one punch in the biggest upset since Buster Douglas-Mike Tyson. Lewis got careless, and one right hand to the jaw put him on his back. He wasn’t quite out cold — rather, he was about halfway to standing up when the count finished. And the replay doesn’t make the average fan cringe the way others on this list do, hence its placement toward the tail of the countdown. Still, knockouts don’t come much more memorable than “The Rock” making history in South Africa.
8. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez KO 6 Amir Khan, May 7, 2016
I was exchanging messages with my ol’ podcast partner Kieran Mulvaney this week, and he said of this knockout, “Canelo erased Khan’s hard drive with that shot”. Indeed, Alvarez’s right hand erased it, and then the whole computer went in the trash compactor when Khan’s head bounced off the canvas. Everyone figured the first main event at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas would end early and with Canelo’s hand raised, but you couldn’t have known the Mexican superstar would deliver with such form and style. A subtle feint brought Khan’s hands down, and a full-extension right hand brought down the rest of him.
7. Leigh Wood KO 12 Michael Conlan, March 12, 2022
One of the most dramatic fights of the 2020s reached a crescendo midway through the 12th round, when Wood finished a stirring comeback by ejecting his opponent from the ring. Trailing on all cards, Wood backed a wounded Conlan to the ropes and landed a right to the chin that instantly deprived him of his consciousness. The Irishman’s body slumped against the ropes, resembling a marionette whose puppeteer had just released his grip, then pitched backwards and slid through the ropes and to the floor as Wood let loose four academic follow-up punches. For Conlan, who hasn’t been the same fighter since suffering this first defeat, there would be no middle fingers of dispute flipped on this night.
6. Allan Green KO 1 Jaidon Codrington, November 4, 2005
“And it’s over! Over in 18 seconds!” That was ShoBox broadcaster Nick Charles’ simple, stunned reaction when the opening bout of a two-fight card concluded concussively before the blow-by-blow man had even had time to set the table. This scheduled eight-rounder between hard-hitting, unbeaten super middleweights – combined record coming in, 26-0, 20 KOs – only went 1/80th of its scheduled run-time and ended spectacularly. Green rocked Codrington with a left hook to the temple eight seconds in, then uncorked 15 punches in rapid succession – several of them landing flush, with a right-left combination at the end separating Codrington from his senses and pitching the upper half of his body through the ropes. He came to about three minutes later – the victim of the most explosive knockout in the proud history of ShoBox.
5. Sergio Martinez KO 2 Paul Williams, November 20, 2010
You can’t unsee it. Williams’ eyes wide open, looking but not processing as he lay face-first on the mat, unconscious from leaning directly into the perfect lightning left hand – it’s a truly haunting boxing image. After a controversial distance fight won by Williams 11 months earlier, “Maravilla”, who had become the middleweight champion of the world in the interim, returned to Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City and got his revenge. All it took was one southpaw hammer a minute into the second round – a punch that traveled just about six inches and left Williams roughly six inches tall on the canvas for the full count and beyond.
4. Manny Pacquiao KO 2 Ricky Hatton, May 2, 2009
If there was a second-round left hand this century even more crushing than the one with which Martinez splattered Williams, well, enter the greatest southpaw fighter of the century – Pacquiao. Just when it seemed like Hatton, who’d been down twice in the opening round, had started to get his legs under him, the fighters heard the clapper warning that round two was almost over — and “The Hitman” didn’t hear a darned thing after that. Pacquiao cranked up a left with everything he had, Hatton never saw it coming, and he torpedoed to the floor, awake but unable to move a muscle, no longer the lineal 140lbs champion.
3. Antonio Tarver KO 2 Roy Jones, May 15, 2004
OK, we’re not finished just yet with iconic second-round southpaw lefts. The left hand Tarver landed on Jones’ jaw is not the most aesthetically mind-melting punch on this list. And Roy was not unconscious; he arguably beat ref Jay Nady’s count. So this fight ranking in the top three on this list stands as a testament to its shock value. Jones was perceived as untouchable. We figured this could never happen to him. Until it did. Tarver’s career-defining one-punch knockout win was the ultimate proof that no man is untouchable, no boxer is unbeatable, and no result in this sport is impossible. Watch it again, turn the volume up, and try to discern Jim Lampley’s knockout call over the roar of the crowd. It’s nearly impossible. That’s the sound that accompanies a knockout no one will ever forget.
2. Lennox Lewis KO 4 Hasim Rahman, November 17, 2001
Rahman may have scored the upset of the year in 2001. But it was Lewis who authored the KO of the year. After seven months of stewing, hearing whispers, developing animosity, and plotting revenge, Lewis unleashed it all at Mandalay Bay as only he could – with a controlled, methodical fury. The overhand right was always Lewis’ money punch, and never has it been set up better than when he threw a left hook Rahman’s way, designed not to damage him but to distract him. Rahman reached his arms straight out, as he often did when an opponent was closer than “Rock” wanted him to be, but Lewis kept his distance and followed with a full-force sweeping right hand on the button. The camera shot from above of Rahman’s head inside the Don King Promotions crown was almost too good to be true, and though Rahman threatened to tarnish the imagery slightly by beating the count, his rise at eight was followed by a face-first tumble at nine and the most satisfying finish of Lewis’ Hall of Fame career.
1. Juan Manuel Marquez KO 6 Manny Pacquiao, December 8, 2012
Boxing history is loaded with classic calls by blow-by-blow announcers. But there’s probably no more iconic line from a color analyst than: “He’s not getting up, Jim. He’s not getting up, Jim. He’s not getting up.” (And how appropriate that the line was delivered by one of the knockout victims on this list – Roy Jones) This knockout had everything. It was the conclusion of one of the greatest rivalries in boxing history, capping off the best of Pacquiao and Marquez’s four fights. It was a single counterpunch – perfectly delivered – with the loser’s forward momentum as essential to the impact as the punch itself. And it left a true all-time great unconscious — and frighteningly so. Pacquiao leapt in just before the bell to end the sixth round, Marquez timed him with the right hand he’d been waiting his whole life to throw, and Roy was quite right — Manny was not getting up. Not if the ref had given him a 100-count.
Eric Raskin is a veteran boxing journalist with more than 25 years of experience covering the sport for such outlets as BoxingScene, ESPN, Grantland, Playboy, Ringside Seat, and The Ring (where he served as managing editor for seven years). He also co-hosted The HBO Boxing Podcast, Showtime Boxing with Raskin & Mulvaney, The Interim Champion Boxing Podcast with Raskin & Mulvaney, and Ring Theory. He has won three first-place writing awards from the BWAA, for his work with The Ring, Grantland, and HBO. Outside boxing, he is the senior editor of CasinoReports and the author of 2014’s The Moneymaker Effect. He can be reached on X or LinkedIn, or via email at [email protected].
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