October 7, 2018 ♟️ Kiryl Relikh entered the World Boxing Super Series as WBA super-lightweight champion. Eduard Troyanovsky had already held a world title and carried knockout power deep into his late 30s. The quarterfinal in Yokohama never became a reckless war. Relikh boxed cautiously. Troyanovsky waited for openings. The champion built the early lead by taking the initiative while the challenger remained too patient. Troyanovsky finally increased his pressure late. By then, he needed more than a rally. After 12 rounds, all three judges produced the same score: 115-113 Relikh. Kiryl Relikh had retained the WBA title and advanced in the tournament. October 7 was not spectacular. It was professional. A champion did enough early, survived the veteran’s late push and moved one fight closer to the tournament’s biggest names.

October 7, 2018 🥋 Kenshiro Teraji was undefeated and already building a serious WBC light-flyweight reign. Milan Melindo was a former IBF champion who had scored a famous first-round knockout over Akira Yaegashi the year before. The matchup promised elite-level experience against a rising Japanese champion. Teraji controlled most of it with the jab. Again and again, the champion beat Melindo to the target and opened a cut around the challenger’s eye. Melindo had moments, especially with an overhand right in Round 2. Teraji stayed in control. Late in Round 7, the doctor examined the damage and decided Melindo’s vision was too compromised to continue. The fight was stopped at 2:47. Kenshiro had retained the WBC title for the fourth time. October 7 was another quiet step inside a reign that eventually turned Teraji into one of the defining small-weight champions of his generation.

October 7, 2006 🩸 Tomasz Adamek and Paul Briggs already knew exactly how painful fighting each other could be. Their first meeting in 2005 was a bloody majority-decision win for Adamek that gave him the vacant WBC light-heavyweight title. The rematch was just as ugly. Briggs made the perfect start by dropping Adamek in Round 1. Adamek recovered, but the fight became another exhausting battle of pressure, cuts and momentum swings. In Round 9, Adamek also lost a point for a low blow, making the scoring even tighter. After 12 rounds, two judges favored Adamek while the third had it even. Adamek retained the championship by majority decision. Across 24 rounds, Briggs never stopped making him work and never gave him an easy night. But he never quite got the belt either. The rivalry became one of the toughest chapters of Adamek’s light-heavyweight career — two fights, two narrow decisions and enough damage to make sure neither man needed a third.

9 years ago today October 7, 2017 🥋 Demetrious Johnson entered UFC 216 tied with Anderson Silva at 10 consecutive UFC title defenses. One more win would give “Mighty Mouse” the record by himself. Ray Borg took him deep into the fight. Then, in Round 5, Johnson did something nobody had ever seen. He lifted Borg for a back suplex. While Borg was still in the air, Johnson transitioned straight into an armbar. Borg hit the canvas already trapped. Tap. Eleven straight title defenses. A UFC record. And somehow Johnson broke it with one of the most creative submissions in MMA history.

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October 7, 2018 👹 Naoya Inoue entered the World Boxing Super Series bantamweight tournament with a growing reputation as one of boxing’s most frightening punchers. Juan Carlos Payano was a former world champion and had never been stopped. Seventy seconds later, that statistic was gone. Inoue barely needed time to study him. A perfectly timed one-two sent Payano crashing flat onto the canvas. There was no dramatic count, no desperate recovery and no second phase to the fight. It was over. Inoue had defended his WBA bantamweight title and advanced in the tournament with a first-round knockout. The finish was later recognized as one of the year’s best knockouts, but its real significance was the message it sent to the rest of the bracket. Inoue was not simply entering the tournament as another champion. He looked like the man everyone else would have to survive. He eventually won the entire competition — and the 70-second destruction of Payano was his opening statement.

Ryan Garcia Would KO Floyd Mayweather Age is undefeated

Ryan Garcia would put old man Floyd Mayweather to SLEEP

October 7, 2006 ♟️ Diego Corrales and Joel Casamayor had already split two fights. The third should have been the clean ending to the rivalry. Instead, the drama started before the bell. Corrales, the WBC lightweight champion, came in five pounds over the 135-pound limit and lost his title on the scale. The belt could now only be won by Casamayor. Once the fight started, the Cuban veteran made the most of the opportunity. Casamayor used his southpaw straight left, movement and timing to frustrate Corrales for long stretches. Corrales kept pressing and had his moments, but the cleaner work belonged to Casamayor often enough. After 12 rounds, Casamayor won a split decision. He took the vacant WBC title and the trilogy 2-1. It was Corrales’ final major championship fight and a strangely fitting ending to a rivalry built on contrasting styles: Corrales wanted violence, Casamayor wanted control. In the deciding fight, control won.

October 7, 2023 🤯 For six rounds, Josh Warrington looked like he was taking Leigh Wood’s world title away from him. Warrington’s pressure was relentless. He hurt Wood, opened a cut around his eye and built a lead on all three scorecards. Wood looked like a champion running out of answers. Then came the final seconds of Round 7. Warrington had already been docked a point for punches to the back of the head, but he was still controlling the fight when Wood suddenly landed a huge right hand. Everything changed instantly. Wood unloaded a rapid combination and dropped Warrington heavily just before the bell. Warrington got up, but he was unsteady as he turned toward his corner. Referee Michael Alexander decided he was in no condition to continue and stopped the fight. Wood retained the WBA featherweight title with one of the most dramatic comeback finishes in recent British boxing. He had been cut, hurt and behind. Then, in a handful of punches, he completely rewrote the night.

October 6, 2018 👑 Danny Roman was building one of the strongest super-bantamweight runs in boxing. Gavin McDonnell came from Britain with a world-title dream and enough toughness to make the champion work. The WBA belt was on the line in Chicago. Roman controlled much of the fight with sharper combinations. McDonnell stayed competitive, especially in the later middle rounds, and refused to disappear. Then Round 10 changed the night. Roman landed a hard hook that badly shook the challenger. He followed with a heavy attack. McDonnell went down, got back to his feet and tried to continue. The referee had seen enough. Danny Roman had retained the WBA super-bantamweight championship by 10th-round stoppage. October 6 was another step toward unification. Roman would eventually add the IBF title too. Before that, he had to break down a challenger who kept making him earn every round.

October 6, 2018 💣 Artur Beterbiev and Callum Johnson entered Chicago undefeated. Beterbiev held the IBF light-heavyweight title. Johnson arrived with serious power and no interest in surviving. The fight exploded immediately. Beterbiev dropped Johnson in Round 1. Johnson answered in Round 2 with a left hook that put the champion on the floor. Suddenly, one of boxing’s most feared punchers had been hurt. Beterbiev recovered. Round 3 settled slightly. Round 4 did not. Two hard right hands sent Johnson down again. This time he could not beat the count. Artur Beterbiev had retained the IBF title by knockout. October 6 showed something new about him. Everybody already knew he could hurt opponents. Johnson proved the champion could be hurt too. Beterbiev’s answer was to get up, regroup and finish an unbeaten challenger two rounds later.

October 6, 2012 🔁 Adrián Hernández wanted his title back. Ten months earlier in Thailand, Kompayak Porpramook had dragged him into a violent fight and knocked him out in Round 10 to take the WBC light-flyweight championship. The rematch moved to Hernández’s home country of Mexico. This time, the pattern changed. After a difficult opening round, Hernández began landing the cleaner, heavier punches. He dropped Porpramook in Round 3 and kept increasing the pressure. By Round 6, the Thai champion was fading. A right hand sent Porpramook down again near the ropes, and the referee stopped the fight. Hernández had avenged the only knockout loss of his career and regained the WBC title. The two fights became a perfect two-part rivalry. In Thailand, Porpramook had survived the early punishment and broken Hernández late. In Mexico, Hernández made sure there would be no late comeback. He took control early, finished the job in six rounds and walked away with the same championship he had lost in their first war.

2 years ago today October 5, 2024 🥋 Khalil Rountree was a huge underdog against Alex Pereira, but he gave the UFC champion a real fight and even made Poatan work from behind. Pereira slowly broke him down, then unleashed a savage final-round assault to score the TKO at 4:32 of Round 4. Rountree was expected to be overwhelmed, yet he made Pereira fight from behind before the champion’s late assault finally broke him down — a much tougher defense than the odds suggested. A title fight carries a different kind of pressure because every exchange is measured against the standard of a champion. The build-up made the stakes clear long before the result was official. In the aftermath, the performance mattered beyond one night. It changed how the division viewed the winner and became part of the larger story of that championship era.

8 years ago today, the biggest fight in UFC history happened October 6, 2018 Khabib Nurmagomedov vs Conor McGregor finally fought. In honor of that, here is Conor McGregor himself telling the story about him and Khabib Nurmagomedov's brawl. The tension had been building for months. There were taunts, the bus attack and security at every turn. McGregor was stepping back into MMA after almost two years away. Khabib, meanwhile, was putting his lightweight title on the line. When the cage door shut, Khabib took control. He knocked McGregor down with a right hand, shut down his grappling and made him tap to a neck crank in the fourth round. But the night’s chaos wasn’t over. Khabib leapt over the cage, and a brawl erupted. UFC 229 had already made history as the promotion’s biggest commercial event. Then, after the fight, it became even more unforgettable.

October 6, 2018 🇹🇭 Srisaket Sor Rungvisai had already shocked Roman “Chocolatito” González twice and established himself as one of boxing’s most dangerous smaller fighters. Now he got to defend his WBC super-flyweight title in front of a huge home crowd in Thailand. Iran Diaz came to Bangkok hoping to spoil the celebration. Srisaket never allowed it. He pressured behind heavy body shots, controlled the exchanges and kept Diaz from building sustained offense. Diaz was durable enough to survive the full distance, but the champion was clearly ahead. The scorecards read 120-108, 119-109 and 119-109. Srisaket retained his world title. The event was also unusual because the championship bout headlined a ONE Championship show — placing elite professional boxing alongside the promotion’s other combat sports. For Srisaket, though, the meaning was simpler. After years of building his name abroad, the Thai champion returned home with a world belt and gave his own crowd a dominant 12-round victory.

October 6, 2007 🚨 Samuel Peter was known as one of the most dangerous punchers in the heavyweight division. Jameel McCline nearly turned him into a knockout victim. With the WBC heavyweight title situation thrown into chaos by Oleg Maskaev’s injury, McCline stepped into the opportunity on short notice. Then he produced the best few minutes of his career. McCline dropped Peter once in Round 2 and twice more in Round 3. Three knockdowns. Peter looked close to being finished. But McCline could not close the door. Peter survived, steadied himself and slowly reclaimed control as McCline’s energy faded. His jab and heavier work began deciding the later rounds. After 12, Peter won a unanimous decision. It was a strange kind of heavyweight statement. Peter did not prove that he was impossible to hurt. He proved something almost as important: even after being dropped three times early in a championship fight, he could recover, fight his way back and still leave Madison Square Garden with the win.

October 6, 2007 ⚔️ Four years earlier, Manny Pacquiao had announced himself to a much wider audience by battering Marco Antonio Barrera into an 11th-round stoppage. The rematch came with their careers in very different places. Pacquiao was now one of boxing’s biggest rising stars. Barrera was the legendary veteran looking for one last chance to rewrite the story. He could not. Barrera boxed more cautiously than in the first fight and survived all 12 rounds, but Pacquiao’s speed and pressure kept him in control. Whenever Barrera tried to build momentum, Pacquiao answered with faster combinations and forced him back into defense. The judges scored it unanimously for Pacquiao. There was no shocking breakthrough this time. No dramatic changing of the guard. That had already happened in 2003. The second fight was confirmation. Pacquiao had not simply caught a great champion at the right moment four years earlier. He had become the superior fighter — and he was still climbing toward even bigger divisions, bigger opponents and a historic career.

October 5, 1985 🇵🇦 Hilario Zapata had already been one of the best light-flyweights of his era. Now he wanted a world title in a second division. The vacant WBA flyweight championship was available in Panama City. Alonzo González stood across from him. The two had already fought earlier that year, with Zapata winning over 10 rounds. The championship rematch demanded 15. Zapata stayed disciplined. He used movement, timing and experience to keep González from turning the fight into something reckless. After 15 rounds, the decision was unanimous. Hilario Zapata was WBA flyweight champion. He had become a world champion in a second weight class. October 5 added another major chapter to a Hall of Fame career. Zapata would defend the flyweight belt five times before finally losing it in 1987. The second division had become another long-term home.

Old school boxing was so much better What went wrong?