Stewart Stews & Stews & Stews – But in the End Here Are His Top Five Fights of All Time

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

Having told the guy with the fedora, the pinky ring and the New York thing about my top 5 fighters he gave me a new assignment… OK Sir Sean he said, give me your top 5 fights. I started with nearly 40! I struggled. This was partly because I love boxing and the last fight I saw? – well that’s now one of my top 5! I can’t have so many top 5’s, can I? I mean I know I am an artist but maths buddy means there are only 5 in your top 5! So I have made my selection…

Deciding what is the top of anything is personal. These are MY favorite fights and this is down to their importance – not just to me – but to the sport itself. I have never pretended that I can break down a fight and tell you how the fight was won; but I do believe that I know how to tell a story. I think I know how to construct a narrative. Each one of these fights was significant because of what came after or what led to them happening in the first place – I hope, like me, you enjoy…

#5 Ken Buchanan Vs Jim Watt, 1973

I was 8 years old and unfortunately this does not get told at the fireside of boxing children but it should. In Glasgow the man who was at the peak of his powers took on the young pretender over 15 rounds; and beat him. The facts of the evening are this – Buchanan had just lost to Roberto Duran; Watt was the British lightweight champion; and the fight was at the St Andrew’s Club in Glasgow. This was a bruising contest that pushed the former world champion to his limits as the Edinburgh man came through and along the motorway to the Glaswegian’s home town and won; it rankled. It had sat poised on a knife edge going into the 13th round when Watt showed weakness and tiredness. Buchanan pounced and punished, harried and hassled and chased Watt for the next three rounds until Watt submitted to defeat.

The oft quoted phrase overheard, as Buchanan was pronounced the winner, came from the lips of Buchanan himself who pronounced, “Honestly, Jim you’re a better man than I thought you were.” When Duran finally vacated the world crown, Watt was to prove just how good he was and win it. Buchanan had already been world champion, and was now an outright British champion though he was still to go onto European glory but not any more world titles. He was later inducted into the boxing hall of fame; a rightful presence in an august body. Watt is now a recently retired commentator for Sky Sports whilst Buchanan has struggled in recent years with even a comeback on the unlicensed circuit mooted; thankfully for an icon of Scottish sport that did not materialize. For us all, the memories ignite each time their names are mentioned.

#4 Ricky Hatton Vs Kostya Tszyu, 2005

There was a time when my life was busier away from watching boxing – thinking I might have been having kids (ouch) – and after that time away this was one of the fights that reignited my passion for the sport. The WBU champ, Hatton, unusually went into this fight as the underdog. This was because he was up against an IBF world champion, Kostya Tszyu, of ten years standing in a unification fight. Tszyu’s only defeat on his record, had been anointed the upset of that year by Ring Magazine! It simply meant that Hatton was not supposed to win. The fact he did gives us a clue to the enormity of the fight, though Ring Magazine was later, bizarrely, to put Tszyu as the number one light welterweight of the decade and Hatton, who beat him, behind him at number two.

In the UK Hatton was a massive crowd pleaser. His fans became legendary as they travelled the world to see “The Hitman” perform. In this contest he was up against another national hero, this time from Australia. This was to be Tszyu’s last professional fight, though nobody was to know that before the first bell. Tszyu was a slow starter and in the first two rounds of the fight, Hatton got into an early lead. In the middle rounds the contest then descended from classic to brawl as both used whatever tactics worked to gain an advantage; at one point Hatton hit the canvass after a deliberate low blow.

Wars of attrition often end when one side is unable to keep things going and by the end of the 11th Tszyu was done and in came the towel. Winning the IBF title for Hatton moved him onto bigger and better things – namely even bigger legendary status amongst British fight fans and bigger fights. Whilst Tszyu retired, Hatton was to go on for another 4 years before defeats to both Floyd Mayweather, JR, and Manny Pacquiao was to bring the curtain down on this iconic career. I shall not be too critical of the later comeback that Hatton lost, as the glory of nights like this – against Kostya Tszyu – would tempt anyone out of retirement. For me it was staying up to 2am to watch the fight as it was broadcast to the USA from Manchester that remains long in the memory…

#3 Barry McGuigan Vs Eusebio Pedroza, 1985

When I was growing up all that Northern Ireland meant to me was death and terror. Living on the mainland UK in amongst the most religiously divided part of Scotland – between Protestants and Catholics – meant that you never, and I mean never, escaped that conflict. In 1985 a Catholic fighter who had fought for Ireland in the 1980 Moscow Olympics and who had married a Protestant woman captured the hearts of both communities. He went to London with both communities chanting his name with hope and returned with a world title as he beat Eusebio Pedroza of Panama over 15 rounds. There are no words that can describe how significant that win was for sport, for boxing or for Northern Ireland.

The WBA featherweight title win for McGuigan – a belt now round the waist of his protégé, Carl Frampton – was the highlight of a remarkable career which had seen him already as British and European Champion. His opponent was no mug though and had defended his title 19 times successfully and been champion for 7 years. On the night of the fight, McGuigan’s ring walk was abandoned as his own fans had taken over the football ground in which the fight was being staged and he had to climb over seats to get in, taking an amazing 12 minutes to get to the ring. Wearing the UN flag on his shorts, with his father singing Danny Boy before the fight – a man who had represented Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest – McGuigan’s supporters were silenced as Pedroza went into an early lead. Then in the 7th McGuigan dropped him and charged on. As the fight went on to 15 rounds – McGuigan had NEVER been beyond 10 before – it gave McGuigan the opportunity to put those early rounds to bed. He came out victorious on points, a legend was born and I, for one, know how such a uniting force in the province and the Island made Northern Ireland seem far more human than ever before.

#2 Nigel Benn Vs Chris Eubank II, 1990

I cannot describe how much this ignited the 1990’s and British boxing. It was a golden era for super middleweight/middleweight boxing in and around the UK with Michael Watson, Steve Collins and then the emergence of Joe Calzaghe; but Benn and Eubank were the cherry on the cream on the top of a magnificent cake. The public demanded they meet and they did not disappoint – this was the second in a double header. The first contest was for Benn’s WBO middleweight belt. Fought on the 18th November 1990 in Birmingham, (The UK, not Alabama baby…) in a gruelling contest, Eubank stopped Benn in the 11th round so revenge was in the air…

Three years after their first meeting, now with both men being super middleweight champions, the fight was made. If the first was a classic that could have gone either way, this was to live up to the unbelievable hype. Given the title of Judgement Day it happened on the 8th October 1993 at Old Trafford, the home of Manchester United. The still undefeated Eubank was heavily fancied as Don King’s promotion brought 42,000 people into the stadium to watch and a global television audience of half a billion stayed at home glued to their televisions!

As a spectacle there was nothing like it in sport and we got a war in the ring that was not quite as brutal as the first contest but just as fiercely fought. The draw saw both retain their belts but it left us all dangling with a frustrating outcome – we wanted it even or a definitive result. Why I love it is because it refused to answer the debate and draw the controversy to a conclusion – we love to talk things and hypotheticals over, therefore a draw was the imperfect result that left us talking. Now much older both have talked of a Benn/Eubank III – 2 is enough for me.

#1 Muhammad Ali Vs Sonny Liston I, 1964

This heralded momentous changes in the boxing world because Muhammad Ali took the world heavyweight belt but he also threw verbal hand grenades into the sport. It happened on the 25th February 1964 – before I was even born – and came on the back of Sonny Liston knocking Floyd Patterson out twice – both in knockouts happening in the first round. For many Liston was an unassailable beast and people were sold the idea that this was an Ali lamb brought to the Liston slaughter.

Ali had actually started with the fight as soon as the ink was dry on the contract. Ali got a bus covered with the legend, “Liston Must Go In Eight” and went round to Liston’s house at 3am to show it off along with the press! Ironically this brash young pup made the mafia bruiser, Liston more attractive to white America. It was in The New Republic that the editor, Murray Kempton, later to win a Pulitzer Prize made the following observation, “Liston used to be a hoodlum; now he is our cop; he was the big Negro we pay to keep sassy Negroes in line.” In many ways this defined how Ali would go on to treat other brothers of his ethnic race.

The fight lasted for 6 rounds. Liston tried to finish it early but Ali danced and pranced around him. This was sheer poetry versus a brutal beast and the lyrics were spell binding. The story became a Liston charge, followed by Ali rallying. There was also a bizarre fifth round after which Ali claimed his eyes were burning and he was now the one chasing shadows. There has been much speculation as to whether Liston’s corner had doctored Liston’s gloves to send some foreign object or other onto Ali’s face. By the 6th Ali’s sight was returning and having weathered the possibility of disqualification at the end of the 5th because of the fuss over his eyes, it was soon Liston who sat on his stool and refused to answer the 7th bell. The last heavyweight champion to sit on his stool and lose his belt had been in 1919! Whilst Liston sat, Ali was dancing in the middle of the ring, introducing us to the Ali shuffle.

Once the dust had settled there was the debate over whether Liston’s camp had deliberately tried to blind Ali in the 5th round. The word inadvertently was used when referring to the possibility that an irritant was used but some, especially former opponent, Eddie Machen were convinced there was no mistake – something had been applied deliberately. He claimed that a substance was rubbed on Liston’s shoulders so that when you were in clinches with the man it dripped into your eyes and stung. There was also the theory that Liston lost because he had a debilitating shoulder injury from the 1st round which stopped him competing properly. There was clear evidence that Liston did have a severe shoulder injury after the fight; some in is corner blew the theory out the water when they described the injury story as total BS.
And so Muhammad Ali was born and the legend begun, but I leave the last words to the legend and the poem he sent to Liston and the world, the night before the fight…

Clay comes out to meet Liston and Liston starts to retreat,
If Liston goes back an inch farther he’ll end up in a ringside seat.
Clay swings with a left,
Clay swings with a right,
Just look at young Cassius carry the fight.
Liston keeps backing but there’s not enough room,
It’s a matter of time until Clay lowers the boom.
Then Clay lands with a right, what a beautiful swing,
And the punch raised the bear clear out of the ring.
Liston still rising and the ref wears a frown,
But he can’t start counting until Sonny comes down.
Now Liston disappears from view, the crowd is getting frantic
But our radar stations have picked him up somewhere over the Atlantic.
Who on Earth thought, when they came to the fight,
That they would witness the launching of a human satellite.
Hence the crowd did not dream, when they laid down their money,
That they would see a total eclipse of Sonny.

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