{"id":80471,"date":"2019-05-24T10:59:17","date_gmt":"2019-05-24T16:59:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=80471"},"modified":"2019-05-24T11:04:08","modified_gmt":"2019-05-24T17:04:08","slug":"looking-back-at-legendary-las-vegas-fights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=80471","title":{"rendered":"Looking Back At Legendary Las Vegas Fights"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=80471\" rel=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=80471\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-80472 size-full\" style=\"margin-right: 10px;\" src=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/download-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"232\" height=\"169\" \/><\/a><strong>By \u201cBad\u201d Brad Berkwitt<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Las Vegas for decades has been a gamblers and boxing fan\u2019s paradise where some of the biggest fights in boxing history have taken place. For this article, we are going to look at three such fights.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sugar Ray Leonard Vs Tommy \u201cThe Hitman\u201d Hearns Caesar\u2019s Palace Las Vegas, NV (September 16, 1981)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Promoted as &#8220;The Showdown&#8221;. Sugar Ray Leonard 30-1, 21 KO\u2019s was the WBC Welterweight Champion a title he held from 1979 \u2013 1980 when he lost to Roberto Duran in a 15 round unanimous decision on June 20, 1980, only to win it back a little over 5 months later when Duran echoed the words \u201cNo Mas\u201d in the 8th round that would haunt him for years to come.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Tommy \u201cThe Hitman\u201d Hearns, 32-0, 30 KO\u2019s was the WBA Welterweight Champion a title he had won the previous year against then champion Pipino Cuevas on August 2, 1980 by a destructive second round knockout. \u201cThe Showdown\u201d took place at Caesar\u2019s Palace in Las Vegas, NV to<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=80471\" rel=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=80471\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-80475 size-medium\" style=\"margin-left: 10px;\" src=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/ray-and-tommy-rumble-300x209.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"232\" height=\"169\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>unify the world welterweight championship in a scheduled fifteen-rounder.<\/p>\n<p>They fought before a live crowd of 23,618 and a worldwide TV audience of some 300 million. It was a fantastic fight that saw Hearns winning early by being the boxer and Sugar Ray Leonard down on the cards coming back in an all out war to have his hand raised when referee Davey Pearl stepped in ending the fight via TKO in the 14th round when Hearns was badly hurt.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=80471\" rel=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=80471\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-80473 size-medium\" style=\"margin-right: 10px;\" src=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Holmes-vs.-Cooney-action1-300x209.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"232\" height=\"169\" \/><\/a>Larry Holmes Vs Gerry Cooney Caesar\u2019s Palace Las Vegas, NV (June 11, 1982)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Going into this fight, WBC Heavyweight Champion Larry \u201cThe Easton Assassin\u201d Holmes, 39-0, 28 KO\u2019s had defended his belt successfully 11 times. His opponent \u201cGentleman\u201d Gerry Cooney, 25-0, 21 KO\u2019s was billed as \u201cThe Great White Hope\u201d. The fight was massive at the time and pitted many on both sides of the racial fence against each other. Holmes dropped Cooney in round two, but Cooney got up and landed a damage-causing shot to the body by the end of round four. Holmes and Cooney fought closely from rounds five to eight, trading punches in mid-ring. This was the point where Cooney&#8217;s inactivity started really hurting him. Starting in round ten, Cooney&#8217;s punches began landing low, and this caused him to fall further behind on the judges&#8217; scorecards, when referee Mills Lane deducted three points from him for the infractions. Cooney didn\u2019t have the skills to really keep Holmes off of him and by the 13th round wilted in the ring and was stopped by TKO when his cornerman Victor Valle stepped in the ring saving Gerry.<\/p>\n<p>The fight was televised live on closed-circuit and pay-per-view television all over the world. A week after the bout, it was re-broadcast on HBO, and later still, on ABC-TV.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Floyd Mayweather, JR. Vs Manny Pacquiao MGM Grand Las Vegas, (May 2, 2015)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Billed as the \u201cFight of the Century, it grossed more money than any other fight in boxing history from the fighter\u2019s purses, to the ticket sales and PPV. But it didn\u2019t live up to the hype one bit and went down as one of the worst fights in boxing history when Floyd Mayweather, JR. won an <a href=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=80471\" rel=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=80471\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-80474 size-medium\" style=\"margin-left: 10px;\" src=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/mayweather-pacquiao-300x164.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"232\" height=\"169\" \/><\/a>easy unanimous decision in a fight with zero action over Manny Pacquiao by scores of 118-110 &amp; 116-112 (twice).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.onlinecasinobluebook.com\/\">Online Casino Bluebook\u00a0<\/a>can be your source to find all the best online casinos and sports books. Check out the odds before placing a bet on an exciting match.<\/p>\n<p>[si-contact-form form=&#8217;1&#8242;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By \u201cBad\u201d Brad Berkwitt Las Vegas for decades has been a gamblers and boxing fan\u2019s paradise where some of the biggest fights in boxing history have taken place. For this article, we are going to look at three such fights. Sugar Ray Leonard Vs Tommy \u201cThe Hitman\u201d Hearns Caesar\u2019s Palace Las Vegas, NV (September 16, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,10928],"tags":[20168],"class_list":["post-80471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boxing-news","category-columns-by-bad-brad-berkwitt","tag-looking-back-at-some-legendary-las-vegas-fights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80471\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}