Jersey Joe’s Hooking of Ezzard Charles No. 1 on my List of All-Time Kayos

Anyone who’s into sports is also into making lists, and boxing fans are no different. We all tend to update our all-time and current pound-for-pound top 10s, as well as those for our most memorable fights witnessed in person, on television or via vintage film footage. For purposes of this story, the subject is one-punch knockouts, boxing’s equivalent of the walk-off home run, the answered Hail Mary, the desperation three-pointer with the shooter’s team down two a tick before the buzzer sounds.

Not every such devastating shot, of course, is delivered in the last round by the guy trailing on points. Sometimes it comes earlier, and with the instant winner already ahead on the scorecards. There is a natural tendency to give greater credence to put-away punches in fights involving historically significant fighters, and especially if they come in historically significant bouts. But each of us prioritizes our memories of sudden, dramatic, finishes with no particular sense of rhyme or reason. And with the looming 67^th anniversary of my personal favorite, Jersey Joe Walcott’s picture-perfect left hook that turned out the lights on heavyweight champion Ezzard Charles, it seems a good time to fondly recall the, yes, historically significant blow that ended nearly 21 years of frustration for someone who could finally say he was the, uh, Cream of the crop.

The following list excludes, for the most part, knockouts registered as the result of combination-punching (so no Joe Louis over Max Schmeling in their celebrated rematch, or Ray Mercer over Tommy Morrison), as well as kayos where the groundwork was mostly laid by accumulated damage.

No. 1, Jersey Joe Walcott KO7 Ezzard Charles, July 18, 1951, Pittsburgh

Walcott, whose birth name was Arnold Cream, for professional purposes assumed the slightly revised moniker of Joe “The Barbados Demon” Walcott, a welterweight champion whose career ended in 1911. The original Walcott was a hero to young Arnold’s father, Joseph Cream, who had migrated to New Jersey from the British Virgin Islands.

By whatever identity he chose to fight under, Jersey Joe was among the best of his era. But making it to the very top of the heavyweight mountain proved to be a frequently fruitless task. He was already 0-4 in world title bouts, having twice lost to Joe Louis and twice to Charles. Despite having come up short in those fights, Walcott remained a leading light in the division, and so it was that he got a fifth shot at his sport’s ultimate prize, in Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field, a rematch with Charles, who had scored a wide 15-round unanimous decision only four months earlier in Detroit.

This time, however, Jersey Joe was sharper and better than he had been in his most recent go at the pugilistic pride of Cincinnati. In scoring by rounds, Walcott led on the cards, 5-1, 4-1-1 and 3-3 entering the seventh round when he made history by becoming the oldest heavyweight champion to that point, at 37. Moving forward while rocking side to side, the 9-1 underdog dipped to his left and exploded upward with a thunderous hook that caught Charles flush on the jaw. The semi-conscious champion pitched forward onto his face.

“Was that the highlight of my grandfather’s career? Absolutely,” Jersey Joe’s grandson, Vincent Cream, 58, told me. “He always believed his time would come, and it did.”

Walcott retained the title once, on points over fellow Hall of Famer Charles, against whom he was 2-2, and he remained the oldest man to win a heavyweight title for 43 years, until 45-year-old George Foreman knocked out Michael Moorer on Nov. 5, 1994. He also holds a couple of records that probably will stand forever, having fought eight  times for the heavyweight championship (going 2-6), five of those bouts incredibly coming in succession, the last two being losses to Rocky Marciano, at which point Jersey Joe retired with a 51-18-2 record that included 32 wins inside the distance. He was a charter inductee into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990.

His career as an active boxer over, Jersey Joe – who was 80 when he passed away on Feb. 25, 1994 — remained in the game as a referee and, later, as the chairman of the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board, a position he held from 1975 to ’84. Some choose to remember him more for his role as the referee for the controversial Muhammad Ali-Sonny Liston rematch, on May 25, 1965, in Lewiston, Maine, in which Walcott was distracted by The Ring publisher Nat Fleischer’s shouting from ringside after Liston was floored in the first round. Walcott lost track of the count, an embarrassing gaffe, and he never again worked as a referee.

But for me and more than a few others, the most compelling memory of Jersey Joe Walcott is as the author of what arguably is the most beautiful single punch of all time. I was not quite four years old when that shot turned the lights out on Ezzard Charles, but it is part of my video collection and I have watched it often, a constant reminder of the suddenness in which any fight can end.

Walcott also stands as a prime example of the fact that those who benefit from a magnificent wallop also can be on the wrong end of one. To wit …

No. 2, Rocky Marciano KO13 Jersey Joe Walcott, Sept. 23, 1952, Philadelphia

 The legend of Rocky Marciano is rooted in the fact the squatty power puncher went 49-0, remaining undefeated despite having been taken to the brink several times. Never was The Rock in a more perilous position than the night he challenged heavyweight champion Jersey Joe Walcott in Municipal Stadium, before a raucous crowd of 40,000-plus. Entering the 13^th round, he trailed on all three official scorecards, in rounds by margins of 8-4, 7-4-1 and 7-5. Marciano needed to come up with something big, and quickly.

He did just that. Backing Walcott into a corner, Marciano unleashed his not-so-secret weapon, a short, pulverizing right hand he called the “Susie Q.” It landed with such concussive force that, for all intents and purposes, Walcott was already dethroned, the grazing left that Marciano threw on his way to a neutral corner for ornamental purposes only. Jersey Joe – who subsequently lost to Marciano on a first-round KO – was momentarily in a kneeling position before pitching forward onto his face, where he was counted out by referee Charlie Daggert.

No. 3, Thomas Hearns KO2 Roberto Duran, June 15, 1984, Las Vegas

They called him “The Hitman” for a reason, and Hearns demonstrated why when he defended his WBC super welterweight title by landing what most agree was the most crushing punch of his career, an overhand right that immediately turned the lights out on fellow legend Duran, who was never an easy guy to take out with one shot, or even many.

No. 4, Marvin Hagler TKO3 Thomas Hearns, April 15, 1985, Las Vegas

Boxrec.com lists this as a stoppage, not a knockout, but come on, that’s only because referee Richard Steele didn’t bother with initiating a count. Somebody was going to get knocked out once these guys began trading haymakers from the opening bell, and the pressure might have been more on the Marvelous one, who was fighting with a bad cut that might have led to an actual stoppage had he not gotten Hearns out of there before the ring doctor could intervene. Hearns was already hurt when Hagler, the middleweight champion, unleashed the right hook that sent the challenger crashing to the canvas as if he had been hit by speeding bus.

No. 5, Sugar Ray Robinson KO5 Gene Fullmer, May 1, 1957, Chicago

Robinson had lost his middleweight title to Fullmer on a 15-round unanimous decision four months earlier in New York, but he reclaimed it in another stylistically intriguing clash of an aging artist (Robinson) vs. a younger, rough-around-the edges bull (Fullmer). The bull had the edge in their four-bout series, going 2-1-1, but on this night the Sugar man came out on top with a short and sweet left hook that floored and so discombobulated the about-to-become champion that Fullmer, after being counted out, claimed not to even remember what had happened.

No. 6, Joe Frazier KO2 Bob Foster, Nov. 18, 1970, Detroit

There does seem to be a lot of left hooks featured on this list, doesn’t there? Few threw the punch with more authority than Smokin’ Joe, who retained his NYSAC and WBA heavyweight titles, in addition to claiming the vacant WBC belt, by separating light heavyweight ruler Foster from his senses with a particularly devastating edition of his signature punch.

No. 7, Evander Holyfield KO3 Buster Douglas, Oct. 25, 1990, Las Vegas

Holyfield was not really known as a one-punch-and-get-you-out-of-there kind of fighter, but he and astute trainer George Benton had determined that Douglas, coming off his shocking upset of Mike Tyson in Tokyo, would be vulnerable to an overhand right were he to make the mistake of throwing an uppercut from distance. Buster attempted the long uppercut, Holyfield rocked slightly backward before coming forward with an overhand right that found the mark. Just like that there was a new undisputed heavyweight champion.

No. 8, Mike Tyson KO1 Michael Spinks, June 27, 1988, Atlantic City

For aesthetic purposes, there are other knockouts, even those unleashed by Tyson, that I might place higher than this one. But the atmosphere in Boardwalk Hall that night was incredibly electric, and the short right hand that put the “Spinks Jinx” down for the second time, and out, marked perhaps the last time that we saw Iron Mike at his most fearsome best.

No. 9, Razor Ruddock KO4 Michael Dokes, April 4, 1990, New York

I’m fudging a bit with this one since, technically, it might not qualify as a one-punch knockout. Ruddock had a hybrid left hook-uppercut he called “The Smash,” and it was all that. He bludgeoned Dokes, whose back was to the ropes, with one of them. Unconscious but seemingly frozen on his feet, a defenseless Dokes’ hands were down at his sides as Ruddock missed with a right hand before connecting  with two more “Smashes.” When Dokes toppled without even trying to break his fall, more than a few spectators probably thought he was dead. Fortunately, he wasn’t.

No. 10 (tie), Tim Witherspoon KO1 Anders Eklund, Oct 19, 1989, Atlantic City

Marciano had the “Susie Q,” Ruddock had “The Smash” and Witherspoon, who twice held alphabet heavyweight titles, had the “Can Opener,” an overhand right that came in over the top, like a hook shot in basketball. The 6-6½ Eklund, from Sweden, was the can that got opened this night. He was out before he hit the deck.

No. 10 (tie), Derrick Jefferson KO6 Maurice Harris, Nov. 6, 1999, Atlantic City

Was that an unidentified flying object, or Harris’ mouthpiece? It seemed a legitimate question after the smaller man (Harris weighed in 211 pounds to the 6-6 Jefferson’s 246) got nailed with a left hook that sent the supposedly protective piece of equipment sailing backward as if jet-propelled.

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