Julio Cesar Chavez Vs. Meldrick Taylor - The Fight

The Fight

Taylor's brilliant hand and foot speed and boxing abilities gave him the early advantage, allowing him to begin building a large lead on points. He frequently hit Chávez with dazzling combinations and danced around the other man, making it difficult for Chávez, a skilled combination puncher who relied on an accumulation of damage to knock out his foes, to land more than one blow at a time. However rather than become discouraged Chávez remained relentless in his pursuit of Taylor and due to his greater punching power Chávez made sure that Taylor had to pay a terrible toll in order to win rounds. Coming into the later rounds, Taylor was bleeding from the mouth, his entire face was swollen, the bones around his eye socket had been broken, he had swallowed a considerable amount of his own blood, and as he grew tired, Taylor was increasingly forced into exchanging blows with Chávez, which only gave Chávez a greater chance to cause damage. While there was little doubt that Taylor had solidly won the first three quarters of the fight, the question at hand was whether he would survive the final quarter, especially after the end of the 11th round when Taylor was so dazed that he nearly went into Chávez' corner between rounds, until referee Richard Steele directed him back to his own.

Going into the final round, Taylor held a secure lead on the scorecards of two of the three judges, (Dave Moretti and Jerry Roth had the score 107-102 and 108-101 respectively for Taylor, while Chuck Giampa had Chávez ahead 105-104), and the sense for everyone watching was that Chávez would have to knock Taylor out to claim a victory, whereas Taylor merely needed to stay away from the Mexican legend. However, in a strange scene between rounds, Taylor's trainer Lou Duva told him that he needed to win the final round, and as a result Taylor did not stay away, but continued to trade blows with Chávez. As he did so, Taylor showed signs of extreme exhaustion, which included staggering around the ring, visibly wobbling as he moved and at one point he fell to the canvas after missing Chávez with a wild left. But regardless of that, every tick of the clock brought Taylor closer to victory unless Chávez could knock him out.

With about a minute left in the round, Chávez hit Taylor squarely with several hard punches, and Taylor responded by mockingly feigning weakness, but Chávez was not convinced by Taylor's bravado and stayed on the attack, continuing to hit Taylor with well-placed shots. Finally, with about 25 seconds to go, Chávez landed a hard right hand that caused Taylor to stagger forward towards a corner, forcing Chávez back ahead of him. Suddenly Chávez stepped around Taylor, positioning him so that Taylor was trapped in the corner, with no way to escape from Chávez' desperate final flurry. Chávez then nailed Taylor with a tremendous right hand that dropped the younger man. By using the ring ropes to pull himself up, Taylor managed to return to his feet and was given the mandatory 8-count. Referee Richard Steele asked Taylor twice if he was able to continue fighting, but Taylor failed to answer. Steele then concluded that Taylor was unfit to continue and signaled that he was ending the fight, resulting in a TKO victory for Chávez with only two seconds to go in the bout.