By Dan Morley
THE crowning of a new heavyweight champion has long enticed the interest of boxing fans worldwide. A shift in boxing’s glamour division offers heavyweight contenders the crown jewel in sports: the world heavyweight title.
The nature of uncertainty is always present when the sport’s Goliaths collide. The ever-changing structure of heavyweight supremacy in the last few years is a prime example of this.
Anything can happen in heavyweight boxing. When two big men collide, both the fight and landscape of the division can change in an instant, which generates further intrigue regarding Anthony Joshua and Daniel Dubois’ battle for the recently relinquished IBF belt.
Joshua will look to enter elite company, joining a group of fighters spearheaded by heavyweight history’s greatest combatant, Muhammad Ali, in becoming a three-time world champion.
Yet, an in-form Daniel Dubois will look to upset the odds and use his strength, power, and newfound fortitude to win his first heavyweight title.
Joshua poses a challenge many feel Dubois will struggle to overcome. Yet Joshua himself has been upset by an unfavored challenger, longing for his crowning moment, in Andy Ruiz.
Although the winner of this fight’s claim as the king of the division is overshadowed by Oleksandr Usyk’s indisputable supremacy, throughout history, the victory of a fighter’s first-ever heavyweight proper world title has provided some of the sport’s most shocking moments.
Joshua lost two fights back-to-back against Oleksandr Usyk. (Getty Images)
The emphatic, violent fashion in which certain fighters have snatched their first title has sent shockwaves around the world and changed the path of the sport forever.
Even though he has previously reigned as a WBA and later an IBF Interim king, if Dubois is going to pull off his biggest world-level success to date, he will look to channel history’s most devastating champions, who snatched the crown in ruthless fashion.
Here are the most emphatic, devastating, first world title wins in history:
4) Sonny Liston KOs Floyd Patterson in one round
Liston’s massacre of history’s first two-time heavyweight champion, Floyd Patterson, was executed with the brutality, coldness, and efficiency of an assassin. Having cleared out every fighter on an impressive list of top 10 contenders, a feat no fighter has carried out before or after, Liston finally got his shot at Patterson.
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