In what proved to be the last fight of his career, Frank Bruno defended the WBC heavyweight title, which he had won from Oliver McCall six months earlier, against former undisputed world heavyweight champion ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, Las Vegas on March 16, 1996. Tyson was having his third comeback fight after being released from prison, on parole, the previous March, having served less than three years of a six-year sentence for rape.
Nevertheless, the bout, which was billed as ‘The Championship: Part I’, proved to be a distinctly one-sided affair. Despite conceding 3½” in height and 27lb in weight, Tyson wobbled Bruno with a vicious combination towards the end of the first round and opened a deep cut above his left eye. Bruno looked to hold on at every opportunity, which cost him a point in round two, and offered little or nothing offensively.
After an expletive-laden tirade from his corner man George Francis, Bruno was warned for holding by referee Miles Lane earlier in the third round. Bruno continued to try to smother his opponent but, after two more clinches, Tyson cut loose, landing a crushing right hand to the body, followed by a dozen or so powerful punches, culminating in a left hook that left Bruno sitting, helpless, on the bottom strand of the ropes. Lane quickly intervened, stopping the contest and handing victory to Tyson, by technical knockout, after just 0:50 of round three.
Read about the fight here
On September 18, 1999, unbeaten WBC welterweight champion Oscar De La Hoya faced similarly unbeaten IBF welterweight champion Felix ‘Tito’ Trinidad in a unification bout, billed as the ‘Fight of the Millenium’, at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, Las Vegas. Arguably the most anticipated welterweight contest since Leonard versus Hearns in 1981, it would be fair to say that the fight failed to live up to the hype, but did produce a result that was, and is, shrouded in controversy.
De La Hoya, who was, at the time, the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world, according to the ‘The Ring’ magazine, dominated the early rounds, using his superior hand speed and footwork to keep his opponent at bay. After nine rounds, De La Hoya was ahead, albeit not by far, on two judges’ scorecards. However, in the final three rounds, while he threw more punches per round than Trinidad, De La Hoya landed far fewer forceful blows than his dogged rival. Believing he had the fight ‘in the bag’, De La Hoya attempted to ‘cruise’ the last three rounds, while Trinidad stuck to his game plan and kept banging away.
In pursuit of a knockout, which he seemingly needed to win the fight, Trinidad became the more aggressive and effective of the pair, so much so that just one judge awarded De La Hoya just one of rounds ten, eleven and twelve. However, when the scorecards were tallied, Trinidad had won, by a shock majority decision, 115-114, 115-13, 114-114.