Feuds
Boxing’s most hate-fuelled rivalries from Gennady Golovkin and Canelo, Floyd Mayweather and Diego Corrales to Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank
With Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin ready to wage war for a third time, it’s the perfect moment to see where the pair rank among boxing’s all-time, genuine, hatred-fueled rivalries.
The fight game is full of so-called ‘grudge matches’ where the promoter winks and his heavyweight flips a table over to add a few more PPV buys. Or there’s the other, more respectful rivalry – like Arturo Gatti vs Micky Ward – where the pair develop a bromance such is their shared admiration.
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None of that here, please. Each of these fighters genuinely loathed one another before they met in the ring – and things often didn’t get much better afterwards. Bring on the hate.
10. Froch vs Groves
George Groves and James DeGale fostered a healthy hatred, but it was Groves’ rivalry with Carl Froch that caught public imagination. The passive-aggressive ‘Saint’ really got under Froch’s skin with mind games including doing a Rubik’s Cube when Carl was talking in a press conference (because it was “harder to solve” than Froch, he claimed).
Their first fight – a woefully early stoppage win for Froch after Groves had hammered him to the canvas in round one – only increased the hostility. It was the hot-headed ‘Cobra’ who cooled down for the rematch, however, knocking Groves out in front of an unspecified number of fans at Wembley.
9. Mayweather vs Corrales
“I’m going to beat Chico like the dog that he is for all the battered women out there,” goaded Floyd Mayweather before their 2001 fight. Diego ‘Chico’ Corrales stood accused of domestic violence and Mayweather went so low as to say he would invite Corrales’ wife ringside to watch the beating he’d dish out.
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A fuming Corrales shot back: “It’s a crying shame the things he’s done, like kicking his own father out of his house. Floyd acts tough when he has seven or eight of his buddies around – but this time it’s going to be just him and me.” Unfortunately for Diego, it was. Floyd put on a career-best display – although Corrales was incensed when his corner threw in the towel to end it.
8. Lewis vs Rahman
Mike Tyson threatened to eat Lennox Lewis’s children and bit him in a pre-fight scrap. But Lewis was always more confused by Tyson and there was an odd undercurrent of respect between the pair – unlike the respect Lewis felt for Hasim Rahman, which was zero.
‘The Rock’ scored an upset KO of Lewis, tried to duck the rematch, then when the pair met on ESPN TV the bad blood boiled over after Rahman questioned Lewis’s sexuality and Lennox told Hasim to “bring your sister” to the studio. That led to them grappling on the floor but their second fight was less competitive, Lewis getting sweet revenge by blasting Rahman out.
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7. Cotto vs Margarito
Antonio Margartio earned a shock stoppage win over Miguel Cotto in 2008. But there was no real malice – until, that is, Margarito’s team were found to be tampering with his hand wraps before a fight with Shane Mosley. Suddenly the legitimacy of the beating he gave Cotto was under question. Especially by Cotto.
An intense rematch featured the pair trading insults and blows until doctors stopped the fight, Margarito sporting a gruesome eye injury. “He hits like a girl,” Antonio grumbled. Cotto called him an “embarrassment to boxing”, adding: “If you don’t know what ‘criminal’ means, look it up in the dictionary. It’s someone who uses a weapon.”
6. Brook vs Khan
Boxing: a sport so crazy that you can hate a person so much, you punish them by not punching them in the face. We almost didn’t get this fight between the British welterweight rivals, Amir Khan not wanting to give Kell Brook the payday while ‘Special K’ could barely contain his dislike towards the more famous ‘King Khan’. They took shots at each other’s private lives, from video mishaps to alleged affairs, until they belatedly fought in February. Brook got the cathartic, one-sided win – and the pair actually seemed to make up in the aftermath – but the contempt felt for over a decade was very real.
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5. De La Hoya vs Vargas
Fernando Vargas hated Oscar De La Hoya in the purest way. The flash, handsome, rich ‘Golden Boy’ made his stomach churn. Both were Mexican-Americans from California, but in Fernando’s eyes he was the real blue-collar Mexican warrior and the older De La Hoya was a sell-out; promoter Bob Arum’s ‘puppet’.
De La Hoya wasn’t going to let that lie and the pair eventually fought in 2002. It was back-and-forth to begin with until Vargas began to tire and Oscar knocked him out in round 11. “He did way too much talking,” said De La Hoya. “Tonight I let my fists do the talking.”
4. Canelo vs Golovkin
Oddly this rivalry was fairly cordial at first. At least before two superb fights – both with controversial decisions – a drug test failure, pay disputes, and a lot of accusations stretched the relationship beyond breaking point.
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For a while it seemed Canelo loathed ‘Triple G’ so much he wouldn’t even give him a trilogy fight. But now we are finally getting it. “He pretends to be a nice guy but he's not, he's an a**hole,” said Alvarez, adding that he wants to retire the Kazakh. Golovkin is biting his tongue, but his seething ill-will is palpable.
3. Barrera vs Marquez
“No, I don’t hate him,” said Erik Morales. “He’s just a motherf***er. It’s that simple.” Thanks for clearing that up, ‘El Terrible’. The truth is that Marco Antonio Barrera and Morales reviled each other with an intensity that was evident throughout their epic trilogy, as the pair threw punches both inside the ring and at pre-fight media face-offs.
Marquez was from Tijuana and thought that Barrera, from Mexico City and the son of a businessman, was a superior snob. Barrera just clearly hated Marquez with every fibre of his being. Which makes it all the more confusing that eventually – long after their retirement – the two became friends and were spotted having lunch together. Next thing we all know, Eddie Hearn will be holidaying with Frank Warren.
2. Benn vs Eubank
“I personally do hate him,” said Nigel Benn, glowering with an icy ferocity before his first fight with Chris Eubank. The proudly working-class, ex-army ‘Dark Destroyer’ simply couldn’t stand the airs and graces of ‘Simply the Best’ with his cane, jodhpurs and monocle. Eubank flat out refused to even face Benn. And this was just the contract signing.
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The pair had a brutal war in 1990, won by Eubank via stoppage; then fought to a controversial draw at Old Trafford in 1993. The enmity gradually dissolved in retirement, but whether that peace accord survives their sons’ fight in October is quite another matter. The two dads with a cheeky six-rounder on the undercard, anyone?
1. Ali vs Frazier
The most famous rivalry in boxing is also the bitterest. Muhammad Ali taunted every opponent but it got vicious with Frazier, who he painted as the heavyweight world champion that white, conservative America wanted. Frazier protested that his upbringing was actually harsher and poorer than Ali’s, but the battle lines were set.
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Things got ugly before their deciding third fight. Ali repeatedly called Frazier a “gorilla” while Joe never forgave his trainer Eddie Futch for ending the carnage by pulling him out with a round to go. Ali tried to make up in the aftermath, but Frazier was having none of it.
“I hated Ali,” Frazier said, many years later. “God might not like me talking that way, but it's in my heart… Twenty years I've been fighting Ali, and I still want to take him apart piece by piece and send him back to Jesus.'
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