They say boxing is a strange mix of brutality, beauty and – for those who can do it at the highest level – perfection. And so it was that on this day in 1957, the boxing world witnessed a single punch, a magnificent one-punch knockout, an essentially flawless display of punching without being hit, that showed how, one night, this sport we all love so much can deliver all three: B, P and B, if you want it to.

How was the fight, KO?

It was on this day, in rematch for a lost fight, that the one and only, truly incomparable Sugar Ray Robinson, faced the tougher than tough Gene Fullmer. In a sold-out stadium in Chicago, the one and only boxing Sugar gave us the BEST KO of all KOs.

To this day, the great boxing trainers (perhaps a dying breed – but that’s another article altogether) show a brilliant example of pure poetic violence that was literally unleashed, not in the split second at best, on their students. Indeed, it was “The Perfect Punch.” Try as they might, no boxer has ever managed to replicate the brilliance of Sugar Ray, his superhuman blend of balance, timing, and explosively correct power. All delivered in one punch.

Fullmer went down the previously seemingly bulletproof Fullmer and never got up again before the count of 10. Fullmer was knocked down by a punch that left everyone who saw him (and Gene, by his own admission, never saw the unstoppable projectile coming) in absolute awe.

So what was the punch that did this?

Sugar Ray, who was 36 at the time, was already in his prime (or so it seemed, as it turned out, very wrongly) combing his hair back, uncorking the greatest left hook he had ever thrown – that anyone in this sport had ever thrown and thrown the country. Fullmer, who had been transported to another orbit by a divine shot from hell, instinctively tried to get up, but fell on his face, his right glove searching for the world as if it were pinned to the canvas. That was the end. But it will never be forgotten.

We’ve seen some exceptional knockouts over the years, many of them from our favorite and biggest stars. However, at the risk of making the repetition tiresome, there’s never been a knockout captured on film that was/is as epic as the one born Walker Smith Jr scored on this day 63 years ago.

How many times have you watched and admired this KO? youtube!

It’s engaging, you may or may not agree, how a certain month of the year can create greatness. Lots of greatness. Take our sport of boxing, for example. It’s quite possible that the fifth month of the year has produced more truly great fighters than any other month.

Check out these special ones who were born here in May:

Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Leonard, Rubin Carter, Sonny Liston, Marvin Hagler, Gene Tunney, Jerry Quarry, Iran Barkley, John Henry Lewis, Jose Torres, Tony Zale, Mark Breland, Harry Wills, Fritzie Zivic, Joe Brown, Carlos de Leon , George Benton, Rocky Castellani, Newborn Corbett III, Sam McVey, Harry Forbes… and of course Sugar Ray Robinson.

I agree, I think so, that the month we are in now has produced so many great boxers. Sure, maybe it’s just a tiny thing and nothing more, but May has certainly given us the greatest fighter of them all.

Born 102 years ago in Alley, Georgia, Robinson was born Walker Smith Jr. Fight fans know the story of how the teenage Smith Jr. got his modern, soon-to-be-world-famous name. Drawn to boxing by his friend Joe Louis, for whom Walker carried his gym bag, the 15-year-old tried out for a boxing tournament but was rejected because he was too juvenile. Smith Jr. borrowed the ID card of a boxer named Ray Robinson, and the rest is history — Smith Jr. was now Ray Robinson.

The nickname Sugar came about later when a ringside spotter told Ray and his manager that he was a “sweet fighter.”

Sugar Ray Robinson was in a league of his own. As an amateur, he went an incredible 85-0 with 69 KOs. Turning pro in 1940, Robinson was untouchable, winning his first 40 fights. His first loss came to Jake LaMotta as a middleweight, and Robinson decided to seek revenge no less than five times as a welterweight. Robinson met and defeated many great fighters, including Henry Armstrong (Robinson’s idol along with Louis; Sugar Ray meets a faded version of Armstrong), Fritzie Zivic, Tommy Bell, Rocky Graziano, Gene Fullmer, Carmen Basilio, and many others. But it’s Sugar Ray’s wild and competitive rivalry with “The Bronx Bull” that fans tend to think of most when discussing the majesty of Sugar Ray.

And certainly Robinson showed everything in his formidable arsenal in the fights/wars with LaMotta: his speed, strength and accuracy, his great endurance, his pretty chin, his heart and desire. Sugar Ray was the complete fighter. His status as the greatest of all time is not changing anywhere. Not always.

201 pro fights – 174 wins, 19 losses, 6 draws. I stopped only once, when a 104-degree heat overcame Robinson (and the referee). Welterweight king from 1946 to 1951, five-time middleweight king from 1951 to 1960. Robinson made the sport in which he excelled look prettier, more attractive, and more special than any man before or since.

When it comes to the newly crowned world champion who looked out at the world as if he was doomed to a long reign, the name Gerald McClellan certainly comes to mind for some when looking back. The “G-Man,” a supremely talented and ferocious middleweight who carved out his budding greatness in the scorching heat of the famed Kronk Gym, was a fighter who, as Emanuel Steward once said, had “the greatest average streak of any fighter I’ve ever worked with.”

In another quote from guru Kronk, Emanuel states that McClellan was the most talented player he ever worked with.

On the night of May 8, 1993, McClellan, approaching the peak of his powers, showed off his talent and meanness by taking the WBC middleweight title from fearsome hitman Julian Jackson. The fight, which took place in Las Vegas – the card featured the great Julio Cesar Chavez, along with heavyweights Lennox Lewis and Tony Tucker, who were fighting for the WBC belt on the line (yes, it was a mighty card, with one Don King serving up a combination of pride and screams to the fans; indeed, it is strenuous to imagine such a great card today) – turned out to be a thriller. A violent, at times brutal thriller. And the winner by KO, Gerland McClellan, was for many a fresh star in the sport; the fresh, hardest punching champion on the market.

This middleweight title fight was the headline story, the event of the year, not just an event from May 8th, thirty years ago.

Jackson, with questionable vision but with reflexes and devastating power firing on all cylinders, was making his fifth defense of the title he had won with a devastating KO of defending champion Herol Graham. McClellan was four fights removed from the quick destruction of the faded John “The Beast” Mugabi and the 1991 massacre that saw Kronk’s fighter capture the WBO middleweight title. Was McClellan ready for an operator as powerful and deadly as Jackson?

“The fight wasn’t top-notch. I knew that,” Steward said.

The words came after just over 14 minutes of action. And it was pure, thrilling action. McClellan and Jackson won this one from the start. It was McClellan who drew first blood, slashing Jackson with a right hand that sent the champion into a tizzy. Jackson came back in the second round, searing his opponent’s midsection with a left hand that must have felt like a razor blade.

What mattered now was who could take the better shot.

Jackson was bleeding in the third quarter, the result of an accidental head-on collision. Jackson’s vision, already a concern, deteriorated further. McClellan dominated the fourth. Then came the explosion in the fifth.

Jackson hurts his challenger with a low blow. Then another low blow. McClellan goes down, having time to recover from his second foul. Jackson shakes his head. Then, when the action resumes, McClellan hits Jackson with a monster right hand to the head, a punishing punch followed by two sizzling lefts, and the defending champion goes down. Laid on his back, “The Hawk” seemed finished. Instead, Jackson somehow beat the count, only to be sent down again by another right hand. Jackson is back on his feet, his face a mask of blood, but this time Mills Lane has seen enough.

It was a great win for McClellan, and, again, he seemed poised to become a superstar. Worryingly, especially in retrospect, Gerald said in the post-fight interview that he had a “huge headache” and that he would “sleep for two days.”

Was the damage that would come 21 months later that much worse? We’ll never know. But on that day in 1993, Gerald McClellan was, without a doubt, the worst middleweight in the world.

Today, some 28 years after his tragic fight with Benn, McClellan has shown determination and courage, doing his best to carry on with his life. Gerald, now 55, supported around the clock by his sister Lisa, is said to remember every fight except the one with Benn. We hope that is indeed true, because McClellan showed so much in the fight with Jackson, so much that he has every right to look back on it with pride. In many ways, the tragedy of the Benn fight is one of the worst in sports. McClellan, of course, paid an unimaginable price for who he was: a warrior in the ring, and each of those brave souls risked so much to enter the battle.

While for us often selfish fight fans, what happened on that fateful night in London in February 1995 robbed us of the opportunity to watch and admire the rest of McClellan’s career, it did so as we learned just how much greatness “The G-Man” was truly capable of.