We saw some chilling, shocking knockouts this year across numerous weight divisions. At heavyweight, Daniel Dubois smashed Anthony Joshua in memorable fashion, while we also saw super-bantamweight king Naoya Inoue deliver two nasty KOs. At featherweight, Angelo Leo took down Luis Alberto Lopez in brutal fashion, and huge underdog Bruno Surace stunned Jamie Munguia via a highlight reel KO. But one knockout really does stand out as far as this year’s most shocking to watch.
Rewind to June of this year, and unbeaten Cuban super middleweight southpaw Osleys Iglesias iced Russia’s Evgeny Shvedenko inside a round. The reaction Shvedenko’s body went into after taking the shot from hell reminded us all again how dangerous the sport of boxing really is.
As soon as the June 24th KO in Montreal, Canada had been witnessed, plenty of people compared it to the KO Vincent Pettway scored over Simon Brown back in 1995; when Brown was left flat on his back, his arms throwing out punched as the stricken fighter’s eyes were closed tight. Cuban star in the making Iglesias landed a flush right hook to the head with just seconds remaining in the opening session, and the felled fighter went into spasm.
In a split second, the hard, crisp shot connected. Shvedenko went down and out heavily, stretched as he was on his back. Then, electrical impulses charged through his body due to the immense shock of a punch his brain had taken, and Shvedenko’s limbs began acting very strangely. The stricken fighter’s arms and legs were flailing around furiously, his arms outstretched, his legs pumping the air as though riding on a make-believe bicycle.
The scenes both stunned and silenced the crowd, with the commentators clearly bothered by what they had witnessed. This one was, as plenty of people said at the time and are saying now, the scariest, most disturbingly frightening knockout of the year as KO of the Year accolades are being decided. It’s often said that you “don’t play boxing.” This particular KO serves as a stark reminder of this. Indeed, all fighters show immense bravery each and every time they step into the ring to fight.
With the devastating KO win, 26-year-old Iglesias retained his IBO super middleweight title and went to 11-0(10). The 27-year-old went on to score two more KO wins this year. Iglesias could well become a future world champion with an organization other than the IBO in the near future. To his credit, Shvedenko managed to come back with a win of his own in October.
