Top 5 Biggest Boxing Rematches of All Time
Nothing in sports carries the dramatic weight of a boxing rematch. The first fight provides the narrative. The rematch provides the reckoning. These five rematches stand as the most significant in the sport’s history — fights that transcended athletic competition and became cultural events with lasting consequences for boxing itself.
5. Tyson Fury vs. Oleksandr Usyk II (December 21, 2024)
When Oleksandr Usyk defeated Tyson Fury by split decision in May 2024 to become the undisputed heavyweight champion — the first in the four-belt era — the rematch was inevitable and enormous. Staged in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, under the Turki Alalshikh-backed Riyadh Season banner, the December rematch was one of the most anticipated heavyweight fights in years.
Usyk won again, this time by unanimous decision, cementing his place among the great heavyweight champions and ending any debate about the first fight’s outcome. The rematch confirmed that the Ukrainian southpaw was simply the better fighter — technically superior, mentally tougher, and more adaptable across twelve rounds. Fury, for the first time in his career, was forced to confront consecutive losses to the same man. The fight drew global viewership numbers that reflected the heavyweight division’s renewed relevance on the world stage.
4. Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Thomas Hearns II (June 12, 1989)
The first Leonard-Hearns fight in September 1981 is widely regarded as one of the greatest bouts in boxing history — a fourteenth-round TKO for Leonard that featured dramatic momentum swings, extraordinary skill from both fighters, and a finish that left the boxing world breathless. The rematch eight years later could not replicate that magic, but it didn’t need to.
The second fight, contested at super middleweight at Caesars Palace, ended in a controversial draw. Leonard was knocked down twice in the opening rounds, rallied in the middle rounds, and many observers felt Hearns had done enough to earn the victory. The result was debated for years. But the significance of the rematch lay in what it represented: two all-time greats, both past their absolute primes, still willing to face each other when lesser fighters would have chosen easier paths. It was the last time Leonard and Hearns shared a ring, and it closed one of the sport’s defining rivalries. The Caesars Palace outdoor arena that hosted both fights became sacred ground for the sport.
3. Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier II (January 28, 1974)
The first Ali-Frazier fight in 1971 — the “Fight of the Century” at Madison Square Garden — was the biggest event in boxing history to that point. Frazier won by unanimous decision, handing Ali his first professional loss. The rematch, held at the same venue three years later, lacked the titles (neither man was champion at the time) but carried every ounce of the personal animosity that had made the rivalry one of sports’ most intense.
Ali won a unanimous decision in a tactical, sometimes rough twelve-round fight. It was not a classic by the standards of their first or third meetings, but it was critically important: it gave Ali the psychological edge heading into the rubber match and proved that the defeat in 1971 had not diminished him. Without the Ali-Frazier II result, the “Thrilla in Manila” — widely considered the greatest fight ever contested — might never have happened. The rematch was the bridge between two of the sport’s most iconic nights.
2. Sugar Ray Robinson vs. Randy Turpin II (September 12, 1951)
Sugar Ray Robinson was considered virtually invincible when he traveled to London in July 1951 to defend his middleweight title against Randy Turpin, a tough but largely unknown British fighter. Turpin shocked the world with a fifteen-round decision victory — one of the great upsets in boxing history. The rematch, held just 64 days later at the Polo Grounds in New York before more than 61,000 fans, was Robinson’s redemption.
Robinson, cut badly over the left eye from an accidental headbutt, stormed back in the tenth round with a ferocious rally that forced referee Ruby Goldstein to stop the fight. The stoppage was controversial — Turpin was still on his feet — but Robinson’s desperation and brilliance in those final moments became the stuff of legend. The rematch cemented Robinson’s status as the pound-for-pound greatest fighter of his era and arguably of all time. It also demonstrated something fundamental about the sport: the measure of a champion is not whether they can be beaten, but how they respond when they are.
1. Muhammad Ali vs. Sonny Liston II (May 25, 1965)
The most controversial, most analyzed, and most consequential rematch in boxing history. Ali — who had won the heavyweight title from Liston by retirement after six rounds in February 1964 as Cassius Clay — entered the rematch in Lewiston, Maine, as a transformed figure. He had changed his name, joined the Nation of Islam, and become the most polarizing athlete in America.
The fight lasted barely two minutes. Ali dropped Liston with a short right hand in the first round — the so-called “phantom punch” — and stood over the fallen champion in what became one of the most famous photographs in sports history, captured by Neil Leifer for Sports Illustrated. Liston was counted out by referee Jersey Joe Walcott in circumstances that have fueled conspiracy theories for six decades.
Whether the punch was legitimate, whether Liston took a dive, and whether the fight was compromised by outside forces have been debated endlessly. But the rematch’s place in history is secure regardless. It was the night Muhammad Ali fully arrived as a cultural force — not just a champion but a figure who transcended the sport entirely. Every mega-event in boxing history that followed, from the Ali-Frazier trilogy to Mayweather-Pacquiao, exists in the shadow of what Ali-Liston II meant for the sport and for American culture.
The Rematch Remains King
Boxing’s greatest rematches endure because they answer the one question every sports fan carries after a great first fight: what happens next? The sport has always been defined by its rivalries, and rivalries are defined by the willingness of two fighters to face each other again when the stakes are highest. These five rematches delivered on that promise in ways the sport has never forgotten.
The next entry in that tradition arrives on September 19, 2026, when Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao meet again — this time as a sanctioned professional fight at the Sphere in Las Vegas, streamed globally on Netflix. Their first meeting in May 2015 generated 4.6 million pay-per-view buys, a $72.2 million gate, and more than $600 million in total revenue — the richest fight in boxing history. Whether the rematch, eleven years later, belongs on a list like this will depend on what happens inside the ring. But the willingness of both men to face each other again, with Mayweather’s 50-0 record on the line, is the kind of unfinished business that has always driven the sport’s most significant nights.
