Charles, recognized because the world’s top-ranked heavyweight, weighed 182 kilos, while Walcott got here in at 194 kilos. A crowd of 28,272 generated a gate of roughly $245,000 for the primary world heavyweight title fight ever staged at Forbes Field. Individual purses were never publicly disclosed, which was common for championship bouts of the era.
Buck McTiernan served as referee, with Red Robinson and Charley Daggert working as judges.
The opening rounds were cautious, with each men counting on timing, movement and counterpunching. Because the fight settled right into a rhythm, Walcott began taking control along with his left hook. He repeatedly found Charles’ body, landed clean counters upstairs and opened a cut beneath the champion’s eye. Charles enjoyed success behind his jab, but Walcott’s sharper punches and ring generalship steadily shifted the momentum. Through six accomplished rounds, Walcott was ahead on all three official scorecards.
55 seconds into Round 7, Walcott slipped inside and unleashed a superbly timed left hook that landed flush on Charles’ jaw. The champion collapsed face-first onto the canvas and struggled to collect himself before referee McTiernan accomplished the count. The stunning knockout immediately became probably the most celebrated finishes in heavyweight championship history.
The bout was later named The Ring’s 1951 Fight of the Yr, and Walcott became the oldest heavyweight champion in history at 37, a distinction that stood for greater than 4 many years until George Foreman won the title at age 45 in 1994.
Charles later dismissed the knockout as a “lucky punch,” however the defeat ended one among boxing’s finest championship reigns. The rivals met for a fourth and final time in June 1952, with Walcott retaining the title by unanimous decision in one other closely contested fight. Later that yr, Walcott lost the championship to Rocky Marciano after leading on the scorecards before Marciano’s famous Thirteenth-round knockout. Charles also challenged Marciano twice but never regained the heavyweight championship, cementing the Walcott-Charles rivalry as one among the defining series of boxing’s golden era.
