Boxing
Five real newspaper headlines about boxing, printed between 1919 and 2007, with their dates removed. Read each one and guess the year it was published. No multiple choice and no trivia questions, just the headline as it was printed.
Headlines publishes a new five-headline history quiz every day, and every round here is drawn from that archive.
Headline one
The New York Times
1919
Jack Dempsey defeated Jess Willard on July 4, 1919, in Toledo, Ohio, knocking him down seven times in the first round. The brutal fight established Dempsey as one of the most feared heavyweights in history. Willard's corner threw in the towel after the third round.
Headline two
The Louisville Courier-Journal
1964
On 25 February 1964 in Miami Beach, the 22-year-old Cassius Clay defeated the fearsome Sonny Liston when Liston refused to come out for the seventh round. Clay, a 7-to-1 underdog, had taunted Liston relentlessly before the fight. The following morning Clay announced his conversion to Islam and his new name, Muhammad Ali.
Headline three
The Washington Post
1974
On October 30, 1974, Muhammad Ali knocked out George Foreman in the eighth round in Kinshasa, Zaire, to reclaim the world heavyweight title. Ali employed his famous 'rope-a-dope' strategy, absorbing Foreman's punches against the ropes before launching a decisive counter-attack. The fight, promoted by Don King and watched by an estimated one billion people worldwide, is widely regarded as one of the greatest sporting events of the 20th century.
Headline four
The Daily Mirror
1975
Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier met for a third and final time on 1 October 1975 in Quezon City, Philippines, in the legendary Thrilla in Manila. Ali retained the heavyweight title when Frazier's corner stopped the fight before the fifteenth round. Both fighters were so exhausted that Ali later said it was the closest thing to dying he had ever experienced.
Headline five
The Ring
2007
On 5 May 2007, Floyd Mayweather Jr. defeated Oscar De La Hoya by split decision in Las Vegas in a bout dubbed 'The Pretty Boy vs The Golden Boy.' The fight generated record-breaking pay-per-view revenue and confirmed Mayweather as the sport's biggest star. It remains one of the most commercially successful boxing matches in history.
Answer the five above to see your score.
Scoring works as it does in the daily game. Each headline is worth up to 100 points, and you lose two points for every year you are out. Being a decade wrong still earns you 80. A perfect round is 500.
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