Pro Boxing’s Best Liver and Body Side Shots
By Robert Brizel, Head Real Combat Media Boxing Correspondent
When health is of the utmost importance, taking care of the body is supreme. Fighters who smoke, drink beer and alcohol, and use drugs hurt themselves most of all, as well as their training camps and the people they love. Even if they don’t, one boxing punch, when landed to pinpoint accuracy and meticulousness, does lethal damage every time.
The liver shot is one geared towards deadly accuracy. Unlike a head shot, a liver shot can take the breath out of you. Worse, if you are not a healthy conscious fighter and have been messing with the bottle to the extent you have almost no liver left, there will be consequences which will catch up to you at some point. This can happen to a superior fighter, even under the best of circumstances.
Several fights come to mind when it comes to landing a picture perfect liver shot.
Roy Jones Jr. KO4 Virgil Hill, Light Heavyweights
Picture perfect liver shot thrown by Jones knocked out Hill for first time in his career.
Gerry Penalosa KO 7 Jhonny Gonzalez, Bantamweights
Penalosa Wins the World Boxing Organization World Bantamweight Title
Penalosa, 10 years after his last world title, finishes champ Gonzalez with a liver shot.
Vyacheslav Senchenko KO 7 Ricky Hatton. Welterweights
Comeback attempt after 42 months inactivity ends with Hatton knocked out by liver shot.
Gerry Cooney KO 1 Ron Lyle, Heavyweights
Cooney liver shot sent Lyle backwards through the ropes on his back, down and out.
Muhammad Ali KO 15 Chuck Wepner
Ali Retains WBA and WBC World Heavyweight Title
Wepner, Bayonne Bleeder, landed a right side body shot in round nine which dropped Ali.
Bernard Hopkins KO 9 Oscar De La Hoya, Middleweights
Hopkins Retains Undisputed World Middleweight Title
Hopkins threw a left hook to the liver shot which knocked out ex-Olympian De La Hoya.
One might immediately think of Randall Bailey’s one punch knockout to win a share of the vacant world welterweight title over then unbeaten Mike Jones, but that was an uppercut finish, not a body shot. Sports reporter Robert Brizel’s education into the one punch knockout is exemplified by Gerry Penalosa’s knockout of Jhonny Gonzalez, as more than a decade passed before the famed power hitter was able to find a way to win another world title but still did.
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