I grew up watching old videos of Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Sonny Liston and the other heavyweight greats doing battle in black and white, and it’s hard not to feel like heavyweight boxing will never see such a golden age again.

That being said, this weekend’s title bout between Anthony Joshua and Wladimir Klitschko will go down as an all-time classic, the two slugging it out before an 11th round stoppage saw Briton Joshua take home the spoils.

The fight really was an epic, and before we get to the good stuff let’s see some of what the Guardian had to say:

It was not just that Joshua, unbeaten in all 19 professional fights, had added the WBA “super” version of the title to his own IBF belt, or even that he had stopped one of boxing’s finest old champions. What secured the winner’s acclaim…was that he got up from a right cross in the sixth that would have felled an elephant.

Probably unsure what city he was in, he fought on through a daze to bring the contest to the most dramatic conclusion, and will rule until someone of equal stature unseats him. There is nobody of that calibre on the horizon.

There was little in it as they came out for the 11th round. Klitschko, perhaps, had an edge, using every trick garnered over 68 fights, 29 of them as champion in an 11-year stretch, to bring anxiety to his young opponent’s work. That changed in the crack of a single uppercut to the Ukrainian’s jaw, which all but toppled him. A left hook and a grazing right put him down for a count in his own corner and Joshua went for the kill, calmly and with fixed purpose. He sent him over like a dead tree with a left hook, yet somehow Klitschko got up for more.

He couldn’t stay up forever though, so buckle up and enjoy the longer-running highlights:

If you’re just after the final few moments then this below should do the trick:

Brutes.

I’d say a rematch is in order – if their bodies can handle another such battle.

[source:guardian]