The Fight Of The Millennium was a boxing match held in Las Vegas, Nevada, on September 18, 1999, to unify the WBC and IBF's world Welterweight championships.
Planned by promoters Bob Arum and Don King, it pitted WBC world champion Oscar de la Hoya, a Mexican-American, versus Puerto Rican IBF world champion Félix Trinidad. It was the last of the so-called superfights of the 20th century.
De la Hoya dominated the early part of the fight, outboxing Trinidad with ease to the surprise of many. However, de la Hoya tired noticeably by the ninth round of the twelve round bout. De la Hoya, on the advice of his corner, thought he had an insurmountable lead on the scorecards and adopted a defensive strategy of evasion. Rather than engage Trinidad, de la Hoya successfully avoided him by continually moving around the ring. Trinidad gave chase, but was unable to land any telling blows. The strategy backfired nevertheless, as de la Hoya effectively ceded the last three rounds of the fight to his opponent by allowing Trinidad to be perceived as the aggressor.
Although most observers felt de la Hoya had won the fight despite his late-round tactics, Trinidad was declared the winner by a highly-controversial majority decision.
While the action did not live up to the prefight hype, the controversial finish fueled calls for a rematch, which has never materialized.
The bout set the pay-per-view record for a non-heavyweight fight with 1.4 million buys, until it was broken by the De La Hoya-Mayweather boxing match, which was held on May 5, 2007. It set the record 2.4 million buys, the most in boxing history.
Famous quotes containing the words fight and/or millennium:
“The easiest period in a crisis situation is actually the battle itself. The most difficult is the period of indecision—whether to fight or run away. And the most dangerous period is the aftermath. It is then, with all his resources spent and his guard down, that an individual must watch out for dulled reactions and faulty judgment.”
—Richard M. Nixon (1913–1995)
“At the end of one millennium and nine centuries of Christianity, it remains an unshakable assumption of the law in all Christian countries and of the moral judgment of Christians everywhere that if a man and a woman, entering a room together, close the door behind them, the man will come out sadder and the woman wiser.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)