The Greatest Fight You Never Saw
By: Jared Jones
Ebo Elder (22–1) fought Courtney Burton (21–2) on December 17th, 2004. The fighter originally scheduled to fight Burton had an injury, and Elder took the fight with only a few days notice. Burton was the heavy favorite and the larger fighter. Elder was trained by his father starting at two years old. Elder had managed to keep the fight close, but I had Burton ahead on points. Elder’s father was extremely passionate and intense in between each round. Elder’s eyes were swollen shut early in the fight and he had several cuts that covered his face with blood. He was being hit with punches he was blind to, losing the fight, and even being the hard-core fight fan that I am, I started rooting for the stoppage.
I had difficulty understanding how his father could watch the beating his son was taking without stopping the fight. At the end of the 11th round, Elder wearily made his way back to his corner for what I was sure would be another highly intense tongue lashing from his father. When Elder sat down on his stool, his father knelt down in front of him, held the back of his neck, and, forehead to forehead, said a prayer. He asked Jesus to take care of his son and, win or lose, carry him through the final round. If there has ever been a time for a ref, judge, trainer, father, fighter, or doctor to stop a fight, this was it. I was kneeling in front of my television yelling at people who couldn’t hear me, begging them to save Elder from himself.
Then, with very little time left, Elder staggered Burton, threw a flurry of punches seemingly out of nowhere toward an opponent he couldn’t see, and ended up knocking him out. Elder, with his face swollen beyond recognition, looked like he was crying blood when he fell to his knees in the center of the ring.
Neither fighter was ever the same following the match. Before fighting one another, Elder and Burton had a combined record of 43 wins and three losses with 25 knockouts. After they fought one another, they had a combined record of one win and six losses. Five out of their six losses were by knockout. If you ever hear people in the boxing game say, “leave it all in the ring”, this is the kind of effort they are referring to.
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