There's nothing that compels quite like a fight. Partly, it's the desire to see what happens, and partly the desire to see what ought not to be seen, but it also offers a significant rarity: something for which almost everyone has a frame of reference.

Though in a sporting context, there exist gameplans, rounds and technique, the aim is usually the same as in a recreational one, even if there tends to be rather less in the way of jabbing and movement: to end proceedings as quickly and as violently as possible, "by way of knockout". And despite splayed stumps, 147s, nine-dart finishes and the rest, there is nothing in sport more definitive, perhaps nothing in anything. It takes a special word to take both abbreviated and phonetic form; there's OK and okay, probably the planet's most popular, with its anagram KO and kayo perhaps the only other.

The potential for such eventuality is the unique beauty of competitive combat; it's the only circumstance in which the outcome will always be in doubt until the very final second, because all it takes to alter the status quo is one shot. And there are few one shots comparable to that that Julian Jackson delivered to Herol "Bomber" Graham in November 1990, when they fought for the world middleweight title.

Graham trained at Brendan Ingle's gym in Wincobank, Sheffield, and achieved local renown for his party piece of avoiding punches he invited people to throw, while keeping his arms behind his back. But though he loved the city, he also felt that it hindered his career. Despite winning 38 straight fights between 1978 and 1987, he was, at various points of his career, ducked by Marvin Hagler, Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank, not fighting for the belt until 1989 – an opportunity he was certain would have been forthcoming earlier were he London-based. He lost a split decision to Mike McCallum, the outcome settled by a point he had deducted for a low blow.

So he got back to it, quickly securing two more convincing victories – though the first left Rod Douglas requiring surgery to remove a blood clot from his brain, and Graham emotionally scarred. Then, one day, Ingle came into the gym with good news – his charge was to meet Julian Jackson, who had vacated his WBA light-middleweight strap the previous year, and was now ready to fight for the WBC version in the bracket above, generally considered to be its most prestigious iteration.

At 31, Graham felt that this was likely to be his last chance to win a belt, though had no idea who Jackson was. "I had never spent that much time looking around myself to see what everyone else in the world was doing," he wrote in an autobiography as much about depression as boxing. "That was my way. I just wanted to get better and better." And Ingle was sure that he could. "He's a very good fighter," he said, "but there's one big thing in your favour. He's blind as a fucking bat. He wears glasses that look like fucking milk bottles so he does."

Like Graham, Jackson had also lost to McCallum, but four years earlier, and though he was stopped in the second round, had hurt the champion in the first. This was no great surprise, given hands made of osmium; of his 55 career wins, 49 came inside the distance.

But, like so many of the best fights, it almost didn't happen – why does international law not empower Nato and the UN to intervene? – though just this once the reasons were sound. The previous year, Jackson had detached the retina in his right eye, and accordingly, the British Boxing Board of Control refused to sanction the bout, before the US was ruled out as a host venue when Don King, Jackson's manager, offered to pay Graham just $25,000.

In the end, Barry Hearn promoted the contest, the plan for it to take place in Monte Carlo – until, wrote Graham, "the French had an uncharacteristic attack of safety awareness", which nixed the arrangement. But the authorities in Spain proved to be less exacting. "I suppose the lovers of ritual murder of dumb animals for mass entertainment probably found the idea of a fight involving a half blind man quite appealing," he said. So off they went to throw bombs in Andalusia.

And the snappier, whippier Graham put it on the broader, thicker Jackson from the start, bouncing, unloading and retreating, with Jackson reduced to chucking haphazard haymakers, one of which spun him a full 180 degrees. "The hardest man in the business to catch with clean shots," said Jim Watt of Graham. "Definitely a ring Houdini," agreed Reg Gutteridge.

And the same happened in round two, head and body shots disbursed in blistering combination. Then, after a flurry on the ropes ended with a chopping right, Jackson began blinking heavily in his left eye and the force of one indiscriminate swing sending him staggering across the ring as Graham simply stepped out of the way. "Making him look a mug," said the normally measured Gutteridge.

And the same happened in round three. Wherever Jackson looked, Graham wasn't, befuddled by his superior command of footwork and angles, a switch to mimic his southpaw stance earning nothing but a brief wobbling from a left-hook. Even so, Jim Watt was faintly concerned. "He does pull his head up high, that's the little danger against this fellow, but he's always done that," he said. "He's never been stopped or knocked out yet, so who am I to criticise, but now and again he does put his chin in dangerous territory."

But Jackson's eye was now completely shut, rendering him almost blind, and on the bell, the referee told both fighters that he would permit only one more round. As such, Jackson rushed out, his desperation intensified, and Graham continued to engage despite needing only to survive, getting off first before countering the telegraphed comeback.

Then, with a minute or so gone, he backed his man up into a corner, seeing an opportunity to get the finish. Often disparaged for a style more evasive than decisive, he later wondered if this had goaded him into taking an unnecessary risk, also considering the impact of watching Benn bludgeon his way to a world title and his own general stupidity, before concluding that it was simply in his nature to entertain. But more than that, he was a fighter whose opponent was in trouble, and he wouldn't be the first to lose himself in such a situation, nor the first to lose.

So Graham threw a left straight, leaning a little too far into it and overbalancing slightly, eyes no longer fixed on Jackson and hand brought back too low to protect his chin. And over the top of it was flung something in return. You could call it a hook, which, ultimately it was, just one that had more in common with the lifting variety you see dangling from cranes than the sort generally found in boxing rings. Bombarded by an unavoidable slew of moving images, it is increasingly hard to find anything that genuinely stupefies, but the moment it connects with the point of Graham's jaw achieves exactly that effect on every viewing, eliciting a variety of involuntary noises, exclamations and recoils.

And he was unconscious immediately, falling with the impact but as though chopped at the ankles, floppy and stiff at the same time. For reasons unspecified, Joe Cortez then comes over to administer the count, greeted by a face entirely relaxed, a gentle smile appearing to play across its lips. Graham would remain the best British boxer never to win a world title. DH

The lustre has long since rubbed off the legacy of Prince Naseem Hamed. The disappointing end to his career tarnished what had come before to such a degree that he's barely mentioned anymore, except as a rude aside on his ballooning weight or a cautionary tale for Amir Khan. It's easy then to forget what a truly exciting fighter he was in his prime, never more so than in his 35 second demolition of Said Lawal in 1996.

It was the first defence of his WBO title, won in dynamic style with a fifth-round knockout of Steve Robinson. Hamed was 22, full of confidence following 20 straight victories and dancing around the ring as was his wont. As soon as the bell rang he was on top of Lawal and the challenger was on the canvas before some in attendance had even realised the fight had begun. He clambered to his feet as the referee counted, Hamed prowled, the fight was allowed to go on – but it wasn't to last long. Hands down below his waist, the champion approached Lawal, one swing of the right fist and Lawal was down again. Fight over.

The Scottish fans in attendance greeted the exhibition with a mixture of boos and applause – no one got their moneys worth that night; not the fans, not Hamed, whose reputation was only harmed by a succession of soft fights, and certainly not the TV companies. Nonetheless it was a stunning addition to Prince Naseem's collection of knockouts, a run of victories that was to last until 2001, when Marco Antonio Barrera proved too much for Yorkshire royalty and seemingly erased any fond memories people may have had. Toby Moses

There was a time, before the rape conviction, the prison sentence and the biting of Evander Holyfield's ear, when Mike Tyson was just a wonderful boxer. Not many people knew this in 1986, though, as the 20-year-old Tyson had his first shot at the WBC heavyweight belt, coming up against Trevor Berbick, 12 years his senior. The Jamaican was a colourful character, the last man to fight Muhammad Ali (he won) while also notorious for being involved in a street fight with Larry Holmes after a pre-fight press conference.

Tyson came head to head with Berbick in a fight labelled Judgment Day, at the Las Vegas Hilton in Paradise, Nevada. Despite Berbick being the champion, it was clear from the outside that Tyson was the hungrier of the two. As the bell rang, the commentators on American TV said: "We're just about ready for round one and let's watch how quick Tyson moves up on Trevor Berbick … He has trained his whole life for this."

Tyson flew out of his corner like a wounded animal, and it was a pretty brutally one-sided contest from the first moment. The fight could have ended in the first round but, after a fierce four-punch combination, the bell saved Berbick. It was only a short respite. Tyson's piercing focus was almost chilling, his eyes narrow with intent.

In the second round Tyson demolished the champion. Berbick lasted more than two minutes into the round but it had never been a contest. The end, when it came, was almost a blessing. Tyson hit Berbick with right to the body and then a left hook to the head to send Berbick to the canvas. The Jamaican tried to get up but was unable to do so twice. Tyson had won on technical knockout and sent a message to the rest of the world: he had become the youngest ever heavyweight champion. With the adrenaline still pumping, he told the TV audience: "My record will last for immortality" and it is yet to be broken. Maybe he was right.

The Berbick knockout is perhaps not Tyson's most brutal, but the occasion made it so much more special. This was the fight in which he had introduced himself as a future legend of the sport. Tragically, Berbick was murdered by his nephew in a churchyard in 2006. Marcus Christenson

There are various attributes that combine to make a great knockout: technique, surprise, narrative and brutality. All three were in evidence when Rashad Evans starched Chuck Liddell in September 2008.

Liddell was the UFC's breakout star and its first to appear on the cover of ESPN The Magazine, an achievement that signified the acceptance of mixed martial arts as a legitimate sport. With mohawk haircut and tattooed scalp, he appeared to support the "human cockfighting" ignorance of those who knew nothing of the sport but hated it anyway, only to subvert the stereotype with a polite, softly spoken demeanour, a pot-belly, and a degree in accountancy.

Which isn't to say that he was a man of peace. In the cage, Liddell mined an appalling bloodlust that brought him obvious, immense and deeply contagious pleasure; to the extent that one can generalise, he epitomised the difference in spirit between MMA and boxing, its competitors motivated by love not money

But in May 2007 he relinquished his belt to Quinton Jackson, before dropping a split decision to Keith Jardine four months later. Yet he still retained some mystique; Jackson had the ideal game to combat the sprawl-and-brawl style that was Liddell's hallmark, while Jardine's irregular, angular and downright peculiar style could make anyone look silly.

So the UFC booked him against Wanderlei Silva, recently signed from Pride, Japan's largest promotion. The two biggest stars in the sport, they had been scheduled to meet the previous year, but their respective organisations could not reach agreement, and though both had lost their aura of invincibility since, the fight was a classic, won on points by a resurgent Liddell.

Next came Rashad Evans, the prototype of the third generation mixed martial artist. A natural athlete, at high school and university he excelled at wrestling, before switching sports. Then, after winning his first five fights, he was selected for season two of The Ultimate Fighter, the UFC's reality TV vehicle, and, competing as an undersized heavyweight, won the show and the contract that came with it, via four decisions. But though his hand was also raised following five of his next six contests, the odd one out a creditable draw with Tito Ortiz, a former champion, he was criticised for a lay-and-pray strategy that brought only two finishes.

"He'd better be ready if he thinks he's going to come out and eke out a win like he normally does," said Liddell. "I want that fight to be on our feet with us swinging at each other. I'm going to pressure him a lot, so we'll see what he can do with that … It's gonna be real hard for him to make me uncomfortable in a fight – I enjoy fighting … if he can make me uncomfortable that'd be a feat."

But Evans was looking forward to it too. "I see it just being a straight-out brawl," he predicted, "us going at it and getting after it. I'll go out there and put the stamp down."

The first five minutes of the fight were close and dull, both men counter-punchers by nature. Then, with a minute and a half gone in round two and Evans all jinking feet and rolling shoulders, sidestepping back and forth along the fence, Liddell lost patience. Finally catching up, he stepped into an uppercut, but at the same time, Evans uncorked an almighty overhand right that arrived first. Liddell immediately schluffed in the recovery position, levelled by his own petard.

"My intention when I threw the punch was to throw it as fast as I can," recalled Evans. "And I threw it, it went through, and I was gonna follow up with the left hook, but he was already going down. And after the left hook went by, I was like: 'Oh no, he fell down. I've gotta hurry up and finish him.' But it seemed like it took forever for me to come out of that left hook to turn around and get on him. It was so quiet in there, I could hear a pin drop. The fight was over, Herb Dean had stopped it, and I was in shock because everybody was so quiet."

Like hundreds before and after him, Liddell simply felt that he'd "got caught", the ability of his opponent to do precisely as he'd planned and his inability to prevent it simply a consequence of freak occurrence, unfortunate coincidence, pure chance and ill luck. He would retire after losing his next two fights by TKO and KO, both "in the very first round", while Evans won but could not defend the belt. DH

The fights between these two were short – and brutal. Patterson was the reigning heavyweight champion after winning the third and final fight against the Swede Ingemar "Ingo" Johansson. Liston was supposedly 28 at the time of this fight – though we don't know this as fact as there is no record of when Liston was born. Having spent time in prison in 1952, he entered professional boxing a year later. But it would take almost a decade before he became world champion in Comiskey Park in Chicago, Illinois.

Liston had links to the mob and that had made Patterson wary of fighting him. In the end, when the fight finally happened, Liston took the champion apart. Almost immediately a right uppercut shook Patterson who went to clinch. Liston kept hitting Patterson's body in a one-sided fight, which lasted only 2:05. A left to the Patterson's cheekbone saw the champion go down for the final time. Never before had the champion been knocked out in the first round. It was the third-fastest knockout in a world heavyweight fight.

After the fight, Liston said: "I looked at him close when he was going down and I took another good look when he hit the floor. He was gone. He surprised me for a tiny second when he got up on one knee, but then I could see he was like a man reaching for the alarm clock while he was still asleep. I admired the way he was fighting to make it."

Liston, in fact, had been so superior that some disappointed fans wondered whether the fight had been fixed. The truth is probably rather that Liston was, at that time, a much better boxer. MC

Jones was at this stage, 10 years after his ridiculous silver medal at the Seoul Olympics, considered the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, but Hill was no mug. Though perhaps past his best, he had spent almost all of the previous decade as a light-heavyweight world champion. He had never been knocked out, his two defeats coming on points against Thomas Hearns and Dariusz Michalczewski.

Jones, too, had only one blemish on his 36-fight record and held the WBC light-heavyweight strap after putting down Montell Griffin in the first round of their title fight in August 1997. The defence against Hill was to be his first fight in eight months.

But there was no ring rust and Jones battered his opponent for three typically high-energy rounds. Then 70 seconds into the fourth round, it was over. A jab with the left opened Hill up, a right thudded into the ribs like a wrecking ball. Hill crumpled in agony and couldn't beat the count.

There's something particularly juddering for the viewer about a knockout secured with a body shot, but for Jones it was the noise of the blow that stood out. "Sometimes when you're hunting, the shotgun makes a sound like that," he said. "But I've never heard anything as devastating as that or I would have given up hunting a long time ago." JA