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Age sneaks up on professional prizefighters, at least in terms of their competitive abilities. There are exceptions–Archie Moore, George Foreman, James Toney–but they are rare. Typically, a high level boxer can go from legitimacy to retirement in a matter of minutes. The most recent victim of ‘Father Time’ was Mexican Superstar Oscar De La Hoya, who looked completely outclassed in what would be his last bout–an 8th round TKO loss to Panamanian sensation Manny Pacquiao.

Decades before mixed martial arts became popular in the United States, events matching fighters of different fighting disciplines were very common in Japan. They weren’t called “mixed martial arts” at the time, but that’s essentially what they were.There’s an entire history of pro wrestlers fighting specialists from other martial arts (particularly judo) that were leaving out, but during the 1970′s Antonio Inoki began to put the concept of “mixed martial arts” on the map with his matches against fighters from other disciplines.

Ingemar Johannson died in a Swedish nursing home in January 2009 at the age of 76. He’d lived in the nursing home in the Swedish coastal city of Kungsbacka since the mid 1990′s when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and dementia, and had suffered from a tough case of pneumonia immediately prior to his death.