Larry Holmes was crowned WBC heavyweight champion of the world after a breathtaking split decision victory over Ken Norton across 15 unforgettable rounds at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, on 9th June 1978 — a contest that will be spoken about for generations.

The Eastern Assassin from Easton, Pennsylvania, entered the fight as the challenger, installed as a slight underdog despite arriving on the back of a dominant twelve-round points victory over the formidable Earnie Shavers just months earlier in March. That performance, also staged at Caesars Palace, had been utterly one-sided, and it earned Holmes his mandatory shot at the title. Few could have predicted, however, that what followed against Norton would prove to be one of the most dramatic heavyweight championship contests ever witnessed.

Norton, the WBC champion who had been elevated to the title without winning it in the ring — a circumstance that drew criticism from certain quarters of the media — was determined to silence his detractors. At a fraction under 13 stone, he carried both experience and power into the bout, having previously gone the full fifteen rounds with Muhammad Ali on more than one occasion. Holmes, eleven pounds lighter and six years his junior, had the footwork, reflexes, and a rapier left jab that placed him in an entirely different class of boxer to anything Norton had faced in recent memory.

Holmes began brilliantly, his hand speed and movement proving too sharp for Norton in the early exchanges. He controlled the opening phase with authority, dictating range and picking his shots with considerable accuracy. Norton, however, is not a man who accepts punishment without response, and from the sixth round onwards the champion reversed the momentum entirely, advancing with relentless purpose and landing the heavier blows. Rounds eight through eleven belonged overwhelmingly to Norton, and by the midway point of the fight, the champion had clawed his way back into a commanding position on the unofficial scorecards.

The contest entered its final three rounds on a knife-edge. Holmes, showing remarkable recuperative powers and the championship temperament of a man who belonged at the very top of the sport, produced a devastating thirteenth round — arguably his finest of the fight — staggering Norton repeatedly with accurate right hands and crisp combinations. The fourteenth was closer, with Norton digging deep into his considerable reserves to answer every threat. Then came the fifteenth.

What unfolded in that final round has since been spoken about in the same breath as the greatest concluding chapters in heavyweight history. Both men threw caution aside entirely, trading with an intensity that drew gasps from the packed crowd inside the Caesars Palace Sports Pavilion. Norton started stronger, but Holmes, fuelled by desperation and desire in equal measure, came back with a sustained flurry in the closing moments that ultimately proved decisive with two of the three judges.

When the announcement came — a split decision, 143–142 in favour of Holmes on two scorecards, 143–142 Norton on the third — the margin could scarcely have been narrower. Yet nobody present could argue that the result was undeserved. Larry Holmes had earned every syllable of his new title, and Ken Norton had given everything he possessed in a genuinely magnificent effort that deserved far better than defeat.