• June 7 down the years

The replacing of a boxing icon

Julio Cesar Chavez fought 37 world title fights © Getty Images

Enlarge

1996
One icon replaced another in Las Vegas. Julio Cesar Chavez fought 37 world title fights, more than any other boxer. He lost only four of them, two to Oscar de la Hoya, including this one, a WBC light-welterweight fight that was never going to last very long once De la Hoya opened a deep cut over the champion's left eye in the first round. Chavez hung on until the fourth before the ringside doctor stopped it. It was Chavez's 99th pro fight and the first in which he'd been stopped. He was 33 by now, more than ten years older than De la Hoya, who stopped him again, this time in eight rounds, for the same title two years later.

1981
The day after his 25th birthday, Bjorn Borg won his last Grand Slam singles title. The French Open, of course, for a record sixth time. In the final, he was given a hard match by young Ivan Lendl, who slugged it out with him from the back of the court. Lendl's big forehand lost points as well as winning them, but his topspin backhand forced Borg to take a lot of balls above shoulder height, tiring on a hot day. Lendl won the second and fourth sets but dropped his serve to go 2-0 down in the fifth. Borg was dog tired by then, but he still had his winner's instinct, which Lendl hadn't acquired yet. Borg led 4-0 on his way to winning 6-1. Lendl's next appearance in the final was John McEnroe's first and last (June 10, 1984).

1986
Chris Evert Lloyd won the French Open for the seventh time, a record that still stands. On her favourite surface, she came from a set down to beat Martina Navratilova in the final for the second year in a row and the third in all. Each of those three finals went to three sets. Martina beat Chris on June 10, 1984 but won the French only twice.

Two other tennis players won the French today, their only singles titles in Grand Slam events. In 1997, Croatia's Iva Majoli surprised the 16-year-old favourite Martina Hingis in straight sets, the second 6-2. Hingis reached the final again two years later, but the French was the only Grand Slam singles title she never won. In 1998, the tall Carlos Moya, who came from Majorca like Rafael Nadal, also won the final in straight sets, a routine win over fellow Spaniard Alex Corretja, who also lost in the final three years later.

Chris Paterson had been on impressive kicking form © Getty Images

Enlarge

2008
Chris Paterson missed a kick at goal. Worth mentioning, because he hadn't done it for a while. He was successful with 36 kicks in a row for Scotland, including the whole of the 2007 rugby union World Cup and the 2008 Six Nations. He didn't take any from long range, which spoils the story a bit, but the consistency's pretty impressive. Today in Argentina, Paterson kicked another three penalty goals before finally missing his fourth attempt. He kicked five in all - but, as so often, he was Scotland's only scorer in the match, which Argentina won 21-15. He went on to kick 16 out of 16 in the 2009 Six Nations.

1987
In the shot putt, Natalya Lisovskaya set two world records on the same day, including the one that hasn't been broken since. Her opening 22.60 metres improved her own record set three years earlier, and she hit 20.63 with her last throw. Most of today's world records in the weight events were set by Eastern Europeans in the 1980s, including the men's hammer, which belongs to Yuri Sedykh, who became Lisovskaya's husband but not until later. So it wasn't anything in the home cooking.

In 2008, Ethiopia's Tirunesh Dibaba also set a world record that's with us today. She ran the 5,000 metres in 14 minutes 11.15 seconds.

1980
Jim Watt's most impressive win? Certainly the biggest name on his list of victims. At the 1976 Olympics, American boxers won five gold medals. Even though three of those were Sugar Ray Leonard and the Spinks brothers, Howard Davis was so good he won the Val Barker Cup for the best boxer at the Games. A brilliant mover with fast hands, he had an almost perfect defence and the style of a champion. But he didn't kick on as a professional. Tonight at Glasgow's Ibrox Stadium, he took three rounds to figure out Watt's southpaw style, surely something he should have addressed in training. After that, he was always playing catch-up. He finished more strongly than expected but didn't have a big enough punch to finish the fight, so Watt kept his WBC lightweight title on a unanimous decision. He retired after losing the title on June 20 the following year. Davis didn't retire until 1996, when he was 40, after losing to Dana Rosenblatt for something called the WBU middleweight title. So he never won even an ersatz world title.

1900
The only golfer ever to shoot the lowest score in every round of a Major - though he had company after the first. At the British Open, JH Taylor began with a 79 which was matched by another member of the Great Triumvirate, Harry Vardon. But Vardon fell four shots back after the second round, and Taylor finished with his lowest of the Championship: a 75 that won him the title for the third time, with Vardon in second place eight shots behind. The third member of the Triumvirate, Jimmy Braid finished third, 13 shots off the lead.

1997
In ice hockey, the Detroit Red Wings won the Stanley Cup for the first time in 42 years, beating the Philadelphia Flyers by four games to nil. They'd lost six finals in between. Then we're back to the old comparison with buses: they retained the Cup in 1998.

1922
Rocky Graziano was born Rocco Barbella in New York. One of the hardest punchers in middleweight history, he was famous for three world title fights with the ironclad Tony Zale, losing the first and third (June 10, 1948). All three were tremendous slugfests that ended early, as did Rocky's title fight with Sugar Ray Robinson on April 16, 1952. Graziano's defence was simply never good enough, but his one-punch power brought in the crowds: 52 of his 67 wins as a professional were by knockout. He later became a popular TV personality and actor. He was played by Paul Newman in the film of his life Somebody up there likes me.

1996
In rugby union, dynamic attacking full-back Christian Cullen scored three tries on his Test debut. New Zealand scored four other tries in a 51-10 hammering of Samoa at home, with Andrew Mehrtens kicking 16 points. Cullen scored four tries in his second international, against Scotland eight days later, averaged exactly a try a game in his first 28, and finished with 46 in all.

© ESPN EMEA LTD