As the bell rang to end round 15 and the first clash between Fritzie Zivic and Henry Armstrong, the latter sprawled out face-down on the canvas of Madison Square Garden’s historic ring, gloves in the gummy resin. Armstrong hadn’t experienced the feeling of being on the deck as a fight ended since his pro debut almost a decade earlier.

In the opening bout of a card featuring future middleweight champion Teddy Yarosz, a fighter named Al Iovino scored the win of a lifetime, and in fact his final victory, by stopping an 18-year-old fighter named Melody Jackson in three rounds. Jackson would later go on to fight as Henry Armstrong, the nonstop punching machine.

Armstrong fought more than 125 times between the stoppage loss to Iovino in his debut and the decision loss to Zivic. Everything changed during that time. The ruthlessness with which Armstrong dealt with most opponents on his way to becoming a three-division world champion led boxing’s media to describe him in bloodlusting terms like “Hammerin’ Hank,” “Homicide Hank” and “Hurricane Henry.” And Zivic ended much of that.

The decades have reduced Zivic to a perennial feature on “Dirtiest Fighters of All Time” lists, and maybe a mention as having one of the worst overall records of any world champion at 157-65-9. There’s some truth to both of those things, though both are reductive and shortchange an incredible fighter.

As his record clearly indicates, Zivic didn’t have a lot of extended win streaks. He lacked consistency, but he also took countless fights on short notice and in opponents’ hometowns. An underrated puncher, Zivic hurt most of the big-name fighters he faced and was nearly impossible to dent in return.

Zivic grew up in the Central Lawrenceville neighborhood of Pittsburgh alongside his four brothers, all of whom took up fighting in the street, then boxing. Around the time Armstrong was losing his pro debut, Zivic and his brother, Eddie, were having to toss a coin to decide the final of the Alleghany Mountain Association amateur tournament at featherweight because they weren’t allowed to fight one another. Eddie called tails and won, and in a matter of months he and Fritzie followed in their older brother Jack’s footsteps and turned pro.

When placed next to photos of Fritzie’s unmarred face from early in his career, the later photos of him with his smashed-in nose, cauliflower ear and scarring around his eyes read more like an anti-boxing warning than any kind of endorsement of the sweet science. He fought a hellish schedule at times, picking up every trick imaginable along the way.

Defeating Armstrong the first time wasn’t easy for Zivic, and in fact many in the Garden booed the decision in October 1940. Armstrong was not only a popular fighter, he overwhelmed Zivic at times, throwing an impressive torrent of punches in several rounds before both eyes were sliced open right at the scar tissue below his eyebrows. The late rounds sealed the win for Zivic, a brand new and, at least going by his record, highly unlikely champion.

Armstrong’s scar tissue required surgery before a rematch could be made, and the delay allowed Zivic to take a few fights in the meanwhile as pundits wondered if Armstrong’s legs were gone. Adding to Armstrong’s woes, his manager, Eddie Mead, wasn’t allowed to attend the fight on account of a heart condition.

Then there was the interesting dichotomy between the “experts” and those making bets on their second fight, which took place January 17, 1941.

“Although most of the evidence points to a return victory for Fritzie, not even the betting men are willing to give up on Lil’ Perpetual Motion,” sportswriter Sid Feder wrote. “The experts, however, generally picked Zivic, largely because the Pittsburgher has been particularly impressive in his training, while Henry has been somewhat less terrific.”

Armstrong was such a thrilling fighter that fans happily parted with their money to watch him fight, despite their own lying eyes telling them he was on the decline. Bettors made Armstrong an 8-5 favorite to reclaim the last of his three world titles, sending the fighter on a final Quixotic quest. A record 23,190 fans jammed into Madison Square Garden to see if Armstrong still had it, ignoring the chatter among the fight crowd that he definitely did not.

Weighing in a bit lighter did Armstrong no favors during the fight. The three pounds he gave up against Zivic the first time turned to five in the rematch, and Zivic was shockingly strong in the clinch. Zivic also quickly recognized in their first fight that Armstrong could be ripped with uppercuts on the inside, and nothing changed here.

Zivic maneuvered his punches around Armstrong’s outstretched arms inside and tore him apart bit by bit. Usually, Armstrong could summon forth the energy to win a round or two on activity alone, and he appeared to do that in round 2. Zivic was sharp as a razor, however, and by the end of round 3, his jab combined with a tremendous array of other punches set Armstrong’s eyes on a path to gore.

Armstrong never stopped trying to return fire, but Zivic’s defense ensured that anything Armstrong actually connected with slid off his gloves or elbows. Those were elbows Armstrong still had to worry about, too, apart from Zivic’s thumbs, forearms and laces. The champion didn’t need those, though, because Armstrong absorbed everything thrown his way.

At ringside, a quiet murmur of voices asking for the fight to be stopped became more vocal and urgent going into the later rounds. Going into round 10, referee Arthur Donovan issued Armstrong a dire warning that the fight was moments from being stopped, so Armstrong answered with a final two-round stand.

Zivic was forced back onto his heels for the first time in round 10 as Armstrong scraped every bit of greatness from his reserves, but it was only good for about two-and-a-half minutes of fighting. Zivic took over in the final portion of the round, and they repeated that in the 11th before Armstrong was visibly spent.

These days, a throwback fighter might remind a fan of someone they used to watch in the 1970s or ‘80s, while back then they used to talk about guys like Armstrong. In Armstrong’s time, the old fans reminisced about the steel-faced warriors who fended off death to toe the scratch and fought until one or both could simply no longer continue. Writers in attendance at Zivic-Armstrong II made it clear that Armstrong’s ability to answer the bell for round 12 was nothing short of miraculous, like those mythical men of old.

Armstrong feebly swatted at Zivic a few times before the latter punched back and the fight was stopped in the opening minute by the referee. Armstrong was led back to his corner, where he plopped onto his stool, both eyes bleeding and his mouth swollen from the beating. Zivic pushed his team aside and made his way to Armstrong’s corner.

“To me you’re still the champion, the greatest fighter I ever met,” Zivic said.

If it had been anyone but Armstrong, the fight might have been a tale of Zivic’s discipline and consistency, and Zivic proving he wasn’t a fluke champion. But it indeed was the great Henry Armstrong, who told reporters in his locker room that he was done fighting and would form an orchestra. Of course he would fight more, and everyone within earshot in that locker room probably knew that, but they embraced the poetry of the moment for the ex-champ’s sake.

In 1941, a few fighters had won world titles in three divisions, but only Armstrong held them all simultaneously, and none were in any of those pesky “junior” divisions. This was before “Sugar” Ray Robinson came along, and for a time Armstrong’s feats made him the greatest there ever was by default. Some still believe that to be so.

Zivic would face the same reckoning eventually, and Armstrong even ended up defeating him in a non-title bout the following year. But that January night at the Garden marked Armstrong’s final world title fight, and the final time he was stopped. At least this time he kept the resin off his gloves.