- Sep 1, 2004
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and before the DLH fight you could say the samething about floyd
Official 2013 Boxing Thread: Year is over, please lock.
- Thread in 'Sports & Training' Thread starter Started by proshares,
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- Sep 28, 2003
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Ward has no one to fight who would put him at a superstar level. Not even Bute would've when he was still undefeated.
- Oct 16, 2012
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Floyd has always been outspoken though. It also helped that he had physical gifts that were only seen in guys like Pernell Whitaker, Roy Jones Jr. and Muhammad Ali.
- Sep 28, 2003
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One can make the argument, especially in his early career. He wasn't the #2 P4P fighter in the world in 1999 because of his personality.Come on Floyds notoriety doesn't have much to do with his physical and athletic gifts.
1999
1. Roy Jones Jr.
2. Floyd Mayweather Jr.
3. Felix Trinidad
4. Oscar De La Hoya
5. Shane Mosley
6. Mark Johnson
7. Ricardo Lopez
8. Erik Morales
9. Bernard Hopkins
10. Stevie Johnston
From 130-140, Floyd dominated with his fast hands, legs, exceptional defense and overall speed.
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- Sep 1, 2004
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the weight class he can fight in there has never been huge PPV draws there. Hopkins and Roy jones didnt become draws till the later parts of there career.
and ward atleast has a home town fan base something alot of these fighters dont even have
not sure why Floyd even threw shots when he was in wards postion at one time
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I think part of it had to do with Ward publicly stating that he was rooting for Guerrero and he probably wanted to give Andre some publicity since he's been sidelined due to his surgery.
Like Ward, Mayweather had to pay his dues. He was the B-side during his fight with De La Hoya, but when you compare him to where Andre is now at 29, Floyd had already fought Gatti, Judah and Baldomir on PPV. Floyd was the draw in each of these fights.
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- Sep 4, 2006
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Floyd needs to quiet down with those comments. Doesn't he know Andre Ward's manager is J. Prince?
- Jul 23, 2007
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Disrespecting Floyd's athleticism and skills.
Its funny re-watching some of those old fights at 130. Floyd was pretty offensive minded. til the hand injuries and moving up in weight.
For all his greatness, Floyd still owes us, the boxing fans. He robbed us of potential virtuoso performances vs everyone at 147. there isnt a guy at 147 he would have lost to neither. Williams, cotto, Margarito, Pacman ... Nobody
Its funny re-watching some of those old fights at 130. Floyd was pretty offensive minded. til the hand injuries and moving up in weight.
For all his greatness, Floyd still owes us, the boxing fans. He robbed us of potential virtuoso performances vs everyone at 147. there isnt a guy at 147 he would have lost to neither. Williams, cotto, Margarito, Pacman ... Nobody
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I was shocked when I read the comment about how a lot of his success didn't have to do with him arguably being the most physically gifted fighter to ever lace them up. It's well-known that at the age of 17 he sparred and bested Pernell Whitaker and Frankie Randle.
At 130 and 135, Floyd let his hands go a little bit more and he was masterful in the ring. Head-to-head, I believe that he's the best lightweight of all time.
I agree with you saying Floyd would've beaten each of those fighters at 147. He looked brilliant against Hatton and would've taxed each of those guys as well.
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- Sep 1, 2004
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you notice when Prince sent out his comments yesterday Ellerbe came in to claim everything down
ummm
VS gatti he wasnt the draw, gatti was the draw that crowd was there for gatti and remember after the gatti fight floyd fought in portland and barley filled up the crowd VS mitchell
VS Baldomir the arena was half full and had everyone walking out by the 9th round
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Pernell was cracked out by then and honestly seeing his temperament he wouldn't have sparred seriously against some unknown kid.I was shocked when I read the comment about how a lot of his success didn't have to do with him arguably being the most physically gifted fighter to ever lace them up. It's well-known that at the age of 17 he sparred and bested Pernell Whitaker and Frankie Randle.
At 130 and 135, Floyd let his hands go a little bit more and he was masterful in the ring. Head-to-head, I believe that he's the best lightweight of all time.
I agree with you saying Floyd would've beaten each of those fighters at 147. He looked brilliant against Hatton and would've taxed each of those guys as well.
And how do you have Floyd as the greatest at 135 H2H wise? (130 I could see but he has competition in Arguello there but it's very close)
He fought about 2 or 3 guys. I have Duran there, his best outing being De Jesus 3).
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#83 Lloyd Marshall (70-25-4)
Yes, LaMotta was hard to leave out and his daring-do was a part of that reasoning. LaMotta did what very few white contenders did without very significant managerial or promotional pressure and stepped out to take on two members of the Murderer’s Row. He beat a past-prime Holman Williams in the summer of ’46, but the fight he never should have taken was against Riffmaster-General Lloyd Marshall in April of ’44. Marshall was a guy who didn’t care too much for the sheet music; a jazz musician, if you will.
Marshall freestyled his way to a clear points decision over the Bronx Bull after splitting his cheek, his nose and actually rocking the un-rockable middleweight in the fifth round. His left hand, an improvised instrument designed only for a drunken jam session, tore both LaMotta’s face and air of invulnerability apart. Marshall, along with Zivic and Robinson, would be the only men to beat Jake between July of ’42 and September of ’47.
One of the great delights of the last decade has been the emerging footage of Marshall. Reading about him before seeing him we were regaled with outlandish tales of a gunslinger that threw left hooks and right from the same stance with the same lack of tells, hands low in spite of a questionable chin. The stories of his falling all the way back onto the ropes and using the bottom strand to catapult himself back into the fray (sometimes prompting startled referees into starting a count) were charming, but once playtime was over it was with a shake of the head that we dismissed the colorful ramblings of the 1940’s press. Only for it all to come magically and delightfully true when the footage stated to creep out.
Best of all was the silent film of his losing effort against Ezzard Charles. Marshall actually beat Charles in March of ’43, the jewel in the crown of his resume which includes such notable names as Teddy Yarosz, Lou Brouillard, Charley Burley, Holman Williams, Joey Maxim, Jack Chase and Freddie Mills in addition to LaMotta. A weak chin (given the company he kept) and, perhaps, a tendency to make certain agreements with certain gentlemen regarding the outcome of certain fights, led to his losing no fewer than twenty-five duels, many of them slam-bam in his extravagant prime, and this keeps him just outside the eighty.
Yes, LaMotta was hard to leave out and his daring-do was a part of that reasoning. LaMotta did what very few white contenders did without very significant managerial or promotional pressure and stepped out to take on two members of the Murderer’s Row. He beat a past-prime Holman Williams in the summer of ’46, but the fight he never should have taken was against Riffmaster-General Lloyd Marshall in April of ’44. Marshall was a guy who didn’t care too much for the sheet music; a jazz musician, if you will.
Marshall freestyled his way to a clear points decision over the Bronx Bull after splitting his cheek, his nose and actually rocking the un-rockable middleweight in the fifth round. His left hand, an improvised instrument designed only for a drunken jam session, tore both LaMotta’s face and air of invulnerability apart. Marshall, along with Zivic and Robinson, would be the only men to beat Jake between July of ’42 and September of ’47.
One of the great delights of the last decade has been the emerging footage of Marshall. Reading about him before seeing him we were regaled with outlandish tales of a gunslinger that threw left hooks and right from the same stance with the same lack of tells, hands low in spite of a questionable chin. The stories of his falling all the way back onto the ropes and using the bottom strand to catapult himself back into the fray (sometimes prompting startled referees into starting a count) were charming, but once playtime was over it was with a shake of the head that we dismissed the colorful ramblings of the 1940’s press. Only for it all to come magically and delightfully true when the footage stated to creep out.
Best of all was the silent film of his losing effort against Ezzard Charles. Marshall actually beat Charles in March of ’43, the jewel in the crown of his resume which includes such notable names as Teddy Yarosz, Lou Brouillard, Charley Burley, Holman Williams, Joey Maxim, Jack Chase and Freddie Mills in addition to LaMotta. A weak chin (given the company he kept) and, perhaps, a tendency to make certain agreements with certain gentlemen regarding the outcome of certain fights, led to his losing no fewer than twenty-five duels, many of them slam-bam in his extravagant prime, and this keeps him just outside the eighty.
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#82 Pascual Perez (84-7-1)
Pascual Perez is as brilliant a flyweight as has ever lived. The Argentine amassed nine defenses of the title in six years at the top, more than any other fly on this list aside from Miguel Canto (more of whom later). Sporting a delightful fifty-seven stoppage wins and a knockout percentage in the sixties he was a little man who could box or punch but who, at just 4’11, had to overcome huge physical disadvantages. Even in the 112 lb. division he would often give away big chunks of weight to his title opponents. Despite this, he went unbeaten for the best part of eight years, picking up a national title in just his sixth fight and the world title in just his twenty-fourth, going to Japan to outclass and outpoint national idol Yoshio Shirai who was taller by five and a half inches and heavier by four pounds. Shirai was a brilliant operator with the scalps of Dado Marino and Terry Allen hanging from his belt and was a trailblazer for Japanese boxing as well as much bigger—in a rematch Perez knocked him out and sent him into retirement.
As soon as Perez began to slip, the physical disadvantages he had to suffer made life impossible, as the excellent Pone Kingpetch proved by beating him back to back in 1960 to remove him from the title picture, but that didn’t stop the little man adding another twenty-eight wins before losing four of his last six darkened his record slightly.
An utterly brilliant and dominant flyweight at his best, his 51-0-1 run perpetrated against taller and heavier men over a period of just six years is perhaps the most celebrated in the history of his division. It is interesting to ponder how long he might have ruled weighing in as a modern-day minimum or light-flyweight. It seems a rather terrifying prospect.
Pascual Perez is as brilliant a flyweight as has ever lived. The Argentine amassed nine defenses of the title in six years at the top, more than any other fly on this list aside from Miguel Canto (more of whom later). Sporting a delightful fifty-seven stoppage wins and a knockout percentage in the sixties he was a little man who could box or punch but who, at just 4’11, had to overcome huge physical disadvantages. Even in the 112 lb. division he would often give away big chunks of weight to his title opponents. Despite this, he went unbeaten for the best part of eight years, picking up a national title in just his sixth fight and the world title in just his twenty-fourth, going to Japan to outclass and outpoint national idol Yoshio Shirai who was taller by five and a half inches and heavier by four pounds. Shirai was a brilliant operator with the scalps of Dado Marino and Terry Allen hanging from his belt and was a trailblazer for Japanese boxing as well as much bigger—in a rematch Perez knocked him out and sent him into retirement.
As soon as Perez began to slip, the physical disadvantages he had to suffer made life impossible, as the excellent Pone Kingpetch proved by beating him back to back in 1960 to remove him from the title picture, but that didn’t stop the little man adding another twenty-eight wins before losing four of his last six darkened his record slightly.
An utterly brilliant and dominant flyweight at his best, his 51-0-1 run perpetrated against taller and heavier men over a period of just six years is perhaps the most celebrated in the history of his division. It is interesting to ponder how long he might have ruled weighing in as a modern-day minimum or light-flyweight. It seems a rather terrifying prospect.
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#81 Panama Al Brown (133-20-13)
An aspect of ranking fighters that i very difficult to get proper control of is the dreaded “head-to-head” equation. This is where the differences between the achievements and legacies of fighters become so hard to differentiate that you start to fall back on the oldest of fight adages, “who would win?” It is strange that it tends to be thought of as the grubby little cousin of “historical achievement” when ranking fighters on any all-time list. You don’t sit down in front of the television on Saturday night and handicap your boxers based upon what they’ve done in the sum total of their careers, just how good they are and maybe upon how they performed last time out. Panama Al Brown is a fighter whose high ranking rests in part upon his astonishing head-to-head abilities.
Brown was 5’11 and had a 76” reach. For the sake of comparison, Anselmo Moreno, who is rated at #1 by the Transnational Boxing Board in the current bantamweight division, is 5’6 with a reach of 70”. In an era of same-day weigh-ins, Brown was taller and rangier than current middleweight champion Sergio Martinez. He was physically capable of throwing, and landing, uppercuts without breaching his opponent’s jabbing range. The advantages he held over the field are almost unparalleled but he did not rest upon these physical laurels. He was technically gifted, capable of attacking on the front foot from suddenly from unseen angles, did a very nice line in a shucking defense and whilst he was not a huge puncher, his stringy elegance made him a dangerous hitter capable of one-punch knockouts with either hand.
Such were his skills and physicality that he was able to go unbeaten at his favored bantamweight for an astonishing and fight-filled eight years, from his questionable points loss to Belgian idol Henri Scillie in Paris in 1927 and 1935, when he lost to Spain’s Baltasar Sangchili (later avenged). Not a fighter shackled to any one country for fear of bad judging, Brown was the ultimate road warrior, boxing forty times on the European continent in these years, beating the best the world had to offer—perhaps the Panamanian’s persistent drinking and smoking went down better over here than it might have in the United States. He did box in America and visited Canada for some of his very best performances, including the two-minute knockout of the storied Emile Pladner, his jab clinic against the superb Pete Sanstol (then 76-2) and his utter domination of Eugene Huat (who holds a win over Newsboy Brown and tragically beat Pladner into a coma from which he would fortunately recover). He was unquestionably the best bantamweight in the world for the best part of ten years, should be favored to beat every bantam to have come before him and depending upon your own view on the evolution of boxing you might reasonably pick him over every bantam that came after him too.
Although he performed well at featherweight, he lacks the genuine pound-for-pound achievement to put him nearer the top of this list. His tendency to lose to the quill of his featherweight competition even in his prime years despite considerable physical advantages even those few pounds north, a factor. Were it based purely upon the head-to-head equation with his abilities at bantamweight the only factor, he would be considerably higher.
#80 Jim Driscoll (53-3-5; Newspaper Decisions 7-1)
The story goes that when Jim Driscoll’s died in January of 1925 and his funeral procession passed through the streets of Cardiff, one-hundred thousand wet-eyed Welshmen and women lined the streets, hats in hands. That was the kind of man he was; both belonging to the people and the master of their hearts.
100,000 hearts does not get you onto this list, however, so how to explain Driscoll’s absence of a title reign? After all, he is ranked here in front of some of the greatest champions the sport has produced. What happened?
There is a story here, too. The story says that in 1909 Driscoll, by then boxing in America, met the cynical Abe Attell, one of the greatest featherweights in history, and provided for him a boxing lesson over ten rounds in a non-title bout—only for the cowardly champion to deny Driscoll a rematch for the championship.
Like all great stories, there are elements of truth…and elements of hokum. There are also some twists that are stranger than fiction. The reason Driscoll did not pursue an immediate rematch with Attell is the same reason that half of Cardiff lined up to pay their final respects, namely that his heart called him to duty rather than glory. Driscoll returned home to box in a benefit for local orphans.
Attell seemed open to the notion of bringing Driscoll back to the US for a rematch, but when he finally arrived more than a year later it was to lose, whilst in ill health, to Pal Moore who clearly got the better of him in a six round go. Suffering from a serious chest infection, Driscoll returned home to recuperate and the chance was missed.
That he gave Attell a boxing lesson seems to have been, at least in part, true. The Reading Eagle nominated him “the last word in exquisite boxing skills.” The New York Evening World said that Attell “…tried desperately for a walloping finish. Curiously enough it was during these flurries that he found Driscoll hardest to hit. It’s safe to say that in all his experience Attell has never met with such disappointment…he found himself up against a man who actually beat him in speed and skill.”
It is also true that newspaper reports can be found which deemed the fight a draw, but for the most part, Driscoll was deemed the superior. Very much in character, Driscoll leapt from the ring and into another, at “a charity barn dance where he boxed for more rounds then danced ‘till the sun rose.”
He was seen off on his steamship by a huge crowd of Americans who seemed to love him almost as much as the Welsh.
They had not been so impressed when he arrived. He was seen as small and sickly looking. Whilst it was true that he had bested the master, George Dixon, three times in the UK, including a knockout in five, his wins were over a faded version. He had also bested the best Europeans from bantamweight to lightweight often giving away size but never skill, twin wins over Joe Bowker the highlight. He won them over with brilliance and character.
His prime ended with his 1911 trouncing of Spike Robson (KO15). Spike had fought draws with Terry McGovern and Abe Attell and held multiple wins over the superb Harlem Tommy Murphy; against Driscoll, he was not in the fight, outclassed and stopped.
He let himself down a little bit in a DQ loss to fellow genius and Welshman Freddie Welsh, losing his treasured composure whilst being out-generalled by the bigger man but it was one of only four losses—none of which was without circumstances— in the most dignified of boxing careers.
An aspect of ranking fighters that i very difficult to get proper control of is the dreaded “head-to-head” equation. This is where the differences between the achievements and legacies of fighters become so hard to differentiate that you start to fall back on the oldest of fight adages, “who would win?” It is strange that it tends to be thought of as the grubby little cousin of “historical achievement” when ranking fighters on any all-time list. You don’t sit down in front of the television on Saturday night and handicap your boxers based upon what they’ve done in the sum total of their careers, just how good they are and maybe upon how they performed last time out. Panama Al Brown is a fighter whose high ranking rests in part upon his astonishing head-to-head abilities.
Brown was 5’11 and had a 76” reach. For the sake of comparison, Anselmo Moreno, who is rated at #1 by the Transnational Boxing Board in the current bantamweight division, is 5’6 with a reach of 70”. In an era of same-day weigh-ins, Brown was taller and rangier than current middleweight champion Sergio Martinez. He was physically capable of throwing, and landing, uppercuts without breaching his opponent’s jabbing range. The advantages he held over the field are almost unparalleled but he did not rest upon these physical laurels. He was technically gifted, capable of attacking on the front foot from suddenly from unseen angles, did a very nice line in a shucking defense and whilst he was not a huge puncher, his stringy elegance made him a dangerous hitter capable of one-punch knockouts with either hand.
Such were his skills and physicality that he was able to go unbeaten at his favored bantamweight for an astonishing and fight-filled eight years, from his questionable points loss to Belgian idol Henri Scillie in Paris in 1927 and 1935, when he lost to Spain’s Baltasar Sangchili (later avenged). Not a fighter shackled to any one country for fear of bad judging, Brown was the ultimate road warrior, boxing forty times on the European continent in these years, beating the best the world had to offer—perhaps the Panamanian’s persistent drinking and smoking went down better over here than it might have in the United States. He did box in America and visited Canada for some of his very best performances, including the two-minute knockout of the storied Emile Pladner, his jab clinic against the superb Pete Sanstol (then 76-2) and his utter domination of Eugene Huat (who holds a win over Newsboy Brown and tragically beat Pladner into a coma from which he would fortunately recover). He was unquestionably the best bantamweight in the world for the best part of ten years, should be favored to beat every bantam to have come before him and depending upon your own view on the evolution of boxing you might reasonably pick him over every bantam that came after him too.
Although he performed well at featherweight, he lacks the genuine pound-for-pound achievement to put him nearer the top of this list. His tendency to lose to the quill of his featherweight competition even in his prime years despite considerable physical advantages even those few pounds north, a factor. Were it based purely upon the head-to-head equation with his abilities at bantamweight the only factor, he would be considerably higher.
#80 Jim Driscoll (53-3-5; Newspaper Decisions 7-1)
The story goes that when Jim Driscoll’s died in January of 1925 and his funeral procession passed through the streets of Cardiff, one-hundred thousand wet-eyed Welshmen and women lined the streets, hats in hands. That was the kind of man he was; both belonging to the people and the master of their hearts.
100,000 hearts does not get you onto this list, however, so how to explain Driscoll’s absence of a title reign? After all, he is ranked here in front of some of the greatest champions the sport has produced. What happened?
There is a story here, too. The story says that in 1909 Driscoll, by then boxing in America, met the cynical Abe Attell, one of the greatest featherweights in history, and provided for him a boxing lesson over ten rounds in a non-title bout—only for the cowardly champion to deny Driscoll a rematch for the championship.
Like all great stories, there are elements of truth…and elements of hokum. There are also some twists that are stranger than fiction. The reason Driscoll did not pursue an immediate rematch with Attell is the same reason that half of Cardiff lined up to pay their final respects, namely that his heart called him to duty rather than glory. Driscoll returned home to box in a benefit for local orphans.
Attell seemed open to the notion of bringing Driscoll back to the US for a rematch, but when he finally arrived more than a year later it was to lose, whilst in ill health, to Pal Moore who clearly got the better of him in a six round go. Suffering from a serious chest infection, Driscoll returned home to recuperate and the chance was missed.
That he gave Attell a boxing lesson seems to have been, at least in part, true. The Reading Eagle nominated him “the last word in exquisite boxing skills.” The New York Evening World said that Attell “…tried desperately for a walloping finish. Curiously enough it was during these flurries that he found Driscoll hardest to hit. It’s safe to say that in all his experience Attell has never met with such disappointment…he found himself up against a man who actually beat him in speed and skill.”
It is also true that newspaper reports can be found which deemed the fight a draw, but for the most part, Driscoll was deemed the superior. Very much in character, Driscoll leapt from the ring and into another, at “a charity barn dance where he boxed for more rounds then danced ‘till the sun rose.”
He was seen off on his steamship by a huge crowd of Americans who seemed to love him almost as much as the Welsh.
They had not been so impressed when he arrived. He was seen as small and sickly looking. Whilst it was true that he had bested the master, George Dixon, three times in the UK, including a knockout in five, his wins were over a faded version. He had also bested the best Europeans from bantamweight to lightweight often giving away size but never skill, twin wins over Joe Bowker the highlight. He won them over with brilliance and character.
His prime ended with his 1911 trouncing of Spike Robson (KO15). Spike had fought draws with Terry McGovern and Abe Attell and held multiple wins over the superb Harlem Tommy Murphy; against Driscoll, he was not in the fight, outclassed and stopped.
He let himself down a little bit in a DQ loss to fellow genius and Welshman Freddie Welsh, losing his treasured composure whilst being out-generalled by the bigger man but it was one of only four losses—none of which was without circumstances— in the most dignified of boxing careers.
- Jul 23, 2007
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- 1,056
http://bymorgancampbell.com/2013/03/15/floyd-mayweather-vs-andre-ward-vs-the-real-son-of-god/
Floyd Mayweather vs. Andre Ward vs.The Real Son of God
Posted by Morgan Campbell on March 15, 2013 · 2 Comments
1 Vote
Six weeks ahead of his return to the ring against Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero, boxing’s top biggest name and cash king, Floyd Mayweather, used an interview with fighthype.com to fire a series of verbal jabs… at 168-pound champ Andre Ward.
Apparently Ward, the best boxer on the planet not named Mayweather, is a long-time friend of Guerrero’s and hopes the Ghost achieves an upset victory May 4.
Naturally, Mayweather wasn’t impressed, and responded by discussing in detail the beyond-the-ring flaws of the near-flawless fighter nicknamed “Son of God.”
Starting with that moniker.
“He calls himself S.O.G. If I’m not mistaken, that stands for Son of God. Last time I checked, we’re all God’s children. When one fighter is facing another fighter, God don’t choose sides. What’s going to happen in life is going to happen. Everything is already planned out. Listen man, if you’re going to be a pastor, go to church. If you’re going to be a reverend, go to church. If you’re going to be a boxer, be a boxer. I mean, one minute, they want to say all this S.O.G. stuff, and the next minute, they wanna go put tattoos on they body. I ain’t never seen a pastor boxing. I ain’t never seen a reverend boxing. I say a prayer that my opponent lives to fight another day and I live to fight another day. You got these guys trying to hurt a man on Saturday and then going to praise the Lord on Sunday”
WARD_SOG
And moving on to Ward’s (lack of) marketability.
Not knocking Andre Ward, but he can’t sell tickets nowhere. He can’t sell tickets in Las Vegas. This is the only guy I know that’s a gold medalist, but don’t nobody know he’s a gold medalist. He’s a gold medalist, but he’s making money like he don’t even got a medal. Like I said before, Andre Ward, he’s a good fighter, but who knows him? If you’re not in Oakland, you don’t even know who he is. He’s getting older and time is ticking, so I mean, when is he going to ever leave Oakland and put ***** in seats somewhere else?
Predictably, a flurry of responses, counter-responses and runaway internet hype about catch-weight challenges that prompted Ward himself to speak out in the interest of stopping the madness.
Still, a few aspects of this debate bear closer scrutiny.
For example…
1. “I ain’t never seen a pastor boxing”
Mayweather’s never heard of this guy?
2. Is James Prince the common denominator?
Shortly after Mayweather’s comments hit the internet Ward’s manager, James Prince, responded with shots of his own. Prince managed Mayweather early in Floyd’s career and clearly didn’t appreciate his former protegé criticizing his current star pupil.
Not knocking Floyd Mayweather, but he knows he couldn’t draw flies to a dumpster until he beat Oscar De la Hoya. I know this is true because I was managing him when he couldn’t sell out his hometown of Grand Rapids or the San Francisco Auditorium, which only seats 6,000 people.
Question:
If Mayweather had an Olympic medal, a big personality and several world titles yet still couldn’t sell tickets, shouldn’t we fault the people managing for not selling him correctly? Prince discusses Mayweather’s pre-2007 anonymity as if Prince played no role in making the fighter known to a broader audience. And pointing out that Mayweather wasn’t a big draw before defeating De La Hoya doesn’t remedy Ward’s dilemma.
He’s not absolutely unknown — his 147,000-plus Twitter followers make him more popular in that space than half the teams in Major League Baseball. But he still has trouble selling tickets outside Oakland, is a long way from headlining a pay-per-view event, and even with his commentating gigs on HBO is struggling to establish a big enough following to make PPVs a possibility.
MayweatherCash
Shouldn’t his manager be working to fix that problem?
Yes, but remember this. Mayweather didn’t become a star until after he left Prince.
Am I conflating correlation and causation here?
Possibly, but this much is certain:
Mayweather’s rant has earned Ward more publicity than Prince’s “managing.” So maybe instead of ripping Mayweather he should take notes on how this former client figured out how to win the fame game.
3. But Back to God — Mayweather has a point.
I’m no theologian, and I’m rarely spotted in a church aside from weddings, funerals and Martin Luther King Day vigils, but I know this:
“ For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
So if we’re all God’s children but Jesus is God’s only Son, what is Andre Ward? God’s outside kid? Is God listing Andre Ward as a dependent on his tax returns? And while I’m sure Ward is devout, billions of other human beings are too, so what has he done to merit half-sibling-to-Jesus status?
Expressing devotion and feeling thankful for blessings is one thing, but calling yourself the Son of God requires a self-righteous sanctimony not even Tim Tebow expresses — at least not in public. Smug piety like that would make Ward one of the most polarizing figures in sport if more fans cared who he was, except… well… see above.
jesus_with_boxing_gloves
It also makes you wonder how Ward’s “Son of God” moniker would go over with the original Son of God.
Again, I’m no religious scholar but I can’t imagine that level of hubris sitting well with a man who so prized compassion and humility — the very two qualities that would keep Jesus from backhanding Ward for his insolence.
Yes, I understand Ward is the second-best pound-for-pound fighter on the planet while Jesus was but a humble carpenter. But Jesus walks across ponds, conjures an entire banquet from two loaves of bread and turns water into wine with the power of his mind. He’d figure out a way to outbox Ward.
And if not, he’d win the decision anyway because God would take a sudden interest in sports and rig the outcome in favour of his son.
The older one.
Floyd Mayweather vs. Andre Ward vs.The Real Son of God
Posted by Morgan Campbell on March 15, 2013 · 2 Comments
1 Vote
Six weeks ahead of his return to the ring against Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero, boxing’s top biggest name and cash king, Floyd Mayweather, used an interview with fighthype.com to fire a series of verbal jabs… at 168-pound champ Andre Ward.
Apparently Ward, the best boxer on the planet not named Mayweather, is a long-time friend of Guerrero’s and hopes the Ghost achieves an upset victory May 4.
Naturally, Mayweather wasn’t impressed, and responded by discussing in detail the beyond-the-ring flaws of the near-flawless fighter nicknamed “Son of God.”
Starting with that moniker.
“He calls himself S.O.G. If I’m not mistaken, that stands for Son of God. Last time I checked, we’re all God’s children. When one fighter is facing another fighter, God don’t choose sides. What’s going to happen in life is going to happen. Everything is already planned out. Listen man, if you’re going to be a pastor, go to church. If you’re going to be a reverend, go to church. If you’re going to be a boxer, be a boxer. I mean, one minute, they want to say all this S.O.G. stuff, and the next minute, they wanna go put tattoos on they body. I ain’t never seen a pastor boxing. I ain’t never seen a reverend boxing. I say a prayer that my opponent lives to fight another day and I live to fight another day. You got these guys trying to hurt a man on Saturday and then going to praise the Lord on Sunday”
WARD_SOG
And moving on to Ward’s (lack of) marketability.
Not knocking Andre Ward, but he can’t sell tickets nowhere. He can’t sell tickets in Las Vegas. This is the only guy I know that’s a gold medalist, but don’t nobody know he’s a gold medalist. He’s a gold medalist, but he’s making money like he don’t even got a medal. Like I said before, Andre Ward, he’s a good fighter, but who knows him? If you’re not in Oakland, you don’t even know who he is. He’s getting older and time is ticking, so I mean, when is he going to ever leave Oakland and put ***** in seats somewhere else?
Predictably, a flurry of responses, counter-responses and runaway internet hype about catch-weight challenges that prompted Ward himself to speak out in the interest of stopping the madness.
Still, a few aspects of this debate bear closer scrutiny.
For example…
1. “I ain’t never seen a pastor boxing”
Mayweather’s never heard of this guy?
2. Is James Prince the common denominator?
Shortly after Mayweather’s comments hit the internet Ward’s manager, James Prince, responded with shots of his own. Prince managed Mayweather early in Floyd’s career and clearly didn’t appreciate his former protegé criticizing his current star pupil.
Not knocking Floyd Mayweather, but he knows he couldn’t draw flies to a dumpster until he beat Oscar De la Hoya. I know this is true because I was managing him when he couldn’t sell out his hometown of Grand Rapids or the San Francisco Auditorium, which only seats 6,000 people.
Question:
If Mayweather had an Olympic medal, a big personality and several world titles yet still couldn’t sell tickets, shouldn’t we fault the people managing for not selling him correctly? Prince discusses Mayweather’s pre-2007 anonymity as if Prince played no role in making the fighter known to a broader audience. And pointing out that Mayweather wasn’t a big draw before defeating De La Hoya doesn’t remedy Ward’s dilemma.
He’s not absolutely unknown — his 147,000-plus Twitter followers make him more popular in that space than half the teams in Major League Baseball. But he still has trouble selling tickets outside Oakland, is a long way from headlining a pay-per-view event, and even with his commentating gigs on HBO is struggling to establish a big enough following to make PPVs a possibility.
MayweatherCash
Shouldn’t his manager be working to fix that problem?
Yes, but remember this. Mayweather didn’t become a star until after he left Prince.
Am I conflating correlation and causation here?
Possibly, but this much is certain:
Mayweather’s rant has earned Ward more publicity than Prince’s “managing.” So maybe instead of ripping Mayweather he should take notes on how this former client figured out how to win the fame game.
3. But Back to God — Mayweather has a point.
I’m no theologian, and I’m rarely spotted in a church aside from weddings, funerals and Martin Luther King Day vigils, but I know this:
“ For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
So if we’re all God’s children but Jesus is God’s only Son, what is Andre Ward? God’s outside kid? Is God listing Andre Ward as a dependent on his tax returns? And while I’m sure Ward is devout, billions of other human beings are too, so what has he done to merit half-sibling-to-Jesus status?
Expressing devotion and feeling thankful for blessings is one thing, but calling yourself the Son of God requires a self-righteous sanctimony not even Tim Tebow expresses — at least not in public. Smug piety like that would make Ward one of the most polarizing figures in sport if more fans cared who he was, except… well… see above.
jesus_with_boxing_gloves
It also makes you wonder how Ward’s “Son of God” moniker would go over with the original Son of God.
Again, I’m no religious scholar but I can’t imagine that level of hubris sitting well with a man who so prized compassion and humility — the very two qualities that would keep Jesus from backhanding Ward for his insolence.
Yes, I understand Ward is the second-best pound-for-pound fighter on the planet while Jesus was but a humble carpenter. But Jesus walks across ponds, conjures an entire banquet from two loaves of bread and turns water into wine with the power of his mind. He’d figure out a way to outbox Ward.
And if not, he’d win the decision anyway because God would take a sudden interest in sports and rig the outcome in favour of his son.
The older one.
lightweight champion
Banned
- Jun 23, 2007
- 13,481
- 5,271
Oh geez. Shows how much Floyd and the writer know. Yes, SOG means Son of God. But Ward said before the Dawson fight that God was short for Godfather, his Godfather and trainer, Virgil Hunter. Hunter took on the father role when Ward's father passed away. 
This just in:
Article Link - http://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&opt=printable&id=63388#ixzz2NdirWoZk
This is a legal waiver. By copying and using the material from this article, you agree to give full credit to BoxingScene.com or provide a link to the original article.
By Edward Chaykovsky
WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Andre Ward (26-0, 14KOs) says his comments regarding a drop in weight to face Floyd Mayweather Jr. (43-0, 26KOs) was not a public challenge. The unbeaten boxer says he was simply answering a hypothetical question regarding a Mayweather fight. In the last few days, there have been some words exchanged between the two camps, but Ward is not looking to drag the situation out for the sake of making headlines. As far as Ward is concerned, the Mayweather situation is now closed.
"I've been in boxing a long time and rule number 1 is you don't call somebody out that's three weight classes lower than you. You also don't call somebody out who has a fight coming up, and I'm not in a position to call anybody out right now because I'm rehabbing my shoulder. I'm not a guy that says things for shock value or says things to get headlines," Ward told FightHype.com.
"I respected what Floyd has done for the sport before he said what he said and I respect what Floyd has done for our sport after he said what he said. We had a difference and that's what it is. What I'm not going to allow to happen is this thing to escalate and there be some long-standing beef or problem between me and Floyd Mayweather when that's not the case, so it's done. I don't have no problems with Floyd Mayweather. It was squashed the other day. I answered the question and it got blown way out of proportion."
This just in:
Article Link - http://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&opt=printable&id=63388#ixzz2NdirWoZk
This is a legal waiver. By copying and using the material from this article, you agree to give full credit to BoxingScene.com or provide a link to the original article.
By Edward Chaykovsky
WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Andre Ward (26-0, 14KOs) says his comments regarding a drop in weight to face Floyd Mayweather Jr. (43-0, 26KOs) was not a public challenge. The unbeaten boxer says he was simply answering a hypothetical question regarding a Mayweather fight. In the last few days, there have been some words exchanged between the two camps, but Ward is not looking to drag the situation out for the sake of making headlines. As far as Ward is concerned, the Mayweather situation is now closed.
"I've been in boxing a long time and rule number 1 is you don't call somebody out that's three weight classes lower than you. You also don't call somebody out who has a fight coming up, and I'm not in a position to call anybody out right now because I'm rehabbing my shoulder. I'm not a guy that says things for shock value or says things to get headlines," Ward told FightHype.com.
"I respected what Floyd has done for the sport before he said what he said and I respect what Floyd has done for our sport after he said what he said. We had a difference and that's what it is. What I'm not going to allow to happen is this thing to escalate and there be some long-standing beef or problem between me and Floyd Mayweather when that's not the case, so it's done. I don't have no problems with Floyd Mayweather. It was squashed the other day. I answered the question and it got blown way out of proportion."
- Feb 2, 2013
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#79 Teddy Yarosz (107-18-3)
Teddy Yarosz hit like a girl. In 128 fights he posted a pitiful 17 knockouts. In spite of his total inability to punch hard enough to make the definitive impression he beat Lloyd Marshall, Nate Bolden, Archie Moore, Ken Overlin, Ralph DeJohn, Billy Conn, Lou Brouillard, Solly Krieger, Vince Dundee, Jimmy Smith, Tommy Freeman, Ben Je—you get the point.
Yarosz lifted a piece of the middleweight title in 1934 and unified later that year against Vince Dundee. The only black marks from the prime that followed came against Babe Risko, who went 1-2 against Yarosz but only after the Pittsburgh man fractured his knee in both of those losing efforts. A pair of losses to all-time great Billy Conn make sense on paper, but both of these fights were hugely controversial. When the decision for the first fight was read the ring was pelted with seat cushions and bottles, a cacophony of booing drowning out the cheers of the Conn fans.
“Billy is a good boy,” said Yarosz. “But I certainly beat him.”
In the second fight, Yarosz seemed to be winning out of sight but a near collapse in the championship rounds seemed to offer Conn a glimmer—and Conn took full advantage, beating Yarosz around the ring like a bad dog for a seeming endless nine minutes. Although he greeted the final bell with near total collapse the press were near unanimous in seeing Yarosz the winner but the judges, again, chose Billy. A third fight was inevitable and Yarosz finally received a decision. A brilliant performance against a heavily favored Archie Moore in 1939 would be his best post-Conn performance, although he also went 1-1 Lloyd Marshall.
Grace, speed a superb jab and two-handed punching (often to the body) were the main ingredients in Teddy’s great success. The addition of power would have made him amongst the most complete fighters in the history of the middleweight division.
Teddy Yarosz hit like a girl. In 128 fights he posted a pitiful 17 knockouts. In spite of his total inability to punch hard enough to make the definitive impression he beat Lloyd Marshall, Nate Bolden, Archie Moore, Ken Overlin, Ralph DeJohn, Billy Conn, Lou Brouillard, Solly Krieger, Vince Dundee, Jimmy Smith, Tommy Freeman, Ben Je—you get the point.
Yarosz lifted a piece of the middleweight title in 1934 and unified later that year against Vince Dundee. The only black marks from the prime that followed came against Babe Risko, who went 1-2 against Yarosz but only after the Pittsburgh man fractured his knee in both of those losing efforts. A pair of losses to all-time great Billy Conn make sense on paper, but both of these fights were hugely controversial. When the decision for the first fight was read the ring was pelted with seat cushions and bottles, a cacophony of booing drowning out the cheers of the Conn fans.
“Billy is a good boy,” said Yarosz. “But I certainly beat him.”
In the second fight, Yarosz seemed to be winning out of sight but a near collapse in the championship rounds seemed to offer Conn a glimmer—and Conn took full advantage, beating Yarosz around the ring like a bad dog for a seeming endless nine minutes. Although he greeted the final bell with near total collapse the press were near unanimous in seeing Yarosz the winner but the judges, again, chose Billy. A third fight was inevitable and Yarosz finally received a decision. A brilliant performance against a heavily favored Archie Moore in 1939 would be his best post-Conn performance, although he also went 1-1 Lloyd Marshall.
Grace, speed a superb jab and two-handed punching (often to the body) were the main ingredients in Teddy’s great success. The addition of power would have made him amongst the most complete fighters in the history of the middleweight division.
- Feb 2, 2013
- 936
- 108
#78 Bob Foster (56-8-1)
Bob Foster lost eight fights, but not one of them was to a light-heavyweight. At 175 lbs., his best weight, he went through his entire career unbeaten. His competition was not exceptional, but he was. It can be argued that Foster is the single hardest puncher that has ever boxed, and whilst his division was not resplendent with talent, it was resplendent with iron chins. Didn’t matter. Foster was one of those freaky-deaky punchers, the kind of guys who seem to carry dynamite that has been blessed by a voodoo priest then coated in astrolite before being planted in gloves mounted with cyanide tipped nine-inch nails.
Seemingly too upright and too slouched at the same time, Foster appeared as some terrifying prehistoric bird all legs and feathers, both fragile and deadly. That fragility was exposed up at heavyweight where all of Foster’s losses occurred and where he failed to turn in a single top-class scalp despite repeated opportunities. Nevertheless he did beat something in the region of twenty fighters weighing in over the light-heavyweight limit, work that does enhance his standing slightly on this pound-for-pound list. But it is that incredible unbeaten run at light-heavyweight that locks him up, a run that include some sixteen victorious title fights. Losses to Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier can’t be seen to hurt him much, and although losses to the lesser lights of Doug Jones, Mauro Mina, Ernie Terrell and Zora Folley may have an air of disappointment about them, they all occurred before he hit his absolute stride, during which time only all-time great heavyweights found a way to lay him low.
Yeah Foster is Top 5 LHW for me.
#77 Larry Holmes (69-6)
Larry Holmes staged dual comebacks in 1988 and 1991, the first a result of a big money offer to come straight out of retirement and match Mike Tyson, the second a surprisingly meandering stroll through the peaks and valleys of the 1990s heavyweight scene—in fact Holmes boxed all the way into the 2000s, stopping an equally creaky Mike Weaver in 2002 in the sixth round. Larry’s decision to box on did not seem born of financial insecurity or an unquenchable ego but because of an unerring desire to dominate. You can see it for every moment Larry Holmes is in the ring, whether you are watching the young man go to war with Ken Norton or the old man chasing the twenty years younger Anthony Willis.
The tools he brought to bear in this oldest of ambitions were formidable. Holmes argues the best jab, the best right hand and the best footwork in the history of the heavyweight division. You may have a personal preference for Sonny Liston or Joe Louis or Muhammad Ali in each of these areas respectively but it is beyond question that Holmes belongs in those debates. Add a granite chin, superb accuracy, some dig, technical accomplishment unequaled in heavyweight history and that natural proclivity for domination and you have a fully-fledged 215 lb. war machine.
This birthed the most celebrated reign in WBC championship history— until it came to make more financial sense to adopt the IBF trinket, at which point Holmes happily changed allegiances, defending the new bauble until he was shockingly separated from it by a brilliant Michael Spinks in September of ’85. Holmes was already slipping by this point and it is arguably the case that he went through his entire prime unbeaten. The reason he is in the top 80 rather than the top 70? Well, he arguably did not.
Holmes had a desperately close call in the match in which he lifted the title against Ken Norton in a fight I thought he lost (the judges awarded him a split decision). No rematch was forthcoming; a criticism that would be leveled against Holmes again when he was arguably beaten by a novice Tim Witherspoon in their 1983 confrontation which I scored a draw (the judges, again, handed it to Holmes on a split). He also seemed adverse to unification fights and his reign is littered with alternative heavyweight strapholders. His failure to meet a surging Greg Page instead of opting for the limited Marvis Frazier (whom he dispatched in a single round) was also a concern. Holmes, like Jack Dempsey, arguably missed out on some of the most important fights of his career and many of his defenses were soft.
Unlike Dempsey, he was an enormously busy champion who busted up a huge raft of top-class contenders over a seven-year period that included twenty successful title fights and a stretch of 48-0. He won his first meaningful fight in 1978 and his last in 1992. Like Lennox Lewis he was more feared than loved—but, when he was in the ring at least, that suited Holmes just fine.
Bob Foster lost eight fights, but not one of them was to a light-heavyweight. At 175 lbs., his best weight, he went through his entire career unbeaten. His competition was not exceptional, but he was. It can be argued that Foster is the single hardest puncher that has ever boxed, and whilst his division was not resplendent with talent, it was resplendent with iron chins. Didn’t matter. Foster was one of those freaky-deaky punchers, the kind of guys who seem to carry dynamite that has been blessed by a voodoo priest then coated in astrolite before being planted in gloves mounted with cyanide tipped nine-inch nails.
Seemingly too upright and too slouched at the same time, Foster appeared as some terrifying prehistoric bird all legs and feathers, both fragile and deadly. That fragility was exposed up at heavyweight where all of Foster’s losses occurred and where he failed to turn in a single top-class scalp despite repeated opportunities. Nevertheless he did beat something in the region of twenty fighters weighing in over the light-heavyweight limit, work that does enhance his standing slightly on this pound-for-pound list. But it is that incredible unbeaten run at light-heavyweight that locks him up, a run that include some sixteen victorious title fights. Losses to Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier can’t be seen to hurt him much, and although losses to the lesser lights of Doug Jones, Mauro Mina, Ernie Terrell and Zora Folley may have an air of disappointment about them, they all occurred before he hit his absolute stride, during which time only all-time great heavyweights found a way to lay him low.
Yeah Foster is Top 5 LHW for me.
#77 Larry Holmes (69-6)
Larry Holmes staged dual comebacks in 1988 and 1991, the first a result of a big money offer to come straight out of retirement and match Mike Tyson, the second a surprisingly meandering stroll through the peaks and valleys of the 1990s heavyweight scene—in fact Holmes boxed all the way into the 2000s, stopping an equally creaky Mike Weaver in 2002 in the sixth round. Larry’s decision to box on did not seem born of financial insecurity or an unquenchable ego but because of an unerring desire to dominate. You can see it for every moment Larry Holmes is in the ring, whether you are watching the young man go to war with Ken Norton or the old man chasing the twenty years younger Anthony Willis.
The tools he brought to bear in this oldest of ambitions were formidable. Holmes argues the best jab, the best right hand and the best footwork in the history of the heavyweight division. You may have a personal preference for Sonny Liston or Joe Louis or Muhammad Ali in each of these areas respectively but it is beyond question that Holmes belongs in those debates. Add a granite chin, superb accuracy, some dig, technical accomplishment unequaled in heavyweight history and that natural proclivity for domination and you have a fully-fledged 215 lb. war machine.
This birthed the most celebrated reign in WBC championship history— until it came to make more financial sense to adopt the IBF trinket, at which point Holmes happily changed allegiances, defending the new bauble until he was shockingly separated from it by a brilliant Michael Spinks in September of ’85. Holmes was already slipping by this point and it is arguably the case that he went through his entire prime unbeaten. The reason he is in the top 80 rather than the top 70? Well, he arguably did not.
Holmes had a desperately close call in the match in which he lifted the title against Ken Norton in a fight I thought he lost (the judges awarded him a split decision). No rematch was forthcoming; a criticism that would be leveled against Holmes again when he was arguably beaten by a novice Tim Witherspoon in their 1983 confrontation which I scored a draw (the judges, again, handed it to Holmes on a split). He also seemed adverse to unification fights and his reign is littered with alternative heavyweight strapholders. His failure to meet a surging Greg Page instead of opting for the limited Marvis Frazier (whom he dispatched in a single round) was also a concern. Holmes, like Jack Dempsey, arguably missed out on some of the most important fights of his career and many of his defenses were soft.
Unlike Dempsey, he was an enormously busy champion who busted up a huge raft of top-class contenders over a seven-year period that included twenty successful title fights and a stretch of 48-0. He won his first meaningful fight in 1978 and his last in 1992. Like Lennox Lewis he was more feared than loved—but, when he was in the ring at least, that suited Holmes just fine.
- Feb 2, 2013
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#76 Mike McCallum (49-5-1)
McCallum may languish nearer the bottom of this list for reasons political. He chased tirelessly after both Roberto Duran and Thomas Hearns during an under-celebrated career that was exactly that kind of marquee name away from obtaining the next level. Duran, he likely would have beaten at his favored light-middleweight; Hearns may have been a reach. Unfortunately these two stayed busy with other people (including each other) and McCallum, who brought to life the ghost of Charley Burley with all the talk of the risk versus the reward in taking him on, was bequeathed the dubious honor of Royal Duck to the four-kings era, one he could have helped define.
Still, he did more than enough to be stuck to this top one hundred like glue. A superb an concise puncher, he boasted a granite chin amongst his many compelling attributes, even surviving multiple flush bombs from perhaps the hardest puncher of all time pound-for-pound, a light-middleweight Julian Jackson, in the first round of their ’86 contest. McCallum slipped, ducked, belt-line-blasted and jabbed his way back into that wonderful shootout, backing Jackson up by the end of the first, dropping him early in the second with a right upstairs and a left to the body then spending much of the next minute finishing him off with the dogged, elastic, fluid, professional offense that defined him.
Undefeated at light-middleweight against men such as Donald Curry, Milton McCrory and David Braxton, he did slip a little when the inevitable move to middleweight in search of big fights occurred, losing to and then avenging the defeat by Sumbu Kalambay, controversially drawing with and losing to James Toney (whom some will tell you he beat twice), but he also added the WBA strap, absolutely broke a superb Michael Watson (“11 rounds of back and forth hell”) and beat Herol Graham and Steve Collins. An ancient McCallum even lifted a strap up at light-heavyweight before dropping off to 2-3 in what remained of his career.
#75 Azumah Nelson (39-6-2)
The greatest African fighter in history? As we shall see, not quite, but there will be those who disagree with my placement of The Professor and rank him as just that.
Nelson actually boxed in the United States as early as ’81, his third year as a professional, but he mostly boxed on the African continent until, in an interstellar blast of an introduction, he was matched with the wonderful featherweight champion Salvador Sanchez as late substitute, just 13-0 as a professional. Such was Sanchez’s towering reputation and so lowly was Nelson’s, that the fight was seen as something of an insult to fans. Instead, the two turned in perhaps the greatest featherweight title fight in boxing history, a phone-booth war fought with genuine elegance. When Nelson, behind on the cards, was finally stopped in the fifteenth round it did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm the sport in America felt for him. Two years later, still only twenty fights into his professional career, he unfolded no less a figure than Wilfredo Gomez to lift a featherweight strap in Puerto Rico. Nelson successfully defended that title six times including the devastating first round knockout of European champion Pat Cowdell, who he utterly devastated in England in ’85. Nelson went where the money was, a road warrior who was all smiles. In ’88 he won a super-featherweight strap which he would defend into double-digits before relinquishing to Jessie James Leija, reclaiming it from Gabriel Ruelas and, in a last hurrah, stopping Leija in their third fight in six. Most famous for his controversial draw with the superb Jeff Fenech and the rematch in which he stunned both the Australian and the wider boxing world, Nelson never did things the easy way which is what sets his legacy apart.
He excelled because of a near flawless skillset. There will be fighters on this list that are way ahead of Nelson in each and every category one can use to judge a boxer’s abilities, but few will have his overall completeness. So, his chin was superb but not uncrackable. He hit with power, but could be borne. He was fast but not lightning. He threw with volume but not abandon. What underpinned this exhaustive whole was old-fashioned craft. “The Professor” was so named for his ability to hand out boxing lessons.
Away from home against great fighters, he was superb, and perhaps only the genius of Pernell Whitaker (who decisioned him at lightweight in 1990) kept him from three-weight honors and a place higher on this list.
McCallum may languish nearer the bottom of this list for reasons political. He chased tirelessly after both Roberto Duran and Thomas Hearns during an under-celebrated career that was exactly that kind of marquee name away from obtaining the next level. Duran, he likely would have beaten at his favored light-middleweight; Hearns may have been a reach. Unfortunately these two stayed busy with other people (including each other) and McCallum, who brought to life the ghost of Charley Burley with all the talk of the risk versus the reward in taking him on, was bequeathed the dubious honor of Royal Duck to the four-kings era, one he could have helped define.
Still, he did more than enough to be stuck to this top one hundred like glue. A superb an concise puncher, he boasted a granite chin amongst his many compelling attributes, even surviving multiple flush bombs from perhaps the hardest puncher of all time pound-for-pound, a light-middleweight Julian Jackson, in the first round of their ’86 contest. McCallum slipped, ducked, belt-line-blasted and jabbed his way back into that wonderful shootout, backing Jackson up by the end of the first, dropping him early in the second with a right upstairs and a left to the body then spending much of the next minute finishing him off with the dogged, elastic, fluid, professional offense that defined him.
Undefeated at light-middleweight against men such as Donald Curry, Milton McCrory and David Braxton, he did slip a little when the inevitable move to middleweight in search of big fights occurred, losing to and then avenging the defeat by Sumbu Kalambay, controversially drawing with and losing to James Toney (whom some will tell you he beat twice), but he also added the WBA strap, absolutely broke a superb Michael Watson (“11 rounds of back and forth hell”) and beat Herol Graham and Steve Collins. An ancient McCallum even lifted a strap up at light-heavyweight before dropping off to 2-3 in what remained of his career.
#75 Azumah Nelson (39-6-2)
The greatest African fighter in history? As we shall see, not quite, but there will be those who disagree with my placement of The Professor and rank him as just that.
Nelson actually boxed in the United States as early as ’81, his third year as a professional, but he mostly boxed on the African continent until, in an interstellar blast of an introduction, he was matched with the wonderful featherweight champion Salvador Sanchez as late substitute, just 13-0 as a professional. Such was Sanchez’s towering reputation and so lowly was Nelson’s, that the fight was seen as something of an insult to fans. Instead, the two turned in perhaps the greatest featherweight title fight in boxing history, a phone-booth war fought with genuine elegance. When Nelson, behind on the cards, was finally stopped in the fifteenth round it did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm the sport in America felt for him. Two years later, still only twenty fights into his professional career, he unfolded no less a figure than Wilfredo Gomez to lift a featherweight strap in Puerto Rico. Nelson successfully defended that title six times including the devastating first round knockout of European champion Pat Cowdell, who he utterly devastated in England in ’85. Nelson went where the money was, a road warrior who was all smiles. In ’88 he won a super-featherweight strap which he would defend into double-digits before relinquishing to Jessie James Leija, reclaiming it from Gabriel Ruelas and, in a last hurrah, stopping Leija in their third fight in six. Most famous for his controversial draw with the superb Jeff Fenech and the rematch in which he stunned both the Australian and the wider boxing world, Nelson never did things the easy way which is what sets his legacy apart.
He excelled because of a near flawless skillset. There will be fighters on this list that are way ahead of Nelson in each and every category one can use to judge a boxer’s abilities, but few will have his overall completeness. So, his chin was superb but not uncrackable. He hit with power, but could be borne. He was fast but not lightning. He threw with volume but not abandon. What underpinned this exhaustive whole was old-fashioned craft. “The Professor” was so named for his ability to hand out boxing lessons.
Away from home against great fighters, he was superb, and perhaps only the genius of Pernell Whitaker (who decisioned him at lightweight in 1990) kept him from three-weight honors and a place higher on this list.
- Feb 2, 2013
- 936
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#74 Oscar De La Hoya (39-6)
In early 1997, Oscar De La Hoya managed to do what The Professor could not and beat that genius Pernell Whitaker in an oh-so-close tussle for Whitaker’s welterweight title. The margin of the scores between them was controversial (I had it to Oscar by a single point—a point that was deducted from Whitaker in the third round due to a ludicrous WBC rule which called for the uninjured party to have a point deducted from his score in the event that the other party was injured in an accidental clash of heads), but as a fight it was close enough that the decision was widely respected. One month before, Roy Jones had posted his first loss, a disqualification, in equally controversial circumstances. For many, this made Oscar De La Hoya the greatest fighter on the planet in an era that boasted, in addition to the incredible Jones and the equally incredible Whitaker, Ricardo Lopez, Bernard Hopkins, Evander Holyfield and Shane Mosley. It was Shane Mosley who would unseat De La Hoya definitively in June of 2000 although he had technically been beaten by Felix Trinidad nine months previously. The fight with Felix was easily the most controversial decision of that time and is now almost universally regarded as a robbery. In point of fact, his defeat to Shane Mosley may be even more questionable—this is the fight Mosley would later admit to having “accidently” used performance enhancing drugs before. Oscar then enjoyed his own “stroke of luck,” winning a title up at middleweight, taking a controversial decision over Felix Sturm before suffering the only stoppage loss of his career to that point, against Bernard Hopkins.
Oscar won title fights at 154 lbs. on four occasions; he won title fights at 147 lbs. on eight occasions, excluding the blatant robbery against Trinidad; at 140 lbs. he managed just two title victories including a fourth round stoppage of Julio Cesar Chavez; at 135 lbs. he won seven title fights; as a giant super-featherweight he won two placing him in the twenties for successful title fights at six different weights. Even allowing for modern inflation caused by the handing out of title belts like licorice, this is an outstanding achievement.
During his prime years he arguably lost just once, against a drugged Mosley, and despite a sometimes square and often stiff-shinned and galloping style, he proved himself a savage head-to-head proposal in the ring. Few fighters in his era can match him for quality of left hook and even fewer have his jab (“one of the best ever” according to the late, great Emanuel Steward). Oddly, he could be out-jabbed on the stranger nights of his career (some will tell you Quartey did so) and was guilty of abandoning his jab against Floyd Mayweather when apparently on his way to a stunning upset way past-prime, but when he was on, as he was against Felix Trinidad or Miguel Gonzalez, Oscar’s jab was all but peerless.
Excellent power, timing and solid speed came all the way from super-featherweight to light-middleweight intact and he developed, throughout his career, a nice line in feints and traps. Stopped just twice, once by a middleweight and once fighting as a walking corpse against the typhoon that is Manny Pacquiao, Oscar is proven in the departments of heart and chin. Although he fought as a giant at the lower weights he crammed his welterweight’s frame into, he traveled all the way to middleweight in search of glory and whilst that little sojourn perhaps didn’t work out the way he would have wanted it to, it proved to me that it was this smiling, media magnate crossover matinee idol, not James Toney, that was the real throwback from the nineties to the forties.
A tendency to beat the best he faced coupled with that period as the world’s best see him sit snugly in the seventies. Some may call this too high; for the modernists he will be too low. That comforts me that I’m likely to have got him just right.
#73 Carlos Zarate (66-4)
Upon turning professional Carlos Zarate knocked out twenty-three consecutive opponents. The great bantamweight’s feelings at being taken the distance by the otherwise unremarkable Victor Ramirez in January of ’74 is not known, but what is known is that he dealt with this disappointment by stopping his next twenty-eight consecutive opponents. This streak included nine defenses of his bantamweight strap which he also procured via knockout against the excellent Rodolfo Martinez who had himself lifted the title with a stunning four-round knockout of the brilliant Rafael Herrera, forming a link that runs between Carlos Zarate and the stacked era of Ruben Olivares.
Not that Zarate’s era could be named as strong. As an emperor he brooked no resistance—any semblance of excellence in his subjects was snuffed out with the regal candor only a true puncher possesses. Reigning champion Rodolfo Martinez, was harassed, outboxed, out-generalled and eventually broken by the rampant challenger in just nine; Commonwealth champion Paul Ferreri, then on a 50-3 streak, lasted into the twelfth winning perhaps just one round in the process, and coming men like Alfonso Zamora (then 29-0) and Danilo Batista (26-0) were dispatched in chanceless performance that saw each of them left mentally supine, Zamora struggling to remove the towel of surrender from where it had landed on his vacant face, Batista escorted back to his corner wearing a pleasantly blank expression, the picture of broken resistance. Worse, these fighters, the world at their feet when they entered his domain, seemed somehow broken by their disastrous encounters with Zarate, unable to leave the devastating punches behind them in their fresh ring encounters; having been previously unbeaten they turned in all manner of bizarre knockout, disqualification and points losses in his terrible wake.
When he stepped out of his beloved bantamweight to meet the monstrous Wilfredo Gomez up at super-bantamweight in 1978 his record stood at 52-0 with 51 knockouts. It is the most devastating run of form in any weight class. Gomez shattered him and sent him back down to bantamweight where his title would eventually be stolen from him in a highway robbery against the excellent Lupe Pintor. A brave comeback upped his losses to four and it is a shame he never got around to knocking out fellow title claimant Jorge Lujan, but in his prime years at bantamweight it is possible to envisage Zarate taking on all comers at the weight without loss, such was his dominance over a middling field.
In early 1997, Oscar De La Hoya managed to do what The Professor could not and beat that genius Pernell Whitaker in an oh-so-close tussle for Whitaker’s welterweight title. The margin of the scores between them was controversial (I had it to Oscar by a single point—a point that was deducted from Whitaker in the third round due to a ludicrous WBC rule which called for the uninjured party to have a point deducted from his score in the event that the other party was injured in an accidental clash of heads), but as a fight it was close enough that the decision was widely respected. One month before, Roy Jones had posted his first loss, a disqualification, in equally controversial circumstances. For many, this made Oscar De La Hoya the greatest fighter on the planet in an era that boasted, in addition to the incredible Jones and the equally incredible Whitaker, Ricardo Lopez, Bernard Hopkins, Evander Holyfield and Shane Mosley. It was Shane Mosley who would unseat De La Hoya definitively in June of 2000 although he had technically been beaten by Felix Trinidad nine months previously. The fight with Felix was easily the most controversial decision of that time and is now almost universally regarded as a robbery. In point of fact, his defeat to Shane Mosley may be even more questionable—this is the fight Mosley would later admit to having “accidently” used performance enhancing drugs before. Oscar then enjoyed his own “stroke of luck,” winning a title up at middleweight, taking a controversial decision over Felix Sturm before suffering the only stoppage loss of his career to that point, against Bernard Hopkins.
Oscar won title fights at 154 lbs. on four occasions; he won title fights at 147 lbs. on eight occasions, excluding the blatant robbery against Trinidad; at 140 lbs. he managed just two title victories including a fourth round stoppage of Julio Cesar Chavez; at 135 lbs. he won seven title fights; as a giant super-featherweight he won two placing him in the twenties for successful title fights at six different weights. Even allowing for modern inflation caused by the handing out of title belts like licorice, this is an outstanding achievement.
During his prime years he arguably lost just once, against a drugged Mosley, and despite a sometimes square and often stiff-shinned and galloping style, he proved himself a savage head-to-head proposal in the ring. Few fighters in his era can match him for quality of left hook and even fewer have his jab (“one of the best ever” according to the late, great Emanuel Steward). Oddly, he could be out-jabbed on the stranger nights of his career (some will tell you Quartey did so) and was guilty of abandoning his jab against Floyd Mayweather when apparently on his way to a stunning upset way past-prime, but when he was on, as he was against Felix Trinidad or Miguel Gonzalez, Oscar’s jab was all but peerless.
Excellent power, timing and solid speed came all the way from super-featherweight to light-middleweight intact and he developed, throughout his career, a nice line in feints and traps. Stopped just twice, once by a middleweight and once fighting as a walking corpse against the typhoon that is Manny Pacquiao, Oscar is proven in the departments of heart and chin. Although he fought as a giant at the lower weights he crammed his welterweight’s frame into, he traveled all the way to middleweight in search of glory and whilst that little sojourn perhaps didn’t work out the way he would have wanted it to, it proved to me that it was this smiling, media magnate crossover matinee idol, not James Toney, that was the real throwback from the nineties to the forties.
A tendency to beat the best he faced coupled with that period as the world’s best see him sit snugly in the seventies. Some may call this too high; for the modernists he will be too low. That comforts me that I’m likely to have got him just right.
#73 Carlos Zarate (66-4)
Upon turning professional Carlos Zarate knocked out twenty-three consecutive opponents. The great bantamweight’s feelings at being taken the distance by the otherwise unremarkable Victor Ramirez in January of ’74 is not known, but what is known is that he dealt with this disappointment by stopping his next twenty-eight consecutive opponents. This streak included nine defenses of his bantamweight strap which he also procured via knockout against the excellent Rodolfo Martinez who had himself lifted the title with a stunning four-round knockout of the brilliant Rafael Herrera, forming a link that runs between Carlos Zarate and the stacked era of Ruben Olivares.
Not that Zarate’s era could be named as strong. As an emperor he brooked no resistance—any semblance of excellence in his subjects was snuffed out with the regal candor only a true puncher possesses. Reigning champion Rodolfo Martinez, was harassed, outboxed, out-generalled and eventually broken by the rampant challenger in just nine; Commonwealth champion Paul Ferreri, then on a 50-3 streak, lasted into the twelfth winning perhaps just one round in the process, and coming men like Alfonso Zamora (then 29-0) and Danilo Batista (26-0) were dispatched in chanceless performance that saw each of them left mentally supine, Zamora struggling to remove the towel of surrender from where it had landed on his vacant face, Batista escorted back to his corner wearing a pleasantly blank expression, the picture of broken resistance. Worse, these fighters, the world at their feet when they entered his domain, seemed somehow broken by their disastrous encounters with Zarate, unable to leave the devastating punches behind them in their fresh ring encounters; having been previously unbeaten they turned in all manner of bizarre knockout, disqualification and points losses in his terrible wake.
When he stepped out of his beloved bantamweight to meet the monstrous Wilfredo Gomez up at super-bantamweight in 1978 his record stood at 52-0 with 51 knockouts. It is the most devastating run of form in any weight class. Gomez shattered him and sent him back down to bantamweight where his title would eventually be stolen from him in a highway robbery against the excellent Lupe Pintor. A brave comeback upped his losses to four and it is a shame he never got around to knocking out fellow title claimant Jorge Lujan, but in his prime years at bantamweight it is possible to envisage Zarate taking on all comers at the weight without loss, such was his dominance over a middling field.
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- Feb 2, 2013
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#72 Miguel Canto (61-9-4)
Miguel Canto, all five-feet nothing of him, may have had the most beautifully cultured left hand in boxing history (nobody tell Ken Buchanan, who doesn’t quite make the list—sorry Ken). So splendid was this appendage that Canto could quite literally beat world-class opponents one-handed. He did so in his third bout with the superb Betulio Gonzalez in a fight that was somehow rendered a split decision in spite of the fact that finding five rounds for the former world champion was legitimately difficult. Gonzalez was the fighter who had sawn off Canto’s pre-prime beating him over fifteen in the Mexican’s first tilt at a title. After dropping a close one, Canto regrouped through ’74 and in ’75 defeated the excellent Shoji Oguma for the legitimate flyweight title of the world. He defended this for four years packed tight with fourteen defenses against some of the very best flyweights ever to grace the division. They included Martin Vargas, then on a twenty-eight fight unbeaten streak and an overall run of 41-2-3 and two rematches with Shoji Oguma and Antonio Avelar, who would go on to lift the title after Canto had faded. He even picked off Gabriel Bernal, way past his prime, in ’81, another fighter who would later pick up the title. Such was his domination of his era that champions came squirming from his win ledger like maggots from a corpse when his time was up.
The fourth future or prior champion he defeated during that reign was Betulio Gonzalez. In their third fight, Canto perfected his art, jabbing with variety and speed before disappearing from Betulio’s view, stepping outside of his punches then hitting across him, rapid-fire jab clutches graduating to hooks. I gave Gonzalez, who would go on to beat Oguma, Vargas and Guty Espadas, just four rounds.
His physicality and lack of power may have seen him struggling to keep some of history’s best flyweights off him in a way that the equally tiny Pascual Perez may not have suffered due to his violent hitting, but anyone who couldn’t keep an inordinate amount of pressure on him would probably be made to look silly at some point.
It’s not that left-handed wonder-making that gets him into the seventies ahead of his Argentine peer however, but that huge run of defenses in as strong a flyweight division as we have ever seen.
#71 Carmen Basilio (56-16-7)
Ranking Carmen Basilio is difficult for a number of reasons, not least the fact that he died three short months ago, and I’m sad about it. Even more than that, there is some malleability to his record. It lends itself to massage. Witness:
Basilio beat a genuine candidate for the #1 spot in Sugar Ray Robinson, but his victim was the comeback version, a fighter who had already lost, in Gene Fullmer, to a fighter that he would have dismantled at a canter in his savage prime. After avenging that loss with a narrow points victory and fight of the year contender, Sugar retired once more. It was as if a loss and a draw to a fighter like Basilio somehow meant he didn’t belong.
Witness:
Basilio had a loss and a draw with Chuck Davey in 1952, a fighter whose appearance on film does nothing to quell rumors of a fighter protected by a higher power. Ike Williams claimed to have thrown his fight with Davey that same year and it’s not a stretch to imagine that Rocky Graziano’s inexplicably leaden performance was a part of the same pattern that saw him suspended for failing to report a bribe, and later for vanishing on Fred Apostolini—but what about Basilio? Was he in on the game? If so, why the horribly close first fight? And why did he open up Davey’s face like a packet of fudge in the second fight?
Witness:
Why couldn’t he do anything with Gene Fullmer, who beat him twice for the middleweight title?
This last question is the easiest to answer: Basilio was never a middleweight. He was a welterweight and an exceptional one.
He couldn’t budge the even more exceptional Kid Gavilan who bested him in the closest of decisions in ’53 but when he came again he was presented with a problem almost as insurmountable in the disastrous triage of talent that was Gil Turner, Tony DeMarco and Johnny Saxton. Turner had at one time seemed nothing less than the second coming of Ike Williams, a fast and savage puncher with superb boxing abilities, but he had dropped off after Gavilan separated him, too, from his title aspirations. DeMarco was an enormously strong man, a superb left hook and a menacing, turgid style his greatest assets. Saxton was in many ways the most difficult of the three and was in possession of a win over Gavilan, not a puncher he boxed behind a splendid jab matched perfectly to a sneaky, blistering right hand.
Basilio fed these three men his dust, going 6-1 against their combined might, separating himself from them completely. Where was he going to go if not the middleweight division? Abandoning the welterweight title he had so coveted, he headed north. Sure, Fullmer handled him, but Robinson did not.
Their rematch, a split decision loss, was a fight that Basilio fought in a fog, his left eye closed by a broken blood-vessel in his eyebrow, chasing Sugar Ray one-eyed for most of the fight. Robinson didn’t so much retire in disgust as in…I don’t want to say anything rash, but perhaps in an uncertainty— uncertainty that he would be able to beat the savage Basilio again.
Toss in (oh so casually) his pre-primed 1-1-1 series with Billy Graham, plus victories over Ike Williams and Lew Jenkins and you have a fighter who belongs on this list regardless of emotional attachments.
And that strange Chuck Davey series? In the light of all this, who gives a crap?
Miguel Canto, all five-feet nothing of him, may have had the most beautifully cultured left hand in boxing history (nobody tell Ken Buchanan, who doesn’t quite make the list—sorry Ken). So splendid was this appendage that Canto could quite literally beat world-class opponents one-handed. He did so in his third bout with the superb Betulio Gonzalez in a fight that was somehow rendered a split decision in spite of the fact that finding five rounds for the former world champion was legitimately difficult. Gonzalez was the fighter who had sawn off Canto’s pre-prime beating him over fifteen in the Mexican’s first tilt at a title. After dropping a close one, Canto regrouped through ’74 and in ’75 defeated the excellent Shoji Oguma for the legitimate flyweight title of the world. He defended this for four years packed tight with fourteen defenses against some of the very best flyweights ever to grace the division. They included Martin Vargas, then on a twenty-eight fight unbeaten streak and an overall run of 41-2-3 and two rematches with Shoji Oguma and Antonio Avelar, who would go on to lift the title after Canto had faded. He even picked off Gabriel Bernal, way past his prime, in ’81, another fighter who would later pick up the title. Such was his domination of his era that champions came squirming from his win ledger like maggots from a corpse when his time was up.
The fourth future or prior champion he defeated during that reign was Betulio Gonzalez. In their third fight, Canto perfected his art, jabbing with variety and speed before disappearing from Betulio’s view, stepping outside of his punches then hitting across him, rapid-fire jab clutches graduating to hooks. I gave Gonzalez, who would go on to beat Oguma, Vargas and Guty Espadas, just four rounds.
His physicality and lack of power may have seen him struggling to keep some of history’s best flyweights off him in a way that the equally tiny Pascual Perez may not have suffered due to his violent hitting, but anyone who couldn’t keep an inordinate amount of pressure on him would probably be made to look silly at some point.
It’s not that left-handed wonder-making that gets him into the seventies ahead of his Argentine peer however, but that huge run of defenses in as strong a flyweight division as we have ever seen.
#71 Carmen Basilio (56-16-7)
Ranking Carmen Basilio is difficult for a number of reasons, not least the fact that he died three short months ago, and I’m sad about it. Even more than that, there is some malleability to his record. It lends itself to massage. Witness:
Basilio beat a genuine candidate for the #1 spot in Sugar Ray Robinson, but his victim was the comeback version, a fighter who had already lost, in Gene Fullmer, to a fighter that he would have dismantled at a canter in his savage prime. After avenging that loss with a narrow points victory and fight of the year contender, Sugar retired once more. It was as if a loss and a draw to a fighter like Basilio somehow meant he didn’t belong.
Witness:
Basilio had a loss and a draw with Chuck Davey in 1952, a fighter whose appearance on film does nothing to quell rumors of a fighter protected by a higher power. Ike Williams claimed to have thrown his fight with Davey that same year and it’s not a stretch to imagine that Rocky Graziano’s inexplicably leaden performance was a part of the same pattern that saw him suspended for failing to report a bribe, and later for vanishing on Fred Apostolini—but what about Basilio? Was he in on the game? If so, why the horribly close first fight? And why did he open up Davey’s face like a packet of fudge in the second fight?
Witness:
Why couldn’t he do anything with Gene Fullmer, who beat him twice for the middleweight title?
This last question is the easiest to answer: Basilio was never a middleweight. He was a welterweight and an exceptional one.
He couldn’t budge the even more exceptional Kid Gavilan who bested him in the closest of decisions in ’53 but when he came again he was presented with a problem almost as insurmountable in the disastrous triage of talent that was Gil Turner, Tony DeMarco and Johnny Saxton. Turner had at one time seemed nothing less than the second coming of Ike Williams, a fast and savage puncher with superb boxing abilities, but he had dropped off after Gavilan separated him, too, from his title aspirations. DeMarco was an enormously strong man, a superb left hook and a menacing, turgid style his greatest assets. Saxton was in many ways the most difficult of the three and was in possession of a win over Gavilan, not a puncher he boxed behind a splendid jab matched perfectly to a sneaky, blistering right hand.
Basilio fed these three men his dust, going 6-1 against their combined might, separating himself from them completely. Where was he going to go if not the middleweight division? Abandoning the welterweight title he had so coveted, he headed north. Sure, Fullmer handled him, but Robinson did not.
Their rematch, a split decision loss, was a fight that Basilio fought in a fog, his left eye closed by a broken blood-vessel in his eyebrow, chasing Sugar Ray one-eyed for most of the fight. Robinson didn’t so much retire in disgust as in…I don’t want to say anything rash, but perhaps in an uncertainty— uncertainty that he would be able to beat the savage Basilio again.
Toss in (oh so casually) his pre-primed 1-1-1 series with Billy Graham, plus victories over Ike Williams and Lew Jenkins and you have a fighter who belongs on this list regardless of emotional attachments.
And that strange Chuck Davey series? In the light of all this, who gives a crap?
- Feb 2, 2013
- 936
- 108
When McGrain (the creator of this Top 100) writes up more, I'll post them.
But so far what do you guys think? Looking pretty good to me.
But so far what do you guys think? Looking pretty good to me.
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- Mar 6, 2004
- 8,818
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I don't know half these people but these are some good reads. Thanks for posting.
Have you considered putting them in spoilers tho?
Have you considered putting them in spoilers tho?
- Nov 26, 2012
- 7,165
- 1,812
LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
LOOK AT TIM BRADLEY
ASDFGHJKHKGFSJHDGFKGH
LOOK AT TIM BRADLEY
ASDFGHJKHKGFSJHDGFKGH
- Status
