I don't think I've ever seen a highlight reel of this fight that was this long. What a great-looking technician Cerdan was. Such a shame we never got to see him in more big fights. He was already 32 and had had over 100 fights by the time he finally got this opportunity. Cerdan has to be one of the most consistently cursed fighters that ever lived. Misses out on a WW title shot when his home country is invaded, loses his prime years to the war, injures his shoulder in his 1st title defense, has to wait while the rematch is rescheduled due to a LaMotta injury, and then dies in a place crash heading for the rescheduled rematch.
Excellent, thanks for this! I have only watched a couple of minutes from the start, but anybody who complains that modern fighters can't fight up close and thus they clinch a lot should count the amount of clinches here. Also the lack of jabbing is transparent. That said, it seems to be good, fast-paced and entertaining battle
I didn’t count the clinches but it was a lot, a whole lot...like every few seconds lot. In fact I’m not sure but I think the thread title states “27 minutes of holdings” . Still though, it was a pretty good fight and I don’t know about prime Zale but this version probably had worse defense than Arturo Gatti. I agree about the jabbing too, it was pretty nonexistent.
Both fighters have the look of aging warhorses IMO, with Zale being the more visibly faded of the two. You can see from this pre-War footage of Zale (vs. Al Hostak) that he's fairly quick on his toes and makes good use of the jab from the outside even against a taller opponent.
Zale was regarded as top-notch in a number of his in-advance fights but now not here. From the earliest rounds, he wraps his left arm around Cerdan every time he receives a hit hard. If the referee had stopped Zale's regular conserving the combat would not have lasted eleven rounds.
