I think theres pretty good chance that Starling goes to sleep in this one. Trying to block Robinson's combos with your gloves is more or less a suicide mission.
Yeeah not a good match up for Starling. Robinson would be all over him, ripping with both hands to the body and head. Eventually one of those hooks puts Starling down and out.
I don't know that Robinson would knock Starling out, he was a tough guy and very wily but he does beat him with a lot of room to spare... it's not a good style matchup at all for Marlon and his best weapon - the hook - has a chance of actually being a negative for him here against Robinson, whose hook was better and useful at all ranges... Robinson could easily shorten it up or throw it long range, messing up Marlon's timing of it for the counter hook... Marlon liked to hold that right up by his ear but then drop it to lure you into throwing a hook so he could right parry and nail you with one of his own... it was a great trick, but it could backfire badly against Robinson... I also like Robinson's footwork here, If he finds going at Marlon frustrating, he can always back off and use his jab, pile up the points, make Marlon have to come to him (which wasn't his game at all, really) There's just too much for Marlon to deal with here... he's got to respect Robinson's knockout power (both hands), he can't outmaneuver him, can't jab with him... he's stylish and tough, but I can't see him being able to win Robinson 11-4, 12-3 type of decision, real easy... Starling has to hang on at the end, rocked several times
Y'all ever seen footage of Robinson at WW? Anyway I agree with teh consensus based on what I've seen of Robinson at Middleweight and what I've seen of Starling.
I sent hut a copy years ago I was supposed to make copies for Whiskey and Double, but I just lost track of time (had a lot going on) and then my DVD burner hit the skids and I haven't replaced it yet
Yeah I've seen footage of his fights with Docusen, Riccio, Fusari, Beckett, and Angott... The quality is not the greatest, but good enough where you can still see what the man could do. Even in the black and white footage you can still see how fast his hands were and the way his footwork was. It was almost like he glided around the ring in there. Only Willie Pep had that same movement.
yup part of the thing that bothers me about the "everything sucks before 1991" brigade (TLC, for example) is that they are basing this not off of any technical reasoning but because the footage of these guys that is A) Overwhelmingly black and white B) shot at basically one angle, two tops I gurantee you if I used a 1947 era black and white movie camera and shot a Tim Bradley fight (just to name one random elite current fighter) from an angle somewhere up in the press box of an arena, with no change of cameras, no cutting, no alternate angles, grainy and without color, it would look WAY FUCKING DIFFERENT than it does watching it on HBO And if I had Tim Bradley and his opponent agree to fight with short black or white trunks with corresponding contrasting stripes down the side and had all advertisements removed from the ring, none of these motherfuckers would know the fucking difference at all Ray Robinson and Willie Pep were bad motherfuckers, simple as that, if you move past the video quality, it is not hard to see what they could do and how great they were... this isnt like watching Sam Langford where it's obvious that all the motion picture techniques in the world could not change the primitive level of the sport at that time... Robinson and Pep were MODERN fighters who would be great in the 1940s, the 1970s, the 1990s or right now
