Wlad - excessive holding Whitaker - holding and hitting Hopkins - holding and hitting Holyfield - head-butts Golota - low-blows Lewis - leaning on back of neck
Greb, Zivic, Smith Casimero/Lazarte, Ruenroeng, Marciano - everything Charles, Lewis - habitual lowblows.
Henry Armstrong and Gene Fullmer ravaged opponents in close with shoulder and head butts. Sandy Saddler loved to hold and hit, as well as various wrestling maneuvers. Max Baer loved to backhand/elbow, hold and hit, and rabbit punch. Kid Gavilan had a sneaky maneuver for holding behind the neck and hitting when in close. Then there's Pedroza. 'Nuff said.
Lewis, like in Lennox Lewis? If that's the case, i don't think he was nearly dirty enough to deserve a mention
Terry Norris always hit guys on the canvas. Mike Tyson also hit guys when they were down or after the bell, and liked throwing elbows at guys who held him. Evander Holyfield was the master of the “intentional accidental headbutt”. Bernard Hopkins always hit low, rabbit punched, came forward with his head, and would try to win a Golden Globe when guys would tap him low. Eusebio Pedroza loved throwing an uppercut to the groin along with throwing elbows. Floyd Mayweather and Michael Spinks were also good at using their elbows. Joel Casamayor always headbutted opponents. He dropped Chico with a headbutt/left hand combo. Lennox Lewis was sneaky with his left hand when he threw the right uppercut. It was more blatant when he knocked out Michael Grant, but he liked using his left hand to guide the guy’s neck before landing the right uppercut. Riddick Bowe often went low or behind the head, and would also do blatant cheap shots too, in the ring and out of it. After the bell rang to end the round, he walked across the ring to throw a combo at JL Gonzalez. It was beyond blatant.
Forgot to mention Foreman who constantly pushes his opponents when they get close, which is illegal. PBF does the same thing.
That always drove me crazy. Hopkins always portrayed himself as this no nonsense street tough philly fighter who also served hard time in the pen. He regularly fouled opponents but when the favor was returned all of a sudden he became and Italian soccer player and was on the ground in agony.
Vitali threw a dangerously low blow vs Danny Williams. Low as in Williams was on is knees and V tried to punch him in the head with a big sweeping shot. I was amazed more wasn't made of it. David Haye was at it a lot vs Ruiz and Barrett- back of the head shots and the like.
Saddler is the main one for me, just because his style seemed to revolve around it. It’s why I don’t rate him nearly as highly as most.
Outside of the ring he got his hands dirty a lot, but I’ve never heard of him being a particularly dirty inside the ropes.
Chad Dawson called him out on that after their first fight, when Dawson put him down on his shoulder. He said something like “Hopkins is a bitch...he always claims he’s a Philly legend and a gangster...what kind of gangster acts like that and quits?” It was one of the few times Dawson seemed pissed and was showing more emotion. He usually seemed to be lacking some fire (especially in the ring).
When he lost his title to Johnny Kilbane, the fight was temporarily interrupted because Kilbane accused Attell of using an illegal substance on his gloves (Attell would later claim it was just cocoa butter that he used on his body).
The Kilbane fight I was aware of, but that was the very end for him so I never thought much of it. Wasn’t even aware of the biting incident with Moran, though. I’ll have to look into it more.
When Ring did their top 20 of the 20th century {Benny Leonard was 9th or some shit lOLZ} they said that they had left Attell and LaMotta out of the reckoning on the grounds that their popularity exceeded their talents and they had a reputation for corruption. Attell certainly was bent.
Again, that mainly refers to outside factors. In mainstream culture, Attell is more known for his involvement with Arnold Rothstein and the Blacksox Scandal than anything he ever did in the ring. I think he gets massively underrated among boxing fans as a result of that. He was like the Benny Leonard of the Featherweight division.
Agreed, he was renown as a phenom in his day, akin to the type of acclaim Roy Jones or Mayweather received in the modern era.
