Fun fact: the World Title fight between Marino and Monaghan was recognized by the Global authorities..........but not the British Boxing Board of Control In the 40's and 50's, the British were odd that way- in the 30's they didn't even recognize the World Cup. I still say- pfp- Monaghan is the best boxer to come out of Ireland.
Yeah, McAuley was a better fighter than Frampton imo. He reigned for a good 3 years and beat some decent fighters. He wasn't as good as two flyweights who would emerge in the 90s, Arbachakov and Too Sharp, but he was a good fighter.
I know Arbachakov had injuries that led to his premature retirement but 95/96 seems like it could have happened. Had it done, we might be looking at one of them being an all-time top 10 flyweight.
Nah, I don't think so. There just wasn't the competition, and I don't think he'd have actually won a fight with Too Sharp anyway. If he fought and beat Chiquita, Carbajal, Lopez and Too Sharp, he'd be in that area, but the only guy who makes my top ten at fly based on massive, but scarce wins is Oba. And truth be told, I rate Betulio and Chionoi higher than I do Too Sharp and Yuri anyway. We did miss out on a great fight, though.
Just watched Carlos Maussa vs Viv Harris. Just goes to show that crap titlists is not a new phenomenon. Awful fight bereft of any real technical proficiency from either man. And to think that Harris was being groomed for a shot at Floyd?
I watched Seung Hoon Lee vs Jorge Diaz last night. Hoon Lee was an underrated super bantamweight belt holder. Typical Korean pressure fighter. His fight with Victor Callejas was a war.
Rewatched William Joppy's title-winning effort over Shinji Takehara. Probably Joppy's best performance. He beat the Hell outta Takehara, who was highly rated and coming off a dominant win over Jorge Castro.
He looked decent in beating up a shot Jorge Castro. But Jop was obviously a lot quicker than a shot Castro.
Joppy was a good fighter, nothing more. He was never really hyped as anything more. I guess there was debate over who was the 2nd best middleweight at that time between Joppy and Keith Holmes, but it was always apparent that Hopkins was much better than both.
Yeah of course, i was watching boxing at the time. Still, personally, i tought he would amount to more than this (i picked him over tito :( )
Yeah the dude was a tiny middleweight so his little flicky punches and low resistance were soon exposed..
Montana Love. Today, mostly, I have been watching somebody called Montana Love. Actually i am watching the entire Ennis card. Love is just up first.
Retwatched Orlando Canizales vs Billy Hardy II last night. One of the most underrated one-punch KOs IMO. Never gets mentioned when discussing great knockouts, but this was one of the better one-punch KOs of the 90s.
You can see a couple of right hands that soften him up. He was looking to protect that side then ZIP the left comes in from the other side. Pity- very gutsy effort by one of British boxings forgotten men. Hardy went on to get KO'd by Naseem Hamed when he, Hardy, had really nothing left. Most casual fans over here don't even know that guys like Cowdell and Hardy got razor thin decision losses to fighters as good as Sal Sanchez and Orlando Canizales, respectively. Hamed never paid the dues or took the chances that Hardy had to.
Yeah, Hardy was a bantamweight, which didn't really help his odds against Hamed. This was probably Canizales' best performance. Too bad his overall resume was very weak.
Just watched the (ESB) hyped up Ryoto Toyoshima vs Yuki Beppu from yesterday (for the OPBF Welter titles) and, to be honest, I wasn't that impressed. I think my expectations were too high as I was shown both men coming of some great scraps. Instead, Toyoshima looked two weights bigger than Beppu and was still out boxed by him for a majority of the early going. If Toyoshima had any sort of high ring IQ he would've KO'd Beppu early imo. I thought he should've jabbed his body and came over with the right - maybe feint of that later with a left hook. Instead, he did the ol' 'walk forward with my gloves up' routine. Both men were tidy, though, and had heart, especially Beppu.
Hamed broke his face but the guy was old and small as we know. He went on to do a lot of "Modelling"- a lot of the boxing mags of the late 1990's had him modelling headgear and gloves and stuff. Lying on canvas, testing them
He had that one fight at 118 vs Belcastro and since then he used that as "OH I've come up from 118" excuse to do what he wanted vs 122lbrs. McCullough was actually a 118lbr to begin with.
Watched Ike Quartey v Crisanto Espana - a really high quality fight from start to finish. Quartey took everything Espana dished out (which was a lot) and managed to start wearing him down over the second half of the fight. I liked the way Espana mixed up his attack - from head to body and back to head. His combos were class. Quartey really showed his mettle here to beat an excellent fighter.
Sugar Ramos v Davey Moore I have put off watching this for years but finally decided to. A great fight from start to finish. Ramos looked bigger and hit harder and his punches were having a more visible effect on Moore than Moore's were on him, particularly from about the 6th onwards. The KO was coming but two things were massively surprising to me: 1. The moment where Moore hit his neck on the bottom rope seemed relatively innocuous. This wasn't Michael Watson-like against Eubank where he fell from some distance and landed directly on it with obvious force. 2. Moore was interviewed in the ring afterwards and while I wouldn't say he seemed fine, there was no indication at that point that anything serious had happened. You just never know for sure how much s fight has taken out of a fighter.