Very sad news. Haugen ducked no one and fought anyone such as Whitaker and Chavez. Also had his shares of good wins over Hector Camacho, Ray Mancini, Vinny Paz. RIP Champ
RIP champ. I liked Haugen. Really solid lightweight champion with some good performances in his career. I'll always enjoy watching his batterings of those dipshits Roach and Mancini. Rest easy, Greg.
RIP... Donate Haugen Heart and BALLS to this generation batch of fighter...looking at you Tank, Teo, Shakur...
I'd fancy prime Haugen to outbox Davis. I mean, Tank might win, he's a better talent than Haugen, but he's lazy and I could see Haugen winning that fight. It's hard to tell how Davis would do against Haugen considering he's fought nothing but garbage.
I look back on those guys like Haugen etc as a sort of a lost generation. They missed out on the real proliferation of opportunity that the late 90s onwards brought and the corresponding dip in talent in the later 2000s. Timing is everything.
Yeah that's how it works. Yeah I think Mancini is just too relentless and is psychologically a lot stronger than some of these guys Tank has been fighting.
I remember reading an interview which somebody did with Haugen where he seemed to express his greatest satisfaction with the Camacho fights. He said he had "fucked with that pussy all night long" or words to that effect. He, presumably, meant the first fight. He also admitted to still fighting and having had "4 fights last year, won 3"
Mancini did duck someone though, Harry Arroyo. That fight would have been huge in Ohio, but Mancini wanted no parts of Arroyo.
Something that I have realized about Greg Haugen in the days since he died is that he was one of my favorite fighters. Part of that is because he was, to the best of my knowledge, the last close link to Jack Hurley, my favorite trainer. Hurley spent his last years in the Seattle area and, as he aged and couldn't function as well in the gym, he passed on a lot of knowledge to a protege. They subsequently had a falling out and, later, that man trained Haugen. He was in his corner for the second Pazienza fight. The biggest thing is that I admire guys that succeed without standout physical attributes. Guys that are successful because they invested in learning how to box, are technically very sound, and are intelligent about how they apply it. Then, on top of that, the guy has a chip on his shoulder and likes to fight. I admire real pros like that.
Exactly this. Guys like Quarry or even that Hilton brother who beat buster Drayton. Guys who weren't very long or fast or especially powerful but seemed to know how to get wins by being generally competent and brave.
Matthew Hilton was a VERY big puncher and he had extremely fast hands. Hilton's probably like a top 10 biggest puncher in the history of 154.
Far from it. They lacked physical tools comparative to their peers. Fundamentals, are, after all, a crutch of the talentless.
