Performances that don't get the credit they deserve ???

First topic message reminder :

The Calzaghe thread the other day got me thinking about great wins and performances that don't get as much credit as they should.....

Calzaghe v Hoppo - Turned into a very good win and gets better over time.....

Hearns v Hill - Hill was an alltime great 175er and the man at the weight...Hearns was past it and still took the prize. Nobody seems to care..........and it's sad..

Douglas v Tyson - Tyson may have been off peak....But not many heavies at that time would have had the rocks to do what Buster did...especially taking that uppercut and getting back up..........No one had beaten Tyson and Douglas was going into unknown waters.....Great performance.....

Leonard v Hagler - Gets a lot of grief in some quarters for robbing Hagler or dictating terms........People forget that Leonard hadn't fought for three years and in his last fight got up off the deck and struggled with a journeyman....Hagler was p4p number 1 and Leonard performed superbly...

Holmes v Cooney - I don't think anybody in history bar Louis - Schmelling 2 had as much pressure on him as Holmes did that night.....Introduced second on the night..He didn't let it bother him and was punch perfect....

Steve Cruz never seems to get any credit for beating Barry McGuigan. It was a hot day for both of them and Cruz coped with it better than McGuigan did.

If Mcguigan hadn't been knocked down in the final round then he would have won and we wouldn't have had to hear any excuse about the heat.

I think mcguigan did labor in the conditions..

If you watch Cruz-Esparragoza...........You'll see how ordinary he was...

Bit of a loser was Barry..Had the chance for an immediate rematch which he would have won and blew it.....Then sued his Manager and blew it......

Then came back to late.

I'm sure that McGuigan did labour under the conditions, but so did Cruz.

I heard all the excuses for McGuigan and how it was easier for Cruz as he was from Texas and Texas gets hot but I thought McGuigan was going downhill slowly anyway. He looked great on the way up but when he became champ and couldn't pick and chose his opponents anymore he didn't look as good. I think that even in a casino ballroom with the AC blowing, McGuigan would have had difficulties with Cruz. Not saying he would have lost but I don't see him blowing Cruz out.

There was a thread about Juan La Porte recently. I always thought of it as McGuigan's best performance.

Roy Jones vs Ruiz
Tyson vs. Holmes - Larry may have been over the hill, but he proved later he was not shot when he met Tyson.
Sumbu Kalambay vs McCallum - McCallum's first loss and one of many fine performances Kalambay put in over his years at the top.
Duran vs Leonard 1 - best win in the history of boxing.

I'm going to make a future one! Mayweather canelo not enough credit and Bradley beating Marquez

Mayweather will be remembered very fondly in ten years time when he's not around and his arrogance is forgotten and replaced by his achievements........

Manny no doubt will be too..........Marquez who knows???

It's an interesting one, McGuigan-Cruz.

On the one hand, we have the fact that Barry was hospitalized and reportedly badly dehydrated immediately after the fight (not helped by the fact that he'd had a torrid time getting down to 126 lb beforehand, needing two or three attempts at the weigh in to do so, I believe), as well as the fact that he'd made his concerns over the Vegas heat known to his team prior to the fight.

On the other hand, though, we have the fact that, as late as the thirteenth and fourteenth rounds, he was still boxing extremely aggressively, throwing a hell of a lot of leather to the body and backing his man up to the ropes, which suggests that while the heat did reduce his performance in some way, it's also perhaps not as legitimate an excuse as some would have us believe.

It's not as if McGuigan was hopeless in sweltering conditions, either; temperatures were soaring in the Kings Hall when he fought Taylor and, having not landed a telling shot on the American in the first five rounds, it was McGuigan who lasted the better of the pair before Taylor was forced to succumb to the heat three rounds later.

A hard loss for Barry and no doubt certain circumstances were against him, but I think Atila does have something of a point when he says that we maybe don't grant Cruz enough credit for upsetting the odds.

Oddly enough, on the total flip side, I think McGuigan's win over Pedroza doesn't quite get enough credit in some quarters. Pedroza is often made out to be a complete shell who only turned up for a payday when he fought Bazza, but watching the fight it's clear that he still had a good deal left by 1985, even if McGuigan did admittedly beat that final bit of fight out of him. It wasn't really until the final three rounds that McGuigan really stamped his authority on the fight and put things beyond doubt. Pedroza's losing performance was easily one of the better ones you'll see.

Zeljko Mavrovic against Lennox Lewis. Took the established champion the full distance and never once looked like going down. Think he would have beaten many of the contenders around at the time; don't think he gets any credit because he never fought again and is largely forgotten as a result.

Martinez' victory over
Williams tends to get a flat
response. Dont think he
gets knocked for it, but I
dont think it gets its dues.
Sergio single-left-handedly
busted the Paul Williams
myth

I'd chuck in Harada's pair of wins against Jofre, too.

Harada might just be one of the most underrated fighters of all time and his wins over Jofre suffer accordingly. Tend to be passed off as nothing more than a case of one fighter being a bogey man to another and having their number, when in fact it was more a case (as far as I'm concerned, anyway!) of Harada simply being in that elite bracket himself.

He certainly didn't have Jofre's all-round virtuoso skill threshold, or his longevity either, but you could argue that across his career his list of victims actually reads more impressively than Jofre's or is at least comparable, and at least a couple of his notable defeats (the Kingpetch rematch and certainly the first fight against Famechon) were dubious to say the least.

It is also sometimes suggested that Harada's first win over Jofre was a hometowner as well - again, that's unture. A mighty close one, no two ways about that, but you can't really fault anyone who had it to Harada by a point or so. He arguably won his rounds more clearly than Jofre, in fact, and the fourth (if my memory is on the money!) could even have been a 10-8 for some.

Ricardo Lopez v Rosendo Alvarez II. Lopez deserves more exposure than he gets, full-stop, but especially for this fight. 'El Finito' had his greatest moment in the rematch having been given all sorts of trouble in the first fight where he was decked, cut and arguably behind on the scorecards when the fight was stopped.

He comes into the second fight against his toughest adversary under big pressure following the first meeting. He is 33 year old, ancient for a little fighter, and not only that, his younger opponent comes in above the weight limit, forcing Lopez to spot Alvarez almost 2 weight divisions. If you've seen the fight, you will see that the extra weight didn't hamper Alvarez's performance, it just gave him renewed energy to launch some blistering attacks against the little Mexican magician.

In what was a brilliant fight, Lopez dug deep and fired back, using his superior skills and enormous reserves of will to claim a tight but deserved victory against his younger, bigger opponent.

Great shout there, Tina. As you know, your championing of 'El Finito' has inspired me to join the fan club and he certainly was brilliant in that one.

I believe that Alvarez later went on to flunk a drugs test or two as well - so who's to say, Lopez may well have even had another disadvantage to cope with there, although I'll stress that's pure speculation!

I tend to think that De la Hoya's win over Quartey doesn't get enough credit at times, too. If anyone had any doubts about whether or not the pampered, protected, pretty boy etc could suck it up and grind out a tough win, that fight should have removed them. As Angelo Dundee said, Quartey was "just about as good a fighter as anyone can be without being a helluva fighter" and was undefeated, too.

Much to admire in De la Hoya's win there, but it often gets overlooked when people talk about his career highlights.

Much as it pains me to admit it would probably have to add Barrera’s win over Naseem to the list. Much is spoken, with some degree of validity, as to how poor Naz’s camp/approach were but few if any were expecting Barrera to beat him so comfortably and whilst the fight is not the one sided maulign some would have you believe it was a clear cut victory for Marco.

Should also be added that few if any were expecting Marco to box on the outside with such discipline or effectiveness and on the back of his losses to Junior Jones most expected Naz to catch up with him at some point with the heavy artillery. However that is as much as I can bring myself to say about this fight, it is still to painful for me.

kingraf wrote:
Martinez' victory over
Williams tends to get a flat
response. Dont think he
gets knocked for it, but I
dont think it gets its dues.
Sergio single-left-handedly
busted the Paul Williams
myth

Was it a myth though?? Their first fight was razor close and without the dodgy scorecard for Williams could have went either way. But Martinez certainly got his fair share of cracks to his skull that night. The second fight was just a perfect punch that would have knocked a horse out. I think its unfair to say that it busted the Paul Williams myth.