Most underrated fighters of all time?

Agreed on Castillo, superb fighter to watch.

I'm glad to hear someone mention Curvis too, he was a very good fighter at his best and was a bit similar in way to Minter and Charnley stylewise. Beat some top names in his time and was very unlucky in having to jump up in class against that really primed, fired up version of Griffith. Wouldn't have blamed him if he watched Stracey and Honeyghan years later landing on their feet with perfect timing against the carcasses of Napoles and Curry and felt a bit resentful about it, at least compared to what he came up against in Griffith. Wasn't it his Achilles tendon giving out that was one of the reasons he ending up retiring when on the verge of another title crack against Cokes? With Josselin, who supposedly fouled Curvis to death in their fight, getting the shot instead?

On another note, I've always thought that the connecting bantamweight era between Ortiz and Jofre gets grieviously overlooked at times. The likes of Carruthers, Macias, Halimi, D'Agata, Becerra and Caldwell were all class fighters as well as the other various contenders like Toluco Lopez, Pina, Gilroy, Rollo etc. So many of them retired young and the title changed hands so often that no-one was ever able to really dominate or establish themselves as Ortiz did before them and Jofre after them. Jofre's CV in particular might've been given a boost if Macias, Becerra and Gilroy had hung around for a few more years. Macias and Becerra were huge at the time in Mexico too, much in the way that Olivares, Chavez and the modern trio would later be, but history hasn't been as kind to them in the scheme of things.

The post-Lynch, pre-Perez flyweight era is the same, mostly at the expense of the UK with Kane, Paterson, Monaghan and Allen and on a more global scale with Jurich, Marino and Shirai. All excellent fighters whose timeline happened to bridge the oft-maligned gap separating two legends. There are obviously a few more widely known cases of this sort of thing eg. from Tunney to Louis, Ali to Tyson etc, but the little men mentioned above get the short end of the stick by far in comparison.

 

Maybe not underrated, but certainly under appreciated and slightly unkown to the casual fan would be Wilfred Benitez. He truly was one of the best defensive fighters to ever lace them up. A genius in the ring who was unfortunate to be opperating in the eras of the four kings Imo it should have been the five kings, at his best he was almost equally as good as them.

 

Freddie Steele- just about unbeatable for 10 years
Jack Britton- went ABOUT 330 FIGHTS WITHOUT BEING KOD. AMAZING BOXER,
forgotten today...A much, much better edition of Billy Graham.
Maxie Rosenbloom- fought 299 of the best light heavyweight bouts of his day and defeated the great John Henry Lewis three times...
Ken Overlin-underated middleweight champion who beat the great LH Ezzard Charles's 20 win streak. Was called the "poor man's Harry Greb"...

 

Freddie Steele is criminally underrated.

Kudo's on a great list.

 

Tommy Ryan. Even by the most knowledgeable guys.

 

Manuel Ortiz- One of the BEST fighters of the 1940s golden age, and as good a Bantam
champion as any other that followed him, including Oliveras and Zarate...Forgotten now.

 

Ive got a very interesting story about Benitez, ill post it later :good

 

Teddy Yarosz
Frank Klaus
Jeff Smith
Jimmy Clabby
Wesley Ramey

 

Newsboy Brown
Jack Carroll
Battling Battalino
Carlos Ortiz

 

Go ahead:thumbsup

 

Gaspar Ortega
Carlos Ortiz
H.Mims

 

Carlos Ortiz...at his best I really think he would have upset Duran.

 

tough call, but a good one :thumbsup

 

Good call i have him over Zarate..

Between ORtiz,Olivares,Jofre for the number 1 spot at Bantam.