Azumah Nelson vs Salvador Sanchez discussion

Nobody knew Nelson as a fighter at the time of the fight so its interesting in retrospect to look back at how well he fought with Sanchez.

 

People point to that fight sometimes as a reason to nitpick Sanchez's record, as if Nelson has to count against him somehow because of how few fights Nelson had, but the man Sal fought that day was a very good fighter who had a lot of tricks under his belt at such a relatively early stage of his career.

If you notice, Nelson was continually coming forward but very often forced Sanchez to lead, throwing him off a bit. Then he'd just explode on Sanchez and throw everything to the wind. Good luck not getting thrown off by that. No matter what your name is.

 

I beleive this was broadcast on HBO. After you watch it, you'll want to see it again. This one has some " replay value ".

 

Beautiful fight indeed. My favorite fight from Chava...Amazing performance by both ATG's...

 

How about the Gomez one ? :good

 

Prob my 2nd fav. For sure the most satisfying one, but as far as entertaining back and foward action goes, Sal-Azumah takes the cake.

The Lopez fights and the LaPorte one are also gems.

 

Lopez, Gomez, Nelson, LaPorte are all great fights. I like how in the Nelson fight in the 8th(?) round Sanchez slips on the wet corner, and Nelson hits him right in the jaw while Sanchez was getting up and it didn't even seem to faze him. I also thought he put on a masterful performance against Lopez. Amazing fighter and also my favorite.

 

Settle down Tommy, just stating a fact.You should be proud of the unique achievement attained here you slothlike *******.

 

...

 

The big story between Sanchez-Nelson and Sal's fatal accident was about how poorly he felt during the match, and how his corner simply told him to take it easy. This was considered a sub par performance by Chava at the time, and that if he'd been primed and honed as he was for Lopez and Gomez that he would would have dispatched Nelson with considerably more speed and ease.

Actually, because of these revelations, Nelson's challenge was thought less highly of than Cowdell's, Ford's, Garcia's, Laporte's and Castillo's. After all, they all lasted until the final bell, Cowdell pushing him to an SD, and Ford to an MD, while the Ghanan upstart failed to last the distance. That changed as Nelson eventually emerged as Sal's true successor, further retroactively magnifying the amplitude of Sanchez's final match beyond the fact of his untimely passing. At the time, it was thought that Chava would easily win a rematch, with the difficulty of this defense brushed off as an anomaly. (There probably would have been little call for a return, as Nelson did get stopped. LaPorte was then thought of as the most viable candidate for a title rematch among Sal's former challengers, and Juan indeed became his immediate successor to the vacant belt.)

 

Tickets up in Blue Heaven were 10 bucks for this fight. Nobody new who Nelson was.

 

"Discuss the fight, but don't tell me what happened."

You are a funny guy

 

Great post,Z!!!Chava-Azumah was an awesome fight,but the beatdown that Sal gave that bigmouth,dirty,racist ***** Gomez was pure rapture!!!I don't know if I've ever had as much boxing satisfaction inside me after watching that one!!!Although MAB-Hamed was pretty sublime,too.

 

So when Sanchez died was it Cowdell, Ford and Laporte that was looked upon as the next in line?

 

Laporte, if anybody. I don't think he was thought of as a budding great or anything though, as he'd already lost to both Sanchez and Pedroza by that time.

Ford had by that time (I think) been slaughtered by Pedroza and no one was that thrilled with Cowdell.

Oddly enough, it was a Columbian named Mario Miranda whom Laporte was pitted with to fight for Sal's vacated title. The other two weren't in the picture.