How highly do you rate McCallum's win over Harding?

It's not like Jeff was the best in the division or anything but he was very,very tough and kept coming.

It was a decent win due to Mike's age and being so far removed from his best weight but Harding was really very crude and his complete lack of even basic defense meant he was never going to have much luck against such a well rounded technician as McCallum despite his natural size advantage.

Hardings iron chin and will were the only things that kept him in it but McCallum beat him pretty easily from memory and probably would 10/10 times.

Different class of fighter.

 

An excellent win, one of the best scalps for McCallum imo even though Harding was nothing special he was strong, granite chinned, and huge compared to McCallum, who had basically gotten too bored for training.

 

This says it.

 

It was Miles last great win.

 

Harding was a faded fighter and never that talented in the first place, but as already said it's a good win because of McCallum's age and size.

 

I was ringside for this fight and it was a very entertaining scrap.

A solid win if only because Harding was so much naturally bigger. Plus the workrate for both of them was tremendous that night.

I was really impressed with how good McCallum was at that age and also with the fact he had a gut. And he still won 9 rounds.

 

How in the hell was Harding faded?

 

Yep.

That big heart of McCallum and the guy certainly was a competitor of the highest order.

The biggest thing I remember about the fight was thinking Dariusz would have went through both guys within 12 rounds in brutal fashion and they were fortunate they were fighting each other.

 

Well he'd been out of the ring for almost 2 years for one.And looked a few notches in most areas from the fighter that begun the series with Andries.

Classic example of the face first brawler that relies on sheer toughness and workrate with a brief prime.ie Davey Boy Green.

 

Harding wasn't very good.

 

Enhances his legacy. At a mature age,Mike beat a strong younger man quite clearly,as you say.

 

I know very little of McCallum overall. Just how many quality wins does he have?

 

It was more so an impressive show of skill than a great win.

We have seen aggressive brawlers trouble boxers before, see Barkley-Hearns II as an example, but McCallum was able deal with Harding's pressure by maneuvering him into positions where he could not land or utilize his strength without wasting any excess movement himself.

Despite being an out of shape old man, he still went a high paced 12 rounds with relative ease, because all the moves he made took into account his physical limitations at that stage in his career. He didn't try to move around much as he may have attempted to do when he had fresher legs, but instead rode out the storm with an impressive display of infighting.

He wasn't trying to fight like the 20 year old version of himself as so many aging fighters do.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3A-AZBETZY[/ame]


Always been impressed with McCallum's seeming ability to land the uppercut from almost any angle.

As a comparison McCallum's fight with a similar type of opponent a decade earlier:

[DM]xhxrfc_mike-mccallum-vs-luigi-minchillo_sport[/DM]

 

McCallum vs Tiozzo was a good fight as well.he didn't give the title up easily.