Sean O'Grady vs Romeo Anaya (A blown up ex-118 champion vs a young bubblegum kid)

Just recently began digging into the career of Romeo Anaya, the one time bantamweight champion. He sported a respectable 41-5 record before this disastrous third title defense against teak tough Arnold Taylor, who came back from three knockdowns and being battered badly to knock Anaya out with a single punch in the 14th round. Anaya never seemed to regain the form he once had and became little more than a journeyman towards the end of his career.

Here we see Anaya blown all the way up to 130 pounds, and he looks ridiculously small compared to the young O'Grady. Pretty soft match making for a fighter with a 54-1 record, which included 22 first round knockouts. Anaya had already picked up 15 losses by this period and was 32, ancient for a fighter of his weight class in that period (Or today)

It's an interesting bout, with Anaya game and tagging O'Grady constantly before finally being seriously touched with a punch in the third, where he more or less sits out the count on the canvas like a fighter without any real ambition anymore, completely aware of their own limitations. He landed enough to mark up O'Grady's nose and make him look foolish at times however, you can see shades of what was probably a better damn good little fighter a few weight classes lower.

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Well, I have no doubt his bell may have been rung by the punch. But I feel he was perfectly aware of the count, and chose to rise just after it had finished, walking dismayed but sure footed to his own corner. His mentality seemed to me at this point in his career to be "I'll stick in there and throw hard punches at this kid while I can but I'm not getting hurt tonight". Maybe I'm wrong.