Terry McGovern in the Golden Era of Bantamweights

Somebody might have lasted more than a few rounds against him at least!

 

Very hard to answer, considering the number of fights they had. I have hundreds of local next-day reports for these fighters, but it'd take a hell of time to look them all up to figure in which fights they faced somebody like McGovern style-wise and how well did they fare.

 

Always have found McGovern to be a fascinating fighter but haven't read enough about him. What is the reason given for his prodigious power emerging after 25 fights? All of a sudden he was just blasting opponents.

 

It's not unprecedented for power to *click*.

Based on the recent footage, he definitely had a ton of it.
Not the one-and-done kind that requires exaggerated setup.
But the kind that Golovkin and Louis have, where it can be carried through all punches in a fast short combination.

 

Along those lines, Jack Johnson noted that he learned to punch before he learned to box.

Manny Seamon noted that he kept trying to get Benny Leonard to hit harder, and that one day he came to the gym, and Leonard was pounding the heavybag with real power. Something clicked overnight.

Most punchers say that power punching is learned.
Dempsey said it, Louis said it, Tyson said it. And it's probably because they can all recall when it clicked for them.

 

How do people rate Terry's durability? Not quite as top tier as his power and something that could let him down if he's not careful against other big bangers around the weight.

 

I was more thinking of the Corbett bouts where he was supposedly fighting angry and walked into big counters early on, being knocked out by the same man twice.

 

I noticed this one too...

McGovern down in 1st but given controversial 16 second long count, as he held onto Gardner's leg for 6 seconds while Gardner struggled to pull away to allow the referee begin counting

 

Whoops, my bad. Good catch. I agree with what you're saying, trying to play Devils Advocate for a thread I find really interesting.

 

I get the idea that he had a bit of a bully boy mentality, and that he could be got to on this basis.

I think that the fact that Corbett stood up to him, perhaps threw him a bit.