Best Fights from the 1960s

From my list of fights to watch. Ones with the star next to them I've only heard about and haven't gotten around to watching.
1960
Floyd Patterson vs Ingemar Johannson II
Benny Paret vs Federico Thompson I* Raging Bull
Doug Jones vs Von Clay I* +Not Available
1961
Emile Griffith vs Benny Paret I
Joe Brown vs Dave Charnley II* +Not Available
1962
Fighting Harada vs Pone Kingpetch I
Charley Scott vs Gaspar Ortega I
Emile Griffith vs Benny Paret III
Joey Giardello vs Henry Hank II* +Not Available
1963
Cassius Clay vs Doug Jones
Jose Stable vs. Charley Scott
1964
Jose Stable vs Vince Shomo
Sugar Ramos vs Vicente Saldivar*
Joey Giardello vs. Rocky Rivero* + Not Available
Carlos Ortiz vs Flash Elorde I* +Not Available
1965
Floyd Patterson vs George Chuvalo
Eder Jofre vs Fighting Harada I*
Harry Scott v Rubin Carter * +No footage
1966
Eder Jofre v Fighting Harada II*
1967
Nino Benvenuti vs Emile Griffith I*
Vicente Saldivar vs Howard Winstone I-II
1968
**** Tiger vs Frank DePaula
Alan Rudkin vs Walter McGowan II*
1969
Joe Frazier vs Jerry Quarry I
Nino Benvenuti vs Luis Rodriguez*
Lionel Rose vs Alan Rudkin* No footage

Sorry, what I have to offer is mostly second hand hearsay. You'll need someone else to maybe corroborate most of this.

 

It may be second hand but it looks like a pretty great start!

 

This one.

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I remember this one. It has pretty good action but for some reason it didn't stick with me. About all I recall from it was how Saldivar was putting a beating on Winstone but the British commentators wouldn't admit it until almost the end.

Oh, and this reminded me how much I enjoyed Jose Stable vs Charley Scott. Stable must be one of those guys with a crowd pleasing all action style.

 

I posted it mainly because of it's high quality.

 

Oh shoot, should I have included the Emile Griffith vs Benny Paret trilogy? I forgot that was early sixties. Despite the tragic ending, they were supposed to be great fights, kind of like Benn vs McClellan or Eubank vs Watson. Oh, and the Benny Paret vs Gaspar Ortega fight was #98 on ESB's top 100 fights. No tragic end there. Wait, they fought twice once in 59 and once in 61. Not sure which is the good one.

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Just saw this one a minute ago. Charley Scott vs Gaspar Ortega. This comes recommended by Flea Man, from his channel. Apparently, Ortega was the most viewed fighter on New York tv at this period and was a fan favorite. Flea compares him to Chacon, Gatti, and Saad. Since his name keeps popping up and I'd already seen what Scott could do I gave this a chance. Flea's description was something about great infighting. He ain't wrong. It's a 10 round war in a phone booth.

 

The Fullmer-Giardello and Tiger fights arent very good. Once Fullmer realised he was overmatched he spoiled against Giardello, just clinching and wrestling, and ran against Tiger except in the third fight in which he took a beating and wasnt competetive. The Giardello fight is like watching John Ruiz. The Tiger fights are just infuriating for how he just ran and occassionally tried that slapping jab of his.

 

Really? Dang. The Fullmer vs Tiger fights were the ones I was most anticipating. Ever since I read on UCNLive that it was one of the ten best trilogies.
http://ucnlive.com/pugil-list-10-greatest-trilogies/
"10. Dick Tiger vs. Gene Fullmer – I may get the most pushback for this pairing, not least because Fullmer did not win any of the contests. Perhaps because both men were past their primes, these fights devolved into battles of attrition and despite Fullmer’s failure to win, they were far from one-sided. In their first meeting, neither was a champion, boxing for the title Sugar Ray Robinson vacated and Tiger was true to his name, outpunching a Fullmer who wilted in the final rounds because of blood loss and badly swollen eyes. The second fight was a draw, which the UPI news agency captured perfectly. “Dick Tiger and Gene Fullmer went 15 blood-drenched rounds last night as Tiger retained his world middleweight championship. Fullmer turned Fancy Dan and, darting in and out to land a single blow at a time, piled up an early lead. But Tiger finally caught up in the final two rounds to earn the draw.” The rubber match was held in Tiger’s native Nigeria (the first world title fight in Africa), with Tiger forcing Fullmer on his back foot more than in the first two encounters, convincing Fullmer’s manager to rescue his boxer from further punishment in the seventh round. A trilogy that lands in the “battle of wills” category since the men were mirror images of one another, thus unable to separate themselves because of parallel skill sets." - by Marty Mulcahey

 

Marty obviously hasnt seen the first or second fights if he says that Fullmer ran more in third. The first fight started out good but very quickly Fullmer found that Tiger was stronger, hit harder, and more accurate so rather than try his mauling or leaping in tactics he started to run. He tried to avoid as much contact as possible, which was unusual for him, and just paw with the occasional slapping jab. I have the complete original closed circuit telecast of this fight. Im one of two people in the world I know to own it. So Im not just basing this off of what Ive heard or read. The second fight was the worst of the three. From bell to bell Fullmer ran, clinched, pawed out a job, and simply refused to engage. There was very little action. When the fight was over and the draw verdict was read Tiger was furious. He heavily criticized Fullmer for not trying to win back the title and felt the draw was unjust and hinted that he fealt the judges had been fixed. The third was better but only because Fullmer didnt have the legs to run and took a beating. He wasnt much better than a punching bag. But I wouldnt call it a great fight because Fullmer wasnt competetive. The Giardello fight was just awful. Like I said Fullmer just clinched, mauled, fought dirty, etc. It was very ugly to watch.

 

Decided to watch a bunch of those fights I'd heard about but hadn't seen yet and report back to the thread. Here's what I got.

Jofre vs Medel wasn’t all it could be with the exception of the excellent rounds 5 and 9. Highly skilled but not action packed.

Jose Beccera vs Alphonse Halimi was good but not great.

Basilio vs Pender, Basilio good as always but Pender keeps his distance, moves backwards, and clinches too much. It slowed the pace of the fight and kept it from being really good. The ref let Pender hold all he wanted but let Basilio rabbit punch, hold and hit, and punch on the break. Rd 13 was interesting. Basilio was rocking Pender, flying his head, having his best round of the fight, when he gets knocked down himself at the end of the round. He got up at 3 and then remembering the mandatory 8 count took a knee. I’ve never seen a fighter get up then go back down intentionally like that. Good drama in the 15th when Basilio goes down again and fights to make it to the bell.

Ortiz vs Rosi, ref tells them to pick up the pace in round five. Never seen that before. Ortiz doesn’t want to touch gloves at the end of rounds, although Rosi keeps putting out his hand. Not the kind of ferocity and frenetic pace I look for in great fights. I must be missing something about Ortiz. He looks strong, fast, and can take a punch but I’m not seeing the great technique that would have made him as dominant as he was. Rd 9 Ortiz goes down, holds on a bit. The best ones are when a guy is hurt and he keeps swinging then his opponent gets hammered looking for the knock out. That didn’t happen here. Lot of wrestling in the tenth. Meh.

Basilio vs Ortega, based on their fights with other people I was expecting more. There have been a few heated exchanges that made me smile, but not cheer, and they weren’t exactly frequent or bell to bell. Good bout, not great.

 

The Briscoe vs Rodrigo Valdes fights were in the 70's.....1973, 1974 & 1977.

 

Oh, my bad. Thanks for the correction. So, you got any opinions about 60s fights?

Yeah, looks like.