Forgotten Fighters

Franklin "Yah Yah" Lawrence was a guy I thought might have a career fighting as a contender on FNF main events and the occasional HBO prelim in the heavyweight division. After losing a UD to Oliver McCall he seemed to improve and had some solid results. After stopping Lance Whitaker, Jason Estrada, and Jason Gavern, along with a few others his ring activity inexplicably fizzled out to fighting one a year or less. He was last seen losing to Andy Ruiz two years ago.

Incidently, Yahya is the Arabic equivolent of John. I wonder if that had any connection to the weird nickname.

 

How provincial do you want to get in this post? I could name hundreds.

 

I wonder what happened to a lot of the guys who used to feature on Friday Night Fights or Showbox. The HBO/Showtime headliners are easier to keep track of but the lesser known guys just sort of fade away.

Some of the guys I have in mind: Pavel Wolek, Shamone Alvarez, Jesse Feliciano, Darnell Wilson.

I also wonder what Vince Philips is up to. Hopefully he's staying out of trouble.

 

The best of the forgotten fighters from my hey day was Julio Cesar Vasquez, an absolutely brilliant champion. Dominated the difficult southpaw Winky Wright... and I had him beating Whitaker, too.

On the lesser level, Jake Rodriguez, Morris East, Miguel Angel Gonzalez...

I could name dozens of high level fighters from the 90's that aren't mentioned anymore.

 

Quite a few, mainly guys I remember from USA's Tuesday Night Fights. Jimmy Thunder, Tim Puller, Samson Pouha, Ed Donaldson, Maurice Harris, Wolfgramm, Corey T Rex Sanders, just to name a few.

 

I've said in a couple previous threads that we need more threads like this. Keith Mullings, Gene Hatcher, James "Hard Rock Green", Jerry "the Bull" Martin, Nino LaRocca, etc. The list is endless.

 

I think Elisha Obed is one of those fighters who has slipped into the mists with boxing fans. Great run to the title and a couple of defenses and then became an obscure journeyman. I count Edgar "Mad Dog" Ross too in this list. Rated #1 at 154 lbs for almost two years. Like he never existed and I think he would've had at least a fair shot at dethroning Rocky Mattioli at his peak.

I don't know if he was ever known well enough to be "forgotten", but I have always been fascinated by rated 70's heavyweight Walter Moore. He was one fight away from a likely shot at Larry Holmes and got stopped by Roy Williams in Vegas. No film out there, barely a picture, and nobody I have ever talked to has ever seen him fight.

 

Walter Moore
19 Wins 1 loss 0

http://boxrec.com/en/boxer/23464

Article states he was an Eddie Futch fighter at one time:
https://books.google.com/books?id=J...CAYQAQ#v=onepage&q=Walter Moore boxer&f=false

 

Paulie Ayala

 

Roberto Davilla distinguished himself in boxing history by being the first man to go the distance (8 rounds) with young George Foreman. He was the first man in the pros that GF couldn't knock out.

 

Mentioning Rocky Mattioli, there's another guy who seems to be sort of forgotten.

 

Rudy Koopmans