How would Jirov have fared...

“He was an Olympic gold medalist. They made him the best fighter (Val Barker Award winner) at those Olympics (1996 Games). He was undefeated. He was the cruiserweight champ. He had Tommy Brooks and Thel Torrance in his corner. But what the **** did I care? We ain’t amateurs. This is the pros. What was he going to show me that I hadn’t already seen? Were Tommy and Thel going to fight for him? I had my experience. I had Freddie Roach and Pops (John Arthur) in my corner. Jirov’s team made it easy work for me, because they thought he could break me down with pressure. They thought he could hurt me to the body. They didn’t think I was a real cruiserweight, even though they said I wasn’t going to make the weight. Everybody made me the underdog, but it didn’t matter. The only thing I remember about the fight itself was that I was war-ready. Anything and everything, I was ready for it. I trained like a deranged dog for that fight. I had him down in the 12th round and almost had him knocked out, just like Charles Williams. But I made my point. I will outbox the boxer, like I did Mike McCallum, and I will out-slug the slugger, like I did Iran Barkley. I can box and I can punch, but I would rather punch.”

--James Toney

 

I have a bit of a soft spot for Jirov because those Olympics he won gold at were what first got me into amateur boxing. I actually prefer that 178 amateur version of him to the pro CW one. I would've loved to have seen him turn pro at 175 as I feel he would've been super beastly at that weight.

 

No worries.

His trainer sounds like a sadist lol

Jirov would be an exciting addition to the current CW division albeit 190-ish was probably his optimal fighting weight IMO and I wish he could've squeezed down to LHW back then because he was even better and more beastly down at that weight (178) in the ams.

I actually have a soft spot for Castro too and Argentine fighters in general. Even though he lived in a skip and only trained on public holidays and was more a natural 154 pounder he was a ridiculously tough man and had a titanium chin.

BEST JAB

Juan Carlos Gomez. And obviously, Roy Jones Jr. He was accurate and landed hard jabs too.

BEST DEFENSE

Roy Jones: I didn’t give him any respect. I threw everything I had at him, but he covered up very well, especially upstairs. He opened up his body only, but you couldn’t land one punch in the head against him. Roy Jones had won every fight by knockout, and I was the first one to go the 10-round distance with him. I connected my punches too, but I was fighting in Pensacola, his hometown. He thought he could stop me, but he couldn’t. he could punch real hard.

BEST HANDSPEED

John David Jackson: He was fast and landed everything. His jab was fast. It was continuous and accurate. He always landed his punches, all of them.

BEST FOOTWORK

Jackson: He was hard to catch. Whenever you attacked him, he moved sideways; you never had him in front of you. He walked the ring very well. Also, in my earlier days, Jorge Pino, from Panama, he walked the ring very well. And Roy Jones, of course. I thought I would have a rematch against him, and it never happened.

SMARTEST

Roy Jones. He was very slippery, but when he fought me he was different. I threw a lot of punches and he covered himself very well, but against other fighters he would take the lead. Against me, he had to be on the defensive all the time, and he adapted very well to that.

STRONGEST

Juan Carlos Gomez: He was the biggest fighter I faced, and I was just a chubby old guy. We fought at cruiserweight, the heaviest I ever fought. We had an 18-pound difference, and it was too much.

BEST CHIN

Francisco Bobadilla: I got tired from punching him so much, and he didn’t move an inch. I fought him four times, and I always beat him on points. I threw everything I had at him. (Hector Abel “Perro”) Lescano was tough too. I knocked him out, but he was tough. And (Juan) Italo Meza as well. I punched him with all my strength, and he kept coming.

BEST PUNCHER

Juan Carlos Gomez. I think I fought in Australia with him (Note: They fought in Essen, Germany), and he knocked me down. And also the (guy against whom) I lost here by knockout (Panama’s José Luis Herrera). What happened in that fight is after my (car) accident, I thought my body was fine, but I was hurt inside. As soon as he hit me on the chin, he knocked me out. But in my best moment I would have knocked him out. But Gomez hit so hard I had to take a knee. And in the body, I’d say (Shinji) Takehara, he hit me hard to the body. But with Gomez I felt every hand, whenever he landed I saw little stars shining all over the place. He was much bigger than me and I was just a chubby little *******.

BEST BOXING SKILLS

Terry Norris: I fought him at his absolute prime. He was very fast, way too fast for me. He was a complete fighter. You couldn’t catch him in the ring. He was a good boxer, he didn’t just go toe-to-toe with you. He fought at a distance, a smart fighter. He had defeated Sugar Ray Leonard. I thought I was going to fight Leonard too, but I ended up fighting Duran later.

BEST OVERALL

Roy Jones: Hands down. He had it all: he could punch, he could fight going forward and backwards, he was a complete fighter. Jackson was different, he was fast but didn’t have it all. Jones was one of the best pound-for-pound, but I managed to take the lead in that fight and put him on the spot. They never thought I would be crazy enough to take the fight to him, but I did.

 

Oddly enough I can't remember if I did or not. Weird because I vividly remember watching lots of fighters in those games.

Wlad Klitschko, Paea Wolfgram
Felix Savon
Jirov, Tarver and Lee
Ariel Hernandez and the Turk he fought in the final Malik Beyleroğlu
David Reid and the Cuban Duvergel he KO'd in the final
and also Yermakhan Ibraimov, Oleg Saitov, Hocine Soltani, Tontcho Tonchev, Leonard Doroftei, Kamsing Somluck, Serafin Todorov who obviously beat Floyd albeit controversially, Istvan Kovacs, Arnaldo Mesa, Maikro Romero are the ones I remember most of all albeit I had to check Wiki to refresh my memory and the correct spellings of their names lol

 

Not literally but I know he has a reputation for not taking training seriously and his moniker El Rona apparently translates to ''The Dirt'' in English

But according to this article the full translation has another meaning


'Several adjectives come to mind when trying to define Jorge Castro.

He is a “throwback” fighter. An “iron-chinned” warrior. An awkward “brawler”, a “KO artist”, and more.

But in his native Argentina, he is defined by the two interchangeable nicknames that, to this day, people yell out when he walks the streets: “Roña” (Dirt) and “Locomotora” (Locomotive).

“They used to call me ‘busca roña’ when I was a kid,” said Castro, 52, in explaining the longer, full version of the moniker he earned as a pre-teen street hustler, from which his shorter nick derives. “Dirt-seeker” would be a literal translation, but the true meaning is closer to “troublemaker” or “bully”, a kid who is constantly looking for a wrong comment or a bad look from anybody just to start a fight.'

 

Yeah when he turned pro there definitely were

He was losing big to the Cuban before he pulled that punch out of the hat

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No problem.

I wouldn't be surprised if they've already made one about him in Argentina

Another stupidly tough and durable iron-jawed South American from Castro's era and who actually shared a ring with him too, as did Joe, Benn, Eubank and Hands of Stone himself, was Juan Carlos Gimenez. I like iron-chinned fighters who seem impervious to punishment.