ATG FEATHERWEIGHT TOURNIE: QF 4 - HENRY ARMSTRONG KO4 TERRY MCGOVERN

Insanity continues.

There was a spell in early 1900s where Terry McGovern was peerless. Smashing out the bantam, feather, and lightweight champions in quick succession he was in a pound-for-pound class of his own. He settled at featherweight for a short spell of domination although it also encompassed his unfortunate struggles with mental illness. McGovern, then, dropped off while still at the poundage, but he spent a portion of his very best in the neighborhood. That’s enough to have him probing the top ten.

Those who have read this entire series will have no doubt been saddened by the final parade of the faded George Dixon, a man who was of near unparalleled greatness in his prime who became nothing more than a blade for top prospects to sharpen their tools on. In McGovern, we meet the man who heralded his demise. McGovern crushed people in the ring. Pedlar Palmer, the bantamweight champion, who he destroyed in a round, and Frank Erne, the lightweight champion, who he butchered in three, were just two of the men who encountered him and were never the same again. Dixon was no different.

The two superstars met in 1900 with Dixon’s lineal title on the line. A “ring general without parallel” and “the greatest fighter ever at the weight” according to one newspaper, Dixon suffered the ignominy of being hunted from the very first by a fighter just as great. A beautiful savagery of ebb and flow resulted, but McGovern was almost uncontainable at the turn of the century; Dixon’s control slipped and by the seventh he was giving ground; in the eighth he was yo-yoed to the canvas like so many journeymen. Featherweight belonged to McGovern.

His ownership was short-lived but savage, in keeping with his idiom, but McGovern packed a lot into his reign, including five title defenses. These included a 1901 war against the brutal and unbeaten Aurelio Herrera, a meeting between perhaps the two most devastating punchers in the history of the division. McGovern did the devastating in five.

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The terror that was thirteenth seed Henry Armstrong.

Unparalleled in his chosen style; as lethal, as terrifying, as devastating as any man who has ever set foot upon a taught and blood-sodden canvas – one of the few men who could legitimately claim to be as good as anyone who came before or after.

At featherweight, Armstrong’s position is less assured. In fact, before he even made a mark at featherweight he had begun his exploration of lightweight, his assault in earnest at 126lbs not beginning until 1935, four years after he turned professional, with a defeat of the shadow of the once great flyweight Midget Wolgast. Wolgast was toying with obesity at featherweight but he had still done enough damage to earn himself a top five ranking and a reputation as a spoiler deluxe, a nightmare for a prospect, however talented. In the second, Armstrong dribbled the champion down the ropes and never really looked back, crashing his way to a ten round decision. More top five stalwarts followed, including Baby Arizmendi in their 1936 encounter, their only meeting at featherweight and a fight he won so clearly that some sources see him victorious in every round. Title claimant Mike Belloise was next, battered into a retreat and a ten round loss, Armstrong refused recognition by the alphabet organization in question due to their championship limit being fifteen rounds; Armstrong knocked him out in four in a rematch, perhaps to punish him for the inconvenience, before being recognized as lineal the following year after handing out similar treatment to Pete Sarron.

Not an irrefutably great featherweight, but an irrefutably frightening one.

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Who will win under the following rules?

15 round fight.
1920s referee.
8oz boxing gloves.
10 points must.

Cast your vote and explain yourself in a post below! You have 3 days

 

Wow, what a pick.

 

Unexpected. I could see it though. Armstrong gets yoyoed late but McGovern can't put him away, nicks it on the ten points must.

 

**** it, you persuaded me!! But I think McGovern gets a tiring Armstrong very late.