Your favourite journeymen

Great shout. The definition of a journeyman. Active, canny enough not to get destroyed but with neither the top level skills or power to spring an upset. Almost like a sparring partner where the prospect or local favourite gets chance to practise new moves in safety.

Mind you. That's what we Brits thought of Buck Smith who was brought over to try and get Kirkland Laing's career back on track.

Whoopsee.

 

PS I'd love to leave the country.

You trying to be funny or what?

I haven't been inside a building that wasn't a shop or my house since Dec 4 last year.

 

Bigfoot Martin and Dave Tiberi

 

How you gonna mention those guys and leave out Roy “Cookie” Wallace?

A few non-heavyweights I liked who probably fit this category:

Middleweight Marcos Geraldo, who gave SR Leonard and Marvin Hagler good goes but got flattened in one by Thomas Hearns.

Adolpho Viruet, a somewhat complex puzzle of a southpaw who fought out of a crouch and could prove troublesome. Durable, too, as he was never stopped despite facing Duran, Leonard, Donald Curry and others.

Shig Fukuyama, a junior lightweight from Japan who relocated to the Left Coast. Lost to a who’s-who of top guys like Bobby Chacon, Sean O’Grady, Rueben Oliveras and David Kotey. Always came to fight.

David Love, a middleweight out of San Diego who had a pretty good jinx on the great Philly middleweights of his era, beating Worm Monroe, Boogaloo Watts and Bennie Briscoe before Curtis Parker finally beat him. (Also beat Geraldo twice in back-to-back scraps.)

 

He was a better bassist.

(Please tip your waitress. I’ll be here all week.)

 

All excellent choices. I would also add Raul 'Lobito' Montoya. A one-time contender who settled into a role as a fighter who could be called upon to never win but always take the top man the distance. And this is true. What a jaw this guy had.

 

Y

You know your Boxing Pat but leave the music alone eh ? Paul McCartney was the bass player. George played lead.

 

Other than the Professor, Pete Buckley, I wouldn't class any of the guys mentioned as journeymen. All of them were World top ten.
In the 70's and 80's, we had some fabulous journeymen in the UK who, on their night, could overturn the odds. Wolverhampton's Bingo Crooks Had wins over Jimmy Flint, George Feeney and was the first man to beat Paul Chance. I was at that one.
Birmingham's Willie Wright had over 50 professional fights by the time he was 23. He fought some of Britain's best Middleweights and was never stopped. Like Bingo, Willie was always in and around the British top 10.
Ladies hairdresser Dean Bramhald from Doncaster didn't look out of place taking British Super Featherweight Champion John Doherty the 10 round distance in a non Title fight. Especially as Dean had bought a ticket to the show and got the fight because his kit was in the boot of his car.
Possibly the best of them all was Billy Waith from Cardiff. Billy had over 90 fights and, I think was about 50/50. The thing about him was that most of those fights were top of the bill 8, 10, or even 12 rounders against virtually all the best Lightweights and Welterweights in the UK and Europe. Waith was a fixture in the British top 10 and fought in 2 final eliminators.
I do miss the days when the journeyman came to fight.

 

I’m an idiot.

I’d go back and edit but I’ll take my medicine, haha.

Consider me fully admonished.

 

Two journeyman peas in a pod, who each had more than 100 fights out of Oklahoma City (including several against each other, most of which were no-contest ... more like sparring sessions that didn’t go on their official records:

Buck Smith

Verdell Smith

 

My avatar: Tom "Roughhouse" Fischer. I always liked the guys who were big fish in their hometowns and main eventers there but traveling journeyman elsewhere.

Norman Goins was a high excitement fighter out of Indianapolis who had some career high points.
Gotta mention Wilbert "Vampire" Johnson as another Indiana guy from the early ESPN days too.
I also always had a lot of respect for Terry Daniels who really fit this description well. Unfortunately, he took a lot of unnecessary punishment on the back end of his career going from town to town.

 

Sedreck Fields
Ross Puritty
Maurice Harris
Zuri Lawrence
Mark Wills
Jesse Fergusson

 

This guy ill always remember fought out of LA. He was Southern Cal gangmember. He sort of halfway in that life and also boxing. He could fight.
Hector Lopez. Kosta felt him. Ran him real close when KT was on his way up.

 

Bert Cooper. His fights were just fun.

 

Talking of British journeymen the ultimate one for me was Harry Scott the middleweight out of Liverpool from the 60’s into the early 70’s.
Had a record of 39-34-6 but was a hard task for anyone a genuine tough guy.
His record looks like who’s who of British and European middleweights of the era and at world level, even including a win over Hurricane Carter.
Even at the end of his career he was going the distance with the likes of up and coming Alan Minter and Kevin and Chris Finnegan.