With the Heavyweight title fight between Uysk and Joshua coming up in two weeks, I thought I would create a thread dedicated to great fighters from the past that fought on the road a lot and won like Uysk has made a career doing. What I mean is guys that had no problem going into a hostile environment and defending a title or winning one. A guy like Mike McCallum who fought Kalambay in Italy, Graham and Watson in England, Tiozzo in France etc. Is a good example. Who else can you think of?
Carlos Ortiz fought against Duilio Loi (Italy), Teruo Kosaka (Japan), Flash Elorde (Philippines), Sugar Ramos (Mexico), Carlos Teo Cruz (Dominican Republic). He also had some non-title fights in other countries e.g., Nicolino Locche (Argentina), Maurice Cullen (England)... He had most of his fights in the contiguous United States rather than Puerto Rico (not sure if this counts).
And of course, Muhammad Ali was a global traveler and fought in different countries. The following video shows him in Bangladesh. the local women even created a song for him (starts at 1:11). This content is protected
Emile Griffith fought in USA, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Argentina, Colombia, England, France, Monaco, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Italy (Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Bermuda).
Nobody traveled like Eddie Perkins. I think about 23 countries on his resume. But even if this means title fights only it would still apply. He had 7 title fights and all were in the other guy's home country.
Some really good mentions so far. What a lot of these guys have in common is that they were amazing technical fighters that were not considered marketable or mainstream due to either their style or their place of origin. Most had to grind their way to the title and fight even harder to keep it.
Eusebio Pedroza defended his title in eight different countries. He finally lost his belt to Barry McGuigan in Great Britain.
It would be interesting to ask these guys which countries had the most effectively hostile crowds to foreign fighters. Like, are there any countries where the general public is really good at backing up their hometown guy and psyching out a foreign interloper with a hostile atmosphere.
Robinson travelled a lot as did Archie Moore. Archie loved traveling figured the more people that knew him the better. Liked beating the hometown heroes.
