Underrated champions of the 80s

Hilmer Kenty. He didn’t fight much, but winning the LightWeight World title by stopping champion, KO specialist Ernesto Espana was pretty damn impressive. Then he only went and stopped him again in the rematch…he was a good fighter but I never hear him mentioned these days.

 

Yeah Pedroza is a good shout. Sanchez is my #5 all time FW and Pedroza #7. I'm comfortable Sanchez is ahead in terms of greatness, but if you asked me to call a winner, prime for prime, I'd have equal confidence in my pick as I would if you asked me to predict a coin toss.

 

Nice one, thanks!! Loving the forum already.

 

Sean O Grady ended Kenty's title reign on national television.

 

Totally fair points….and this is another sign that this is a great forum. If I’d posted about Galaxy on Quora, I’d have got “Who?” as a response

 

Yeah no offence intended mate just my opinion, welcome to the forum BTW. Hopefully you can stick around you'll learn alot on the classic forum, which has by far the most knowledgeable boxing fans that I've seen.

 

Ah yes Sean O’Grady! There’s a blast from the past...decent fighter. I seem to recall my favourite LW Jim Watt stopping O’Grady for one of the belts?

 

Weaver? Had a good run and lost his title controversially. I think you hear more about guys like Page, Witherspoon, Thomas etc, who had shorter runs and lost their titles without controversy.

Maybe a bit overlooked due to being seen mostly as a puncher?

This comes on the heels of seeing Ruddock naming him as the smartest he ever met, but he did probably have the best run of the 80's alphabet soup HW champs and he sure gave prime Holmes hell.

 

Saoul Mamby held the WBC junior welterweight title for a couple of years early in the decade. Fought ‘em all in his career and gave more than a few of them fits. Cuter than a bug’s ear was Sweet Saoul.

Roger Mayweather held the same title for about 18 months late in the decade. The ‘Mexican Assassin’ had a nice run over fighters from south of the border, earning him the unusual nickname.

 

Underrated 80's guys?

Antonio Esparragoza
Gilberto Roman
Myung Woo Yuh
Jung Koo Chang

People like that. An era when people like Greg Page and Tony Tubbs were getting written about, when all these noted above were miles better.

Same as any era I suppose.

 

Absolutely Witherspoon. He was fantastic at his best. Deserves way more fandom than he seems to get.

 

Yeah for some reason Victor Valle was scared to death of putting Costello in with Mamby iirc.