Your favourite fighters...who weren't that good!

I'd have to check my notes (I can always remember my top 10's off the top of my head, but need to check to be certain on 11-20), but I think Danny Lopez just sneaks into my top 20 FWs of all time. He was very good imo, if not quite an ATG.

 

He was, is, always will be my all time favorite fighter, and the only hero that I will ever have. I got into boxing because he lost to Bobby Chacon- I wanted to learn how to fight so that I could beat up Chacon. He was great entertainment because he was easy to hit, went down, got up, and usually won. He had guts and courage and a bomb of a right hand. But he wasn't a great fighter.
I started to figure that out once I started sparring and learned that it is way more fun to watch somebody fight like Little Red than it is to try and do it yourself.

 

Jimmy Thunder, Maurice Harris, Ross Puritty, Jeremy Williams are a few.

 

Right there with ya. Sharp punching, good defense. Pleasure to watch when he was on.

 

Yeah if a guy won a world title or was even ranked in the top 10 then I would say they are more than "not that good", I tried to pick fringe contenders and journeyman.

 

Fair enough. Some of the guys I listed weren’t world champs but I believe all were ranked at least once in their careers. I’ll revise my list by adding Jesse Ferguson although he might have been ranked briefly too

 

Yeah I think Thunder was ranked in the top 10, and Williams fought Akinwande for the WBO belt so it can be difficult.

 

Really cool post. Blake, Crawley and that group of mid-1980s American lightweights (Melvin Paul, Harry Arroyo, Charlie Brown et al) were all part of a very enjoyable group of very good, not great lightweights. Almost all of their bouts against each other were entertaining. Crawley died on my birthday a couple of years ago and I was surprised that the death of a man I hadn't seen in more than three decades could make me feel so melancholy.

 

Throwing another name out there. There was a Junior welterweight prospect named Ricky “ The Rock “ Myers who fought from like 1989 to maybe 1993. Trained by Kevin Rooney and a similar style to mike Tyson. Don’t think he went far but he was fun to watch

 

Nice one Noel, I didn't realise you were from down our way. I thought you were a 'Cockney Geezer'. Good Evertonian Sugar is too. During lockdown I finally bit the bullet and joined some Everton Forum for the 1st time*, he was on it and we had some good chat and I spoke about those 'Fight Night' bouts etc.


*I left the page soon after, it was full of moaning *****. It's bad enough sitting next to them all season, why I thought chatting with them when no one could go the games wasn't the brightest idea i've ever had.

 

Good list. I didn't see much of Jeremy - but the other 3 had very interesting and fun careers to follow for sure.

 

Thought of one who truly fits the thread title: Teddy “Hookin’” Hatfield was a rough-and-tumble brawler who fought mostly at lightweight in the 1980s. All action, not a master but his fights were definitely fun.

He managed to get on ESPN and maybe USA Network a few times, not often on the winning end. Finished 20-12 or so with a few no-contests due to accidental butts.

 

My avatar.. Tom "Roughhouse" Fischer.
Dayton's local heavyweight hero from the mid 70's.
He was a carpet installer by day and bar bouncer on the weekends to make ends meet.
He eventually owned "Tom's Christmas Trees" and many a Daytonite got their Yuletide display from his lot.
Tough as nails, he reportedly lost some toes to a chainsaw accident in the early 80's and yet kept fighting.
Lost a decision to Quick Tillis before Willis' title fight against Mike Weaver.
Lost by 7th Round TKO to Michael Dukes on the Ali-Holmes undercard.
Strangely enough, there is zero footage of that fight and no pics even on the web.
Good enough to beat the Terry Daniels and Ron Stander's of the world and be a headliner in his hometown and that was good enough for me, even though I always hoped he'd break through. But when you're a 5'9 heavyweight, you are fighting against some insurmountable odds.

 

Mike Dejohn. A tall, slow-moving stiff but a left hooker with a big wallop. If he caught you with it you were in trouble. He kayoed two journeymen -- Alex Miteff and Charlie Powell -- in :47 and 1:17 of the first stanza on Friday Night Fights. You can see the films on YouTube.

 

Thanks for your reply, good to have my good opinion of Sugar confirmed by you.As to you thinking i was a cockney the fact is my dad was in the army and as a kid we lived all over the place.So in 1961 after living in Kenye we came back to England to Gravesend in Kent,i was 5.That year Spurs won the double and i started to support them so you could call me a glory hunter.Been living in Cheshire since 1968 never stopped supporting Spurs but we have never managed to emulate that early success.On a happier note for me but not you i will never forget the first game of the 1984 season when i was at Goodison to see us win 4 - 1.You had the last laugh though as you won the league that season