Oba Motor City Carr

Some people here are underselling Carr. He was a very, very good fighter who unfortunately occupied the same era and weight class as Quartey, Trinidad and De La Hoya, two of whom were greats and the other who was very close. Carr had some very quality wins, Randall, Coley and Campos come to mind.

 

Randall was considerably past it and he would go on a losing streak of 6 fights after the Carr fight.

Coley was a very close decision that could've gone either way I scored it a draw. Which shows that was more of Carr's level rather than the big 3 like Tito, Quartey, ODLH.

Carr also got a gift decision vs a past Livingstone Bramble and got dropped by Anthony Jones in a draw.

Carr was good but he was more like a very good B class Welterweight rather than being A class.

 

I thought he beat Coley closely but clearly but haven't seen that fight in years. I also thought he took over the Bramble fight after the shaky first rounds.


If you only consider Tito, Ike and Oscar as elite, Carr was not elite. But I saw him as more an A- than a B. He was rated in the Ring Annual Top 8 welters from 1993 thru 2000, peaking at number 4 twice. He was very skilled. He just didn't have any of the overwhelming physical attributes of those other three. He wasn't as robust physically, nor did he carry a great equalizer that all three possessed. I say it time and again on this board, skills can carry you far but so can just being blessed physically.

 

He was a pretty good fighter, he gave the 3 best welterweights of the late 90s good fights. If not for De La Hoya, Quartey or Trinidad he may have picked up a strap. He would have definitely beaten a James Page Thats for sure.

 

I suppose A- is a fair description I can't disagree.

And yeah I agree with you that Carr didn't have any stand out attributes in regards to speed, power, etc.

He did everything very solid but nothing exceptional.

 

But James Page beat Jose Luis Lopez and Carr never beat anyone as good as Page or Lopez. It’s not definite at all.

 

Jose Luis Lopez was an A-. McGirt was an A-. Espana was an A-.

Carr was a B+ if you give him every benefit of the doubt.

 

Stylistically, I'm reminded of Carr and a bit of Curtis Cokes when I watch Nahir Albright. Albright-Martin, one of my favorite fights of the year, makes for a great two-part viewing with Carr-Coley; just two, technical bouts right under the championship level 30 years apart from each other.

 

Many of us watched Oba grow up before our very eyes on regular Tuesday Night Fights appearances. We became invested in him, wanted to see our lad get his moment.

 

I had an amateur bout against him, he was really good. I remember going to the Palace and watching him fight Livingstone Bramble. I was in the nose bleed section so I really couldn't see the bout closely but it seemed to me that Oba should not have been given the decision. I don't remember how old he was for the fight but it did seem that they were rushing him with the selection of his opposition. He fought all 3 of the champions at his weight, he may not have won any of those title fights, but he had the talent and paid the price to get there.

Oba Carr: One highly skilled fighter!

My hat's off to him!

 

I think that sums it up well. He didn’t quite have a standout attribute or feature, in an era where the belt holders invariably did. But he had more than enough to pick up a belt in a different era when the stars aligned better.

Even in that era, the second tier in welter were all bringing something to the table. Campas and Coley for example had a lot of good things going for them.

On a side note, are there other fighters who have had multiple title shots against different opponents and had tougher opponents than Carr had? The 90s were an unusual era where unification matches were rare, but belts still kind of meant something. A decade or so earlier was the two belt era, and by the 00s belts had lost a lot of intrinsic value so fighters were more incentivised to step up and fight each other.

 

Espana was NEVER on the level of a Mcgirt.
Lopez was an under achiever who hated training had a great chin and a really good punch but also never came close to achieving what Buddy did.