What was the cause of Pernell Whitaker's knockdowns?

Most of his knockdowns came as he was bending his knees -squatting down - towards the floor.

 

Cheers Mac. I do get a bit fanboyish about Whitaker sometimes myself, but I'm glad you enjoy my more objective moments with regards to him.:good

 

I'd give it about a 7.5 out of 10 and call it a very good chin.

I think his mettle and heart outstrip his chin, and perhaps make his chin look better than it was.

 

I know against Trinidad he got hit with a good shot whilst being off balance. A key example of proper punch placement at the right time.

 

Perhaps. I just think that the Trinidad fight was proof of an excellent chin (8 or above out of 10). So many fighters would have succumbed to the power in that fight and that situation.

 

On the original subject, I agree with the majority. I don't know if I've seen all of the Whitaker knockdowns, but the only one I've seen where he seemed to be hurt or in trouble at all was against Roger Mayweather. (Mayweather was pissed after Whitaker pulled down his trunks ). (By the way, does anyone have a clip of that? After I get done with my current project I want to do a Whitaker tribute and I've never been able to find that clip on youtube).

As for Whitaker's chin, I'm with Dinamita in that I'd rate it at least an 8 out of 10. Maybe about 8.5. Nobody goes the distance with Trinidad getting hit the whole way, (and Pea was shot enough that he was getting hit a lot in that fight) without having a very good chin.

Now, another subject prompted by watching the videos TheGreatA posted: does anyone know if the HBO crew, particularly Lampley, had any difficulties with Pernell or disliked him? I ask because something I've seen over and over again in HBO clips of Whitaker fights is the commentators talking about how hard Pea was hit when his opponent was clearly missing, how hurt he was when he seems fine, etc. Take the sequence around 1:30 of this clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWmKcNVMi8s

or saying that Oscar was hitting Whitaker when Pea was making Oscar look the fool, and so on and so forth. Or maybe was that them just trying to make the fight look closer and more exciting?

 

Lampley probably did have something against Whitaker. I just rewatched Mayweather vs Corrales and he said that "Mayweather's supporters have compared him to Sugar Ray Leonard and his critics have compared him to Pernell Whitaker". I don't know what's so bad about being compared to Whitaker...

 

I'm not sure if Lampley had a personal agenda or if it was more an issue of general incompetence to distinguish between a landed punch and a missed punch. I'm guessing it's the latter. And on that front, Lampley is not alone though, and neither is Whitaker as a victim of it. Many defensive fighters would be subject to the same thing. I'm sure if Lampley was watching the last round of Locche-Cervantes 1 his commetary would be a little like this:

"Hard right hand by Cervantes! And another! And now Locche is not fighting back! Cervantes is beginning to impose himself on Locche and we may be close to a stoppage here...."

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWh0lVaE1A0

It's in here somewhere. I remember seeing it at around 4:45 to 5 mins.

As per Lampley having a grudge or anything against Whitaker, I truly think it might have more to do with the fact that Whitaker was ever seldom hit cleanly...that sometimes Lampley in an attempt to create something out of nothing took anything somewhat close to a clean shot as a potentially debilitating blow.

 

For me, his chin is at least an 8 if not a 9. Yes, he could be hurt, but it was rather rare and he has never been stopped by his punch in his entire career, despite often being the smaller man and boxing tough opposition very early in his career.

The fact that he went the distance with Trinidad at the butt end of his career, without genuinely being hurt or close to being stopped, is absolutely amazing. Trinidad is one of the hardest hitting welters ever and it was above Pea's natural weight. I compare the knockdown by Mayweather and going 12 with Trinidad with Ali being hurt badly by Cooper, but going the distance with Shavers at the end of his career.

 

Or Toney being dropped and hurt by Reggie Johnson, then later going 12 rounds and arguably beating a peak Sam Peter at heavyweight.