Fighters there are rarely threads of?

Jeff Sims & Joe Hipp

 

Alberto Davila! One of my favourites.

 

Can't read enough about Joe Brown -- TERRIFIC GUY! Gave me boxing tips as a kid.

 

Mr Garfield. Where have you been hiding?

 

Yaqui Lopez and Carlos DeLeon.

Surprisingly Lopez never gets mentioned by Mexican boxing fans and DeLeon never gets mentioned by the Puerto Rican contingent.

 

Nice to be missed, R.

I cherry-pick like Mayweather, and pop-in, here 'n there.

 

Tell us more.

 

He watched me spar at Stillman's gym, AF, and took the pains to point out mistakes and demonstrated how to correct 'em.

 

Mr Garfield is one of the legends. An old timer. Not far away from turning 21.

 

For almost the fourth time around, R

 

Not long until your hitting 80, huh?

 

I like to think of it as being "experienced"

If you believe that, R, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.

 

You're an old tiger of the fight game :good

Duran v Whitaker

Hopkins v Hagler.

Pick your winners, JG.

 

My wife would question the "tiger' part, R.

Never get into mythical match-ups -- too frustrating. Wind-up going round-'n-round

 

I've always found Benny Bass a rather interesting boxer. He was very short and stocky and likely one of the toughest boxers to have ever lived.

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I guess there isn't a whole lot of information on him but here are some accounts of his ring battles:

"Harold Ribalow, in The Jew In American Sports, wrote this about the Bass-Chapman fight: "Its savagery, its skill & its pace have seldom been equaled by anyone."

As if to belie the maelstrom to come, the fight started slowly. Over the first two rounds the opponents cautiously felt each other out. In the third, the pace was accelerated greatly & maintained for the rest of the fight. Brawling on the inside, they inadvertently clashed heads & Bass' right eyelid was severely lacerated. Chapman began trying to zero in on the damaged orb, but Benny used his considerable store of boxing skills too keep Chapman at bay & avoid further severe damage too the eyelid. By the seventh round, giving as good as he was getting, Benny opened a severe gash over one of Chapman's eyes.

The ninth round of the fight ranks as one of the great rounds in the annals of fistiana -- right up there with Dempsey-Willard (round 1), Dempsey-Firpo (round 1), Louis-Schmelling II (round 1), Hagler-Hearns (round-1) & Holyfield-Bowe I (round 10).

Both fighters exploded out of their respective corners at the bell. Colliding mid-ring, they both threw wild looping overhand rights that landed simultaneously. Both fighters fell to the canvass as if pole axed. Double knockdowns are rare events in boxing and the crowd & referee were stunned. The referee began the count and Benny shakily rose from the canvass on quivering legs at the count of two. The glassy eyed & very hurt Chapman managed to get to his feet at the count of nine. Both thoroughly dazed fighters, operating on pure fighting instinct, threw themselves at each other in a furiously sustained barrage of leather. At the end of the exchange Benny landed another hard right hand and Chapman went down. To the amazement of the 30,000 fans who had filled Shibes Park, Chapman somehow managed to regain his feet before the count of 10 and again the fighters threw themselves at each other in a hellaciously wild exchange that was maintained until the conclusion of the round.

By the mid-point of the 10th round both fighters were bloodied, grisly zombies, fighting on empty, with nothing but sheer will too maintain them. Ribalow describes the scene at the end of the fight: " Bass was in bad shape. His eye was badly bruised & his own blood was mixed with Chapman's blood. . . Chapman was completely covered with dried blood, which glistened where his perspiration met with blood. His teeth were out in a perpetual snarl & he moved with the deliberation of a sleepwalker. He threw punches he was unconscious of throwing & Bass ducked them with a casualness born of fatigue. Yet Bass seemed a bit more alert than Chapman & when the bell rang he seemed more human, more alive." Upon winning the well deserved decision Benny Bass became the featherweight champion of the world."

"On February 10th, he faced the immortal Tony Canzoneri in New York City for the undisputed world title. Even though he lost a 15 round decision along with his title, Bass covered himself with fistic glory in a display of courage & stamina seldom seen before or since in the squared circle. During the third round of the encounter Bass somehow got his collarbone broken in five places. This kind of injury is excruciatingly painful making even something as simple as clenching your fists & holding them up agonizing.

Benny somehow not only mustered the will too fight on for another 12 rounds; but from the 10th round on, he mounted a furious rally & almost pulled out of an extremely close 15 round split decision loss! Too accomplish this, against a fighter in his prime who was as great as Canzoneri, was a remarkable feat."

Another interesting but not much talked about fighter was Panama Al Brown, the nearly 6 feet tall bantamweight champion.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GXHhmXvZAg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TKstEsH7go