Sumbu Kalambay - Underrated?

He's massively underrated, one of the greatest of all pure boxers at middleweight and above IMO. Wonderful technician, superior to Nunn in that respect even if he did get blown out flukily. He also schooled Barkley and DeWitt, was on the end of a pretty harsh decison against Kalule and arguably won the rematch against McCallum even while on the slide. On the downside, he could be too defensive and self-aware of his own slickness at times. Still, his lateral movement, punching technique, ability to feint and pick holes, radar and ring generalship were superb. I always thought he would have beaten Benn, Eubank, Watson, Toney and Hopkins.

Sweet Pea might weigh in on this one; he's probably the best poster I've read on here concerning Kalambay.

 

For sure. He was truly "slick" and one of the best counter punchers I've seen. Unfortunately he is mostly known for the first round KO loss to Nunn.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftAtnL9Og6U[/ame]


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[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XLEFHaBqDI[/ame]

 

Forgot you had all the good footage of him GreatA; I expect you're quite well versed on him? Like you said, the loss to Nunn wrongly tarnishes many people's opinions of him.

 

Very classy and smooth boxer/technician with quick hands and feet.

I don't think he ever fully regained his form after being KO'd by Nunn, but he still gave McCallum a very close, hard fight in their rematch and also whupped an up-and-coming Steve Collins.

 

His record isn't at all bad when you look at it:

McCallum (arguably twice)
Graham x2
Collins
Barkley
DeWitt
Simms

DeMarco and Dell'Aquilla were undefeated at the time he beat them too. Throw in that he could/should have beaten Kalule and that's not a bad record.

 

His schooling of McCallum the first time would have to be one of the best wins of that era, in terms of both performance and legacy.

He would have to be one of the most underrated boxers of the last 30 years...Very classy boxer and one of the best technicians you will see above welter.

 

Superb,slick fighter. One of the best Middleweights I've seen. That knockout to Nunn was a massive shock.

 

He's underrated in comparison to some of his contemporaries - for example, McCallum who he schooled.

Kalambay scored a massive upset against Herol Graham then built on that, decisioning Barkley for one of the three vacated belts, and established himself as the most worthy of the three new "champions", as highly-touted Americans such as Olajide and Tate fell by the wayside, and Hearns lost to the same Barkley Kalambay had beat. Win over McCallum was excellent.

He lost the big unification fight though, and all credit to Michael Nunn for that.

I think Kalambay is underrated, but I think it's also a case of some of his contemporaries being a bit overrated.

 

That's a good last point Unforgiven, maybe not so quite much for Nunn, but definitely as far as McCallum and Toney go.Both fighters with very visible reputations and loads of fans...in Mike's case barely any real detractors either.I suppose it's a bit like Valdez going overlooked for so compared to slightly earlier middles like Benvenuti and Griffith.

Just a few observations....

The fight with Kalule is one of the best middleweight bouts of the '80s.Well worth tracking down and a great fight to score.Kalambay actually fights a lot of it in more of a traditional boxing style, almost like a Johnny Famechon\Buchanan hybrid at times, which wasn't easy in the very small, poor quality rings they were often using in Italy at the time.I wonder if not getting the decision there, prompted the change in style to the defensive specialist\counterpuncher that shows up from the graham fight and on.

The collins fight is my favourite performance.After looking badly faded in his previous few fights, he managed to regain some sharpness defensively and at times totaly befuddled Collins, even rocking him with bodyshots and uppercuts a few times.I only gave Collins 3 rounds, despite having thrown about four times as many punches.

 

Kalambay sounds like my kinda fighter better check him out

 

I think a fair case can be made for him being underrated. He had a better career than several men I think of who's name are more commonly mentioned.

 

Also throw in Jose Quiones and Buster Drayton at the start of their careers and I'd certainly rank him p4p over a Calzaghe any day. (and I'm a fairly big Calzaghe fan)

 

and you forgot barkley , and the loss to kalule which i don't know how justified it was b/c kalule was down twice and kalambay only once.
and yes - he was a top 10 mw of the 80's.
hagler , leonard , duran , jackson , barkley , kalambay , and some that don't jump to my mind at this moment which may exclude barkley from the list.

 

would u give him a shot at a prime hagler
and do u really think he'd beat prime toney at 160