Most underrated fighters of all time?

I agree. Rodriguez is often miles behind Griffith and Napoles on ATG lists, but in reality there is no justification for a significant gap.

 

I do, and so do his peers in boxing. Sweet Saoul was actually hired on by Holmes to train Larry late in his second career. 85 fights past the age of 60, and stopped once at age 46 by Derrell Coley (ironically nicknamed, "Too Sweet," who was barely a year old when Mamby began his professional career). It was Mamby, not Cervantes or Duran, who finally finished off DeJesus. There was little he didn't do by the book. He was already in his early to mid 30s when he reeled off six WBC LWW Title wins, and he should have won that title three years earlier against Muangsurin (who got a hometown SD in a robbery so flagrant that even Muangsurin's Thai fans found it disturbing). A real road warrior.

Mamby-DeJesus belongs on youtube.

 

Dejesus was shot by the time he fought Mamby imo.Should have retired after the beating he took from Duran in their rubbermatch.

 

Granted, he was an ancient 28, but he had managed to put together a decent win streak after Duran III. Regardless, it was a superb inaugural defense performance by Mamby, who would follow it up with two fine championship distance wins over young veterans Watkins and Kimpuani.

 

The men who didnt get their shots or the fringe guys who gave greats. Traditionally this has been Burley/McCallum/Langford types but they both get plenty of respect here.

Quartey - beat ODLH for me despite innactivity, frozen out largely but looked great in his prime and still performed well past prime against Forrest and Winky. I don't many would give him a shot against a top 10 WW, but maybe they should...

Joan Guzman - frozen out and ducked by the big names from 122-130, great ability

Elmer Ray - with his massive winning run including wins over Charles and Walcott.

Georgie Adams - wins over many a contender, a draw with Burley, SD loss against Robinson

Ken Overlin

Bungu - beat Mkkinney twice to be a long time 122lb champ

 

Thanks JT and Teeto for all the Chandler/Pintor discussion. I agree that it's razor close between these two. These guys are two of my all-time favorites. I lean slightly toward Chandler. He was a good boxer and had that large wingspan for a bantam. I could definitely see Pintor breaking him down on the inside and getting to him late. However, I do think Chandler was pretty good at tying up on the inside and not a pushover with the rough stuff on the inside. Complete guess though. I have no problems with someone picking Pintor. Talk about underrated, how about Eijiro Murata. He drew with both Pintor and Chandler (although he also lost 2 to chandler). Very good fighter.
Pintor/Chandler, Sanchez/Pedroza, Saad-Mustafa, to name a few were never made due to WBA-WBC and King-Arum politics.

 

The most under-rated fighter of all time, pound for pound, is Jeff Clark.

This guy was the Sam Langford of the middleweight division in Sam Langfords era, and nobody has even heard of him.

Runner up is Dave Holly, who is also a pound for pound great who nobody has heard of.

 

Yes Chad Dawson is underrated and wrongfully so...he's a class act and clearly the best lightheavy in the world. He would whip Bernard Hopkins much like Ezzard Charles did Joe Louis, IMO.

 

Ken Buchanan

 

I don't know, he just never did it for me. Not saying he wasn't a fine fighter, but he was very awkward and unsatisfying to watch, and never really proved himself to be much better than he looked, in my opinion. Had some good wins, but a lot more bad losses. Better than his record suggests to be sure, but still nowhere near an elite fighter for mine.

 

For sure mate, a crying shame. Both unifications would have been real breakers for the winners, especially the Bantams or Pedroza. Those three don't have wins as big as Sal's (Gomez, Lopez) and could have done with the boost.

 

Cheers mate. Murata was a fine fighter indeed quite unfortunate to be around with these two. Albert Davila was similar. You're right to mention King and Arum as they often represented the different sides of the WBC/WBA fence.

 

"Toothpick" Joe Brown
Sugar Ramos (feather champ)
Bobby Dykes
Davey Moore (feather champ)
Georgie Benton
Tippy Larkin
Aliie Stolz
Artie Levine
Jimmy McLarnan

 

I'll vouch for that. One of the most underrated of all time as a fighter, yet more reknowned as a trainer. You could certainly see the makings of a great trainer when you watched him fight. About as technically sound and poised a fighter as I've ever seen at Middleweight. Odd he didn't go on to more, perhaps due to the supposed mob connections that had his hands tied in many a bout, notably against Hurricane Carter.