Napoles vs Gavilan

Maybe. I agree with Great A on this one in the sense that sporadic infighting might suit Napoles more than prolonged infighting, as well as the Gil Turner example. Gavilan was excellent up close, almost as good as he was at range despite his being open at times. Basilio was able to take advantage on account of being one the greatest of all infighters, something that was never Napoles' strong suit although he wasn't exactly incompetent up close. I'd have thought that fighting at long and mid-range would've more suited to Jose's fluidity in that it would've given him the chance to slip and counter with hooks and combo's rather than if Gavilan sat on him and didn't give him the room to get off on a frequent basis. As well as using his strength to tire him up close.

But I'll not argue too much with what you said. And like you said, it's close....

 

You'll do for me mate

 

Jose Napoles at his welterweigh peak ('69-'73) would be superior to Gavilan..but he wouldn't stop the "KEED"...Napoles W15 Gavilan.

 

Lets narrow this abit more,,,,your going to bet 10 grand on a winner here.

 

I'd bet on a different fight.

 

A great boxing match that I see Napoles taking by easy UD. He would land the harder, more telling shots.

 

I cant see him doing it easy...I cant see anyone doing it easy against Gavilan.

 

Yes.

 

OK, not easy...close, but clear.

 

I love this match up, me and Flea Man have discussed it afew times.

Both guys are going to get in centre ring probing for openings, I like Napoles here as he keeps his jab out more consistently and get in with those booming counters. Gavilan will start to rush inside and make force Napoles to exchange but Napoles aint going to fair too well here (and in all honesty probably gets cut). Obviously, Gavilan aint going to be able to keep this a war all the time, due to Napoles's hard counters and boxing skills but he has to get the hard exchanges going to win.

With both guys having their sucesses, I see the bout being declared a Draw.

 

The thing that Napoles does on the inside though is to throw uppercuts. With both hands even. And he did not telegraph. Those beautiful short uppercuts on the inside and then brought those hands back and covered up.

I'm not sure in this bout if it'd happen, but lots of times a guy that loves infighting gets uppercutted to death by the 2 handed uppercut guy on the inside. That's the one big factor that keeps Jose from succumbing to that Gavilan infighting like so many others.

So very few guys have the skill to do it and usually only throw a right uppercut they telegraph anyway. An example of what I'm talking about would be the Bramble/Mancini fight. The things Bramble had going for him in a close proximi9ty fight was those uppercuts and a strudy chin. But that was exactly the perfect ammunition against a Mancini.

I just think Napoles having that rare skillset on the inside not only keeps him in the fight, but makes him effective in there. Similar to say a matchup with a Pryor. Those uppercuts on the inside change a lot of things. But just how many guys have that set of tools to resort to?

 

I agree with most of that zadfrak, though both Napoles and Gavilan tended to "bolo" their upper-cuts which was, in a sense, telegraphing. Napoles could get away with it better because of his speed and because the punch was otherwise quite compact and accurate.

If you want to see a guy disguise the right uppercut cleverly, B-Hop is your man.

 

It's true that Napoles was a very good exponent of the uppercut on the inside, or any range for that matter. Enough to land on Gavilan and gain his respect. Then again, hitting Gavilan up close and gaining his respect isn't quite the same thing as hitting Gavilan up close and winning the exchanges enough to discourage him or completely nullify his effectiveness. Gavilan's own uppercut was a fine shot in it's own right, less compact than Napoles' but more unorthodox. Napoles is one of my favourite ever fighters - perhaps more so than Gavilan - but his defence, like Gavilan's, wasn't exactly watertight; something that Backus showed. If Gavilan could weather the short-range hooks and uppercuts of Robinson then he might well be able to handle those of Napoles while still managing to dish out his own. And if either of the two were to suffer from facial damage - a distinct possibility in a close quarters exchange - we know who it would be likely to be.

I wanted to put a more compelling reply than this, but I'm going to sort of bow out. I'll only be repeating myself and wasting your time. Your argument was a fair one.

 

Gavilan is the faster man IMO, and this bodes well in the exchanges as Gavilan was also a stinging puncher and a general while trading.

 

I think Mantequilla was clearly past it vs. Backus.