Great Fights From the Old ESPN Days?????

"Duran-Laing" of '82
"Mayweather-Pendleton" of 1985?
"Curry-Hwang" of 1983
"Toney-McCallum 3"

I'm sorry, but ESPN has STUNK like **** for so long its hard to think of anything truly great from that network....

MR.BILL

 

That Caveman Lee/John LoCiero joint.

 

Probably the best of them, especially the 5th round.

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

 

The only fights I wanna see from ESPN is:

Jack Dempsey vs. Billy Miske and
Jack Dempsey- Fred Fulton

Also if they had any footage of the PRIME sugar ray robinson, that would be gold.


After that, only Greb-Tunney 1 remains but I dont think thats likely to be seen from ESPN archives :|

After watching those fights, I dont really have any other fights that I want to watch desperately.

 

Kevin the tiger Pompey was a promising looking fighter back in the day, and his bout with Tyrone Trice was certainly memorable... Pompey lost this match of course, but had some very good regular performances on ESPN. Harold Brazier was a solid veteran and a personal favorite of mine who could commonly be seen on ESPN..... He never won a world title, but held multiple regional belts, fought in over 100 fights and mixed it up with both the best and worst of them... I even remember seeing some Mike Tyson's early showings there, and perhaps one of George Foreman's comeback fights against Rocky seckorski, I believe... Ray Mercer, Michael Nunn, Mike Tyson and other notables began their careers with Al Bernstein and Barry Thompkins looking on..... Livingstone Bramble and Roger Mayweather spent a fair amount of time there too.....

 

Back when ESPN boxing was GOOD.


Roger Mayweather vs Zach Padilla-those 2 went at it.
Tommy Cordova vs Rocky Garcia
Jesse James Hughes vs Anthony Stephens
Harold Brazier vs Kevin Pompey 1 and 2
Zach Padilla vs Ray Olivera-each threw over a thousand punches
Todd Foster vs Jeff Mayweather
Ricky Meyers vs Ray Oilvera
Roger Mayweather vs Carl Griffith-Roger dominates first 3/4 rounds before getting rocked and forced to survive.
ALL of Harold Knights bouts on ESPN.Knight was a walk in puncher that wasn't concerned with defense.
Roger Mayweather vs Livingstone Bramble-Mayweather beat the hell out of Bramble and stops him.
Matthew Hilton vs Paul Whitaker-Hilton puts on a power punching display-Whitaker couldn't keep Hilton off.

And the cool thing is I have all these bouts!

 

How about Kenny "Bang Bang" Bogner vs Kato Wilson?

 

Man, I just watched that one again over the weekend. It has always been one of my all time favorite fights. Top 5.

Classic, classic fight. One-sided...but that's what makes it so great. The other guy who was getting brutalized was so inspiring.

And by the way, folks, this fight is legendary for what happens after the fight. No spoilers, I ain't giving any of the fight away. What happened after the fighters left the ring was that the CEO of Top Rank Boxing actually announced that he was giving each fighter a 500 dollar bonus for their display of guts and grit. That's how good this fight was. So good the promoter gave them more cash! Promoters hold back or steal money from fighters...Bogner and Wilson were such warriors the promoter gave them each 500 bucks more!

 

We first got ESPN in June 1985. I can't really remember any great fights in the first few months. I do remember several tournaments to crown ESPN Champions in various divisions.

I remember Bert Cooper breaking out in late 85 and then getting stopped by Reggie Gross in an excituing scrap in early 86.

Harold Brazier beat Charlie White Lightning Brown and Joey Ruiz. He became an ESPN favorite and returned many times. His two wars with Kevin Pompey in the early 90a were memorable.

In 86 you had the emergence of Freddie Pendleton and he kod Roger Mayweather in an upset.

Then there was the high quality draw between Pendledon and Frankie Randall in summer 86. That match-up was network TV quality.

I know there was an action packed series of fights in the featherweight division in 84 on ESPN. I read about it in KO. I believe those involved were Dana Roston, Steve Cruz, Tommy Cordova and Lenny Valdez. Valdez upset Cruz.

Top Rank had a monopoly with regards to ESPN and they pitted a lot of their prospects against each other and the cream rose to the top. For instance, Cruz had the set back but came out a better fighter in the long run and eventually beat McGuigan for the WBA title. And fans were able to get to know a slew of young fighters through ESPN.

 

Great post, but Tompkins didn't join ESPN until the early 90s. He was the HBO play by play guy until Jim Lampley got that gig after being at ABC.

Sal Marciano was paired with Bernstein in the early years of Top Rank Boxing. By 85, he was gone. Dave Bontempo, Don Chevaier and a few others were on until Tompkins joined on. Bontempo was really knowledgeable so when he was on, Bernstein was in he play by play role.

 

I loved the real club fight atmosphere they had in the good ole days.

Like mentioned above, when two fighters got $500 bonuses and it was a big deal.

My favorite venue was Ice World, a skating rink in Totowa, N.J. That’s where Bobby Czyz made his rise to a level of stardom. He wasn’t particularly my favorite guys, but his fights at that stage in his home arena had the feel of a high school football crowd rooting for their teams.

I remember his fight against Tommy Merola, two unbeaten prospects — Czyz like 7-0 and Merola 9-0 I think. Bobby won by early KO but it had the feel of two young guns willing to put it on the line.

Those were the days.

We need a similar thread on the Tuesday Night Fights on USA Network with Sean O’Grady on color commentary. Make a lot of stars and also showcased aging stars like Duran and Holmes and Big George. Oba Carr was kind of their home-grown ‘house champion’ from his earliest days.

 

Harold Knights last fight. (On Wide World of Sports, first cousin of ESPN)
Note:Harold Knight would never fight again after his lost title attempt against Lockridge. He failed a brain scan and retired. We would never get to see how far the talented Harold Knight could have gone.

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R.I.P. MRBILL, for those who might not have known...…..saw a post of his in this old thread.

 

Sad news. I hadn't seen him post in quite awhile but didn't know of his demise.