Thoughts on Jose Ribalta

I missed it too back in '93.... I was working a swing-shift 3 to 11 p.m. and my pirate cable box was not tuned-in properly, so my tape came out scrambled... I was pissed....

MR.BILL:fire

 

"Bones Smith, Joe Ribalta, Tony Tubbs, Tyrell Biggs, Bert Cooper and a few others who I forget, but Tubbs won the 1993 tourny and 125k money......

MR.BILL

P.S.

Some bald-headed bloke from Britain who was a strongman in some circus or **** was suppose to compete, but I believe he pussed out at the last minute... I forgot his name...

 

yes I remeber him, he was a "king of the gypsies" bare knucle fighter who had never had the gloves on before. His name escapes me also but it was not frankham, gorman or fury. I remember reading he had suposedly won a load of gypsie fights and had a big spread in the news paper about how he was going to beat all these pretenders who wear gloves.. I recon he sold the story to the paper then pulled out.

 

They dissed Joe Savage on that one. He could have taken the whole lot in one night.

 

That's the dude I'm talkin' bout... He was a white guy with an odd look... I never heard about him again.......

MR.BILL:hat

 

Joe "****ing" Savage.... YES!

MR.BILL

 

Come to think of it, either have I! Ribalta is a big man. I saw him about 10 years ago at a fight. Its amazing he was down around 210 when he fought Tyson. I think hes like 6'6"

 

That was a real bad ko loss he had to Vitali though. I didn't think anyone could do that to Ribalta.

 

Ribalta was shot like a block of Swiss cheese by the time V.K. punched his lights out.... In fact, I never even saw them fight before, but Ribalta was shot by then...

MR.BILL:hat

 

I remember him winning on the Undercard of Tyson/Williams. But even then he kind of lost, as he looked pretty bad beating Jeff Sims, being floored twice, and thus DKP choosing Douglas over him, for the Tokyo 1990 Tyson date...

To be fair, I think the Sims fight was the beginning of the end for the big man, who never could quite find a way to win the fights that mattered, but always seemed to give it his all though the first half of his long career.

It would of been interesting if he had stayed in Cuba for amateur development...

But I guess that was impratical.

 

Ribalta, on his night was a tough assignment. Lost majority decisions to Bonecrusher, Marvis Frazier and 'Spoon. Lost a split to Dokes aswell. Started to go downhill in '91 after his loss to Bruce Seldon after flooring Seldon with his 1st punch....All in all, a good solid fringe contender who fought on long after his skills had declined. Still, the man was a warrior and his response to the ref after being dropped heavily by Tyson -

"ya wanna continue?"

"yeah, hell, yeah"

At that time a vast proportion of Tyson's opponents were beaten before the first bell. Jose was not one them. Tyson had to earn that win. Wish Jose my best....

 

your wish has been granted...enjoy!!

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF79w3ASXS4[/ame]

 

Again, the last fight I saw Ribalta in was his 1993 loss to Holmes on the USA Tuesday night fights....

I miss the USA Tues. night fights....

MR.BILL

 

yup. boxing on free (or relatively free) tv would help to sport revitalize...

 

Totally, because so many great fights were on USA, and Tuesday night was the perfect night. We saw everyone before they were anything. I watched them all. That dickhead that took over the network didnt like boxing, so he iced the series. It was a sad day when they announced it.