Also - Ketchel hardly trained in wrestling specifically at all. He was huge - huge - on sparring, which may have meant some practical wrestling, but he did very little or no wrestling specific training like peers such as Hugo Kelly for example.
Taylor has my respect and admiration for beating Hopkins twice, but that's where it ends...as you can deduce from Jermain's bouts with Pavlik, Froch and Arthur, who combined aren't as good as Ketchel, Stanley would have worn down and savaged Taylor by a brutal ko in about 5 or 6 rounds.
Ketchel in a brutal fashion....In fact I like Jermain too much to have him fight Stanley...Taylor is truly a nice guy...Stanley was not
I don't know about that. Stanislaw was certianly unstable at times but from alot of the stories iv read he seemed to immediatly show remorse after his temper got the best of him. Let's also make note of the era's they're from, much different times, society, and lives.
ketchel even under modern rules would rough taylor up a lot and probably have points deducted but would still win by KO, just to strong and to much pressure for taylor to cope with
Taylor can ofcourse get knocked out and outworked but Ketchel hasn't faced anyone of the speed and jab of Taylor either, plus Taylor is a much bigger man, I think he may have gone backwards after he won the title because he looked so good against Joppy and Hopkins and then looked terrible after The Winky fight was a draw, it could have gone either way, Spinks beat him though. Still Taylor taking on pretty much anyone, he arguably won the Pavlik rematch, was close to ko'ing him first time, was seconds away from beating Froch and imo would have beaten Abraham if he wasn't coming off a KO loss and demoralised. Taylor's schedule, lack of conditioning and lack of love for the sport hurt him (he wasn't a fan at all). But he was a good guy who supported his family (brothers/sisters) with his career
yeah, wasn't he considered lineal at 154? He was certainly known as the top man in the division whilst he was a titlist, I know that.
When he beat Judah, I remember thinking wtf when Judah got a rematch, I know he almost stopped Spinks in the last round but it was all good, Spinks won, no rematch necessary. Then Judah won the rematch and I thought ok, defo a rubber match then, Judah got another chance so Spinks should. But it never happened. Not to say Judah ducked it though, because you never know what goes on with shitty boxing politics. Pissed me off though.
I think Judah did take the rematch for less than a 100k though while Spinks was on 2million or something like that and remember Judah has to pay trainers/expenses out of that. Spinks probably could have got a rubber if he wanted but I think he was pretty tight at 147 anyway, Spinks seemed to be a pretty well supported guy after his early days of being screwed over on the road. Meanwhile Judah screws up the mega money against Mayweather holding out for more, takes on Baldomir as a time passing fight, doesnt train and pisses his big money up against the wall. Mayweather also used Spinks as a pawn to leverage a deal against Baldomir in 2006, that would have been a fascinating fight if we had FMJ-Spinks or FMJ-Mosley in 06, especially Spinks, some serious trash talk going on between them too