Curious about this guy. Fought from 1978 to 2004, consistently at that. Talk about longetivity. I don't know much about him beyond that. Anyone?
I looked at his record and thought WOW how the **** have I never heard of this guy??? This guy is going to be one of those legendary road warrior P4P old timers :rofl And then I scrolled down. And it appears a lot of his recent opponents have been a litle, ahem, 'underdeveloped'. I.e novices, or one-timers. He has a few good looking wins on there though.http://www.boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_id=18299&cat=boxer
A total enigma, he was primed in the mid/late 80s, but was far to inconsistent. It might not look much, but victories over Anthony Davis, Young Joe Louis, Dee Collier and Patrick Lumumba were enough to make a solid top 10 Cruiser of the era. I fought he quit after Rocchigiani, (looking for German porn, I found some boxing:yep) where I think he looked at least 40 going in. I see he fought Tony Booth in 2004!:nut
I suspect a lot of those fighters were not novices but African Journeymen fighting under allies' but with many a fight (and defeat) on their proper record.
For all his faults, he wasn't a very bad boxer and always seemed to re-emerge from Nigeria at the most unexpected moments. As for his opponents: not only did many have unrecorded fights, I heard that some of the names on his record were in fact the same boxers, getting multiple shots under new names! That might be an urban myth, but given that Nigeria is a country of over 100 million people with terrible sanctioning and controls, it wouldn't surprise me.
At his best he could compete and indeed beat all but say DeLeon, Holyfield and Qawi. Alright Lopez was way past it, but people were talking about Louis and Davis. Eight months prior to beating Lumumba, the talk was Patrick maybe the best of a fairly poor crop, post Holyfield at 190. Losing to Tillman in a round does not look good, but dropping a decision to an Italian prospect in Italy, needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. A win over Jesse Burnett too, was a solid name for an 80s cruiser. Ali was never going to set the boxing world on fire, but he was a decade long contender in the weakest division in boxing at the time. Which is meant as a (backhanded) compliment! Perhaps the word is not enigma, but flaky....