Not much padding in his record. He really tore through B and C level opposition. David Bey, Mike Jameson, David Jaco, James Broad, an old James Tillis, Lee Roy Murphy, Tim Tomashek. He also registered some extremely good and or dangerous fighters. Knocked out the ultra hard hitting Bennie Knoetze in one, who has a good claim to being the hardest hitting South African of all time. Avenged a loss against Weaver by nearly killing him in two rounds, despite being cut in the first. Is to my knowledge the only fighter to ever spark out Everett Martin, something everyone from Wladmir Klitschko failed to do (twice) George Foreman, Bert Cooper, Herbie Hide, Pierre Coetzer, Riddick Bowe... Man certainly could bang, which seems to be a near constant among South African heavies. He did all this supposedly barely training and partying his career away. Thoughts?
DuPlooy could really bang...he was a dangerous puncher. But aside from that, I don't think DuPlooy had the natural ability or skill to make the big time. Even though he had fairly fast hands, he tended to telegraph his punches. He threw many wild hooks and roundhouse punches. DuPlooy's style seemed to be built only around getting in the big punches. I doubt that DuPlooy really knew how to box. Here's a film of DuPlooy at his best, beating an very shopworn Mike Weaver in their rematch. [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhhqbDjQhXE[/ame]
He won 196 out of 200 amateur fights. He knew how to do something. From what I have gleaned, though, he learned how to party on at a world class level after turning pro. I got on his Facebook site today. He looks pretty used up for a guy who is only 45.
Many if not most of those amateur victories may have been the equivalent of American novice or subnovice fights. Also, it's possible that he fought the same amateur opponents repeatedly. I'm basing my guess on what I've read about South African amateur boxing in the past. Didn't Coetzee and Knoetze fight about 15 times as amateurs?
He won the Trasvaal Toughest Boer Competition 4 years running, twice over James Ryan himself! Don't tell me about subnovice.