Lionel rose overrated

Overrated...!?

Seriously!?

Rose was champion in one of the deeper bantamweight eras in the division's history. The fighter he defeated to win the bantamweight championship, Fighting Harada, was a long reigning bantamweight champ who had defeated the consensus number one bantam in history to win the crown. Harada typically ranks pretty high on all time lists, and Rose beat him. In Japan. That, alone, should be an indicator of how good he was.

He defended the title three times against top quality contenders before he ran into an all time great in Olivares. Two of those defenses were in his opponent's backyard. You weren't beating the likes of Harada, Sakarai, Rudkin, and Castillo in succession unless you were very, very good...especially if you weren't gifted with a devastating punch.

If anything, the guy is underrated when discussing great bantamweights.

 

this. :deal

 

This. :deal

End of discussion.

 

Really surprised to read this on the Aussie forum, but good to see it's started an interesting debate. His win over Harada was in my opinion, the greatest victory by an Australian boxer, ever. To understand how great a win it was, you have to understand just how great Masahiko Harada was.

He stopped Pone Kingpetch (25-3 at the time) for the Flyweight world title. Kingpetch got his revenge in the return. He finished his career as a 3 time world champion. Harada eventually beat the legendary Eder Jofre for the Bantamweight world title in 1965. Jofre was 47-0-3 at the time. He made defenses against Alan Rudkin (23-1), Jofre again, Joe Medel (who had previously beaten him - Rose beat him too in a non-title bout), and Bernardo Caraballo (51-1-2 at the time).

He was an absolute wrecking ball at the time Rose faced him. Make no mistake, Harada was one of the greatest Asian fighters of all time. I ranked him 94 on my list that I posted in here a few years ago.

Rose beat Harada and then made his first defence against the 1964 Olympic Gold Medalist Takao Sakuri, again in Japan! He then faced Medel at Super Bantam in a non-title bout before defending against Chucho Castillo (34-7) and Alan Rudkin (36-4). He ended up losing his title to a living legend in Ruben Olivares. By this point Lionel pretty much couldn't force his body down to Bantamweight.

That stretch of 1967-1969, beginning with Gattellari, ranks up there with any level of opposition ever faced by an Australian boxer. You also need to consider that this was arguably the strongest time in the history of the Bantamweight division.

Often overlooked when speaking of Rose's career was him losing a razor thin decision in Japan at Super Featherweight for the WBC title! Yoshiaki Numata himself was a 2 time world champion and he beat Rose by 2 points on all cards over 15 rounds.

I think you can actually make a much stronger argument for Rose being underrated, than overrated.

 

Good point. :good The fight against Numata was when Rose was starting to fade, and two divisions above his best weight, but it was a damned good performance against another guy who tends to be a little underrated in a historical sense.

 

Even though Olivares beat him Lionel still beat Castillo who beat Olivares.
Overrated ???
Underrated if anything.

 

Some excellent posts there. Thought I was on the Classic forum for a minute.

 

One of the Great Bantamweights,end of story.!!!!

 

aussie icon ! blokes like mundine, green and geale would of been inspired by his achievments and will never come close to his heroics

 

Agree 100%

 

Geale has the opportunity to. He's already been to Germany twice and has defended his crown a couple of times on home soil. If he can bag himself wins against the likes of Martinez etc, he'll be right up there.

 

Geale will, he's already done far more than most imagined.

 

One of the best and most knowledgeable posts ever on the Aussie Forum

:good

 

Cheers, I'll slip you that $20 by PayPal

 

I don't think he is underrated by the majority of Australians

World wide he is probably underrated i'm guessing.