I rate Napoles 3rd behind Robninson and Leonard. There could be a good case for making him #2. He was better than Griffith I'd say.
Yeah, you know, I mean beside his cut-problems, he was so complete, on his best even legends like, let´s say SRR would have a hard time against him... agreed, Griffith could been terrific at one fight, but the other fight he was just good, he was too inconsistent...
I've seen the fight. Leonard didn't make Duran quit. Thst's ridiculous. Who the **** is Shep Peasants? That sounds like a totally made up name. Are you being a jerk again?
What people forget (or don't realise) is that the fight trade regarded Napoles as the best pound-for-pound fighter in boxinf. Certainly Boxing News had him 1st from 1969-1974. That's some going in an era that featured Ali, Monzon and Duran. The Griffith performance is most impressive, in terms of the margin of victory. NO ONE beats Griffith that comfortably.
Why does it matter what Steward thought about the stoppage? The guy you are arguing with saw the fight and, like many other people, concludes that is was a bull**** stoppage. He's right and Steward is wrong. If Steward thought the fight should have been stopped, then why didn't he stop it? If a good trainer thinks his man is out of it, he stops the fight. Steward didn't. It is only after the stoppage that he says it was a good stoppage. The fight was horribly refereed. The referee couldn't even decide what constituted a knockdown.
Duran still quit and that's that. ps. Shep Peasants was the man that cooked Duran's steak that afternoon...I think he spiked it myself. Roberto then washed it down with a few slugs of this: This content is protected
I'm not arguing I'm just p[uzzled why people who can't face the fact that Tommy was out on his feet, that's what happened. If he was so fine he should have punched back instead of looking like a big soft lemon.
I honestly don't think leonard was as complet offensively as he is made out to be. People always seem to want to mention how leonard could brawl as well as box. I dont see how this is true as I saw leonard try to brawl once against duran and get beaten pretty clearly. Many say leonard fought duran's fight and this is true, but i believe that if someone like robinson fought duran, a lightweight, he would beat him wether he decided to box or brawl. Furthermore, the fight where leonard needed to brawl the most to win, against hearns, he was extemely reluctant to. He was able to hurt hearns in the sixth and still couldnt put him away. Even worse, for three rounds he was able to pressure and punch hearns to take the rounds then he just seemed to stop again and continued to be outboxed by hearns until the twelfth where the weight drained hearns's stamina gave out. As good as leonard is, i think his ability to brawl is highly overrated and this brings down his completeness in my book.
Randy Shields, who'd fought both fighters and beat Leonard as an amateur, wrote a preview for KO in 1981. Despite Leonard looking pretty poor against him he predicted a Leonard TKO..."late in the fact because Tommy's stamina is suspect". He also suggested Leonard should stay on the outside and circle before making a late surge. Seems he was spot on. :good
Yeah, he was very good, but in the USA he´s pretty unknown/ underrated. He fought in his 10th pro-fight the former world-champion, the very good Joe Brown, beat good fighters like Hansen, Roque, Henrique, Adigue, etc., he drew later in his career when he was shot against the LMW Mattioli, where I heard that Arcari should have won slightly. His only defeats were 2 cut- stoppages early in his career against a journeyman and Consolati (Arcari beat Consolati a few months later for the Italian Light Welterweight Title). He had an iron-chin, very good one-punch- power, big heart, good stamina, and he was a terrific body- puncher. The main problem was, that he almost only fought in Italy, it would have been great if he had fought Locche in Argentina or so, but their managment couldn´t organize a fight (Locche didn´t want to come to Italy, and Arcari later said that the money he would have become was ridiculous), a fight between these 2 would have told us more about them...
I know that, I don´t contest that. But the same is with Argentina, look, just for example, Ortiz and Laguna were both robbed against Nicolino, Locche had 15 D´s ca, he was very protected...
Yes of course. Thats' why fights like that don't come off. In a close one (which it would be) the home guy gets the nod. But, although the two fights you alluded to, are supposedly controversial, a draw in the other guy's country doesn't mean you've automatically won. Argentina was rife with drwan verdicts throughout the sixties. Tito Lectoure, like Don King later, enjoyed an even verdict on his shows.