ATGs who don't look impressive on film.

Bivins doesn't impress much on film, though admittedly, what we have isn't exactly prime footage.


I think Tunney looks better than Leonard.

 

Seamen plays synth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVmmYMwFj1I

 

Monzon as a fighter I enjoy immensely. I'm going to employ a long-winded metaphor here. You have been warned.

There is a concept called "variance", it comes up in professional poker a lot and I'd guess the stock market. It basically means standard deviation to the norm.

Monzon's aim and reason for his success was to be winning when everything was regular. When there is no deviation, Monzon is winning rounds, expending less energy, and doing damage where he can while playing for keeps. He is slowing the pace, containing his opponent, employing a GTO strategy. If nothing dramatic happens, if his opponent does not have an inspired round or a batch of good luck, Monzon will be winning.

GTO means Game Theory Optimal. That means whoever the opponent is, even if you don't know anything about him, he cannot beat you. If they play perfectly as well, they can draw. You are not ad******g your game to your opponent so much as you are competing in a way that makes you difficult to exploit.

Competing perfectly is a pipe-dream of course, but you get the gist.

Competing exploitatively instead can yield higher results -- you can target your opponents weaknesses aggressively and maximize expected value. If you must get a 1st round knockout for some reason, this would be the way to go. You will invariably leave openings, since your focus is on exploiting the opponent instead of being impossible to exploit.

The aim in boxing is not to maximize EV though, as results are (ignoring draws) binary. It doesn't do to win twice by 1st round knockout and then lose one in the same fashion. You must win consistently by a margin so it is obvious to the judges, while keeping energy levels high and damage received low in relation to the opponent, within a set number of rounds.

As the opponent falls behind, he will up the variance in order to change the status quo. Against an opponent successfully employing a GTO-approach, this just means more holes. In the event an opponent gambles and succeeds (these are talented men after all) you can ride out the storm and resume. All things equal, you will be winning again, and the odds are against them (though not impossible) of producing a round that deviates from the norm that drastically anyway, since you are competing in a way to prevent just that.

Taking all this in, Monzon is undoubtedly one of the greates ring generals of all-time. To do all this, with relatively mediocre handspeed, at the highest level for such a long time, never needing anything like a comeback K.O, he possesses mental fortitude beyond even most legendary champions.

 

Nyung Woo Yuh and Ayub Kalule

Light punching hipster filth.

 

All-time great observation. Nailed it for all of us I think, when we couldn't quite understand it past the simple term 'ring generalship.'

 

I forgot about Eubank, he could look terrible at times.

 

True, Monzon often isn't exciting on film, but on the other hand, that's what C-O-N-T-R-O-L looks like.

 

Strange how much of a temper he had outside of the ring and how mind numbingly methodical he was in the ring.

 

You have to understand the subtleties of boxing to understand Monzon.

 

:-(

Maybe but you also have to understand the limitations of his opposition.

Red, your answer reminds me of how some jazz snobs react when someone trashes their music. Have you ever seen that episode of the Simpson's where the daughter is at a jazz concert and a guy next to her is complaining "Sounds like she's hitting a baby with a cat." She answers "You have to listen to the notes she's not playing." The guy next to her answer's "I can do that at home."

That pretty much sums up how I feel about Monzon.

 

To each his own. I see what you mean...him fighting nonentities like Benvenuti, Griffith, Napoles, Briscoe and Valdez.

 

Those jazz musicians didn't have his results, though. A career spanning fourteen years, eighty-seven (!) wins, three losses, all losses occuring in his first two years as a professional. Fourteen defenses of the middleweight title, defeating perhaps his greatest challenger and defeating him in a subsequent rematch for his last fights.

If you watch a man with such a track record and don't see anything impressive -- call me elitist, but I'd say you aren't looking hard enough.

 

Benvenuti, Valdez, Briscoe and Griffith, in the condition they were when Monzon faced them, were all extremely good middleweights. If Hearns was an A for Hagler, and Obelmejias was a C, these four were at least a B+ each. Against them Monzon went 6-0-1. The rest he fought were pretty fair, and also his bitches.

 

If you don't have the ears to hear it, don't blame us.

 

Napoles? An over the hill welterweight who was already a blown up lightweight? Great MIDDLEWEIGHT defense there.

Griffith was well past his best, particularly in their second fight when he came darn close to outpointing Monzon.

Benvenuti was finished. I guess Doyle Baird, Tom Bethea, and that mummy that was posing as Dick Tiger were legends for beating Benvenuti as well.

Briscoe also managed to lose to Luis Vinales six months before he faced Monzon. He wasnt unbeatable.

Valdez was head and shoulders the best Monzon ever faced but nobody seems to remember that Valdez chased Monzon for something like four years, forced Monzon to have one of his titles stripped because Monzon refused to meet him and never adequately explained why, and then only got a fight with Monzon amid speculation that he would never fight again or be the same fighter after his car accident.

In that accident his hand was so badly mangled they thought it would have to be amputated. It was never the same and something tells me having a mangled hand in boxing is sort of like trying to play golf with a bent club. Thats just me.

I admit that Monzon would have been difficult for anyone. His style was very awkward. His defense is as underrated as his offense is overrated, and he was huge to boot. BUT, and its a big but, he ruled over a very weak division.