Where does Mike McCallum rank among the best MW?

Can't agree with this, mon ami Hagler didn't "duck" Graham. He disregarded him. Graham wasn't considered much of a threat to Marvin Hagler at that time and there was no major interest in a Hagler-Graham fight.

 

He didn't do much at middleweight. You could probably name at least 25 middleweights whose resumes far outstrip his.

I love McCallum, but I'm realistic about him.

 

He beat better middleweights than Monzon did IMO

 

Great post.

 

All of McCallum's fights until he moved up to 175 were at middleweight.Sure we can split it when we do strictly modern leaning divisional rankings for the junior divisions, but i think in an all-time discussion like this 154 fights ARE middleweight bouts.

154lbers are just campaigning as small middleweights, it's a pointless weightclass that should never have existed.

Of course given that the middleweight division was far more prestigious with a great champion during McCallum's prime, and Mcallum was clearly a natural middle cutting down, he should be heavily criticised for staying at 154 so long.

 

Graham didn't have the right people behind him-just his sheffield gym trainer Brendan Ingle- for the first half of the eighties.

He probably could have got the fight if he had been a Duff fighter and had the kind of push Mugabi got(with his totally undeserved high 160 ranking too)though being a stylist and not a knockout puncher would have made a harder sell.

Of course every worthy but not yet truly established or not big name contender was going to have to wait by then when Hagler got wind of the Leonard comeback and perceived easy money and furthe recognition to be had there.

Guys like Graham, Tate that were highly rated circa 86-87 were just victims of bad timing and Hagler feeling he had paid his dues and no longer had to keep taking fights like that.

 

True, though i wouldn't agree Watson was a better win.

McCallum vs Graham was two well-matched seasoned pro's going at it.

McCallum vs Watson was a still great fighter taking apart a pre-prime fighter that still had a lot of improving in his locker, and had a very bad preperation-injured and out one year beforehand-for the fight.

 

No.

 

True. But Watson was a lot bigger and younger, coming off his career best win and Mike defeated him much more decisively.

I wouldn't argue too much either way, though.

 

Its a shame McCallum never got the big fights with either Hagler, Hearns, Duran, Leonard, etc. Would have been interesting to see what he might have done against some of those guys.

 

It's a bit ironic that he's bitter at Hagler for not giving him a shot, when in fact he rather waited 3-4 years too long going up to MW. Not sure he'd gotten his shot even if he'd moved up earlier, but at least then he would have an actual reason to be bitter.

But looking at the top JMWs of his day, McCallum wasn't that big. Jackson and Mugabi were roughly his size and Hearns was naturally bigger, I'd say, despite starting at a lower weight. And when Mike finally moved up he was smaller than a lot of the top MWs of the time. Nunn, Watson, Eubank, Benn and McClellan were all naturally bigger men.

 

Yeah. I do think Kalambay and Toney (when he was on) were about as good as any of them at MW. Better than Duran at the weight, and quite possibly than Leonard and Hearns too.

But, still, those would have been great fights and would tell us quite a bit more about all those fighters.

 

I think so too. McCallum may or may not have been on their level but I can see where his defense, durability, power and body punching could have posed some problems.. Especially if he caught one or two of those guys when they were on the decline. A massively overlooked fighter by every standard.

 

I'd say McCallum was an average sized middle overall.Same as fighters like jackson, Kalambay, Hagler etc albeit a bit rangier than most.

Guys like Watson, Eubank, G-man were more your young Ezzard Charles at middle sort of size and going to be outgrowing the division after a few years.Benn i think was a typical natural middle though, he was undersized at 168.

Nunn was a huge freakishly built middle, though it's hard to say if he would actually have outgrown the division naturally as his dedication was so poor by 89 but he was still making weight and he was fat and out of shape looking when he did fight above 160.He's a bit of an outlier.

 

don't get me wrong it was a really good win, and satisfying in a different way as the ****py British boxing press had written McCallum off as old and on the slide.

But i'm probably in a minority in that i think Watson improved a fair bit after that fight(and again after the first Eubank fight).Where i like the fact the Graham fight was two experienced fighters at a similar place in their career.