A Shortlist of Must See Classic Fighters and Fights for Boxing Collectors

This thread is dedicated to folks like myself who are beggining a modest boxing collection, or for the casual fan who wants to educate himself by ordering some footage but does not know where to begin. Maybe Admin can sticky this, provided it produces useful results.

The way I would like to start is by making a catalogue of boxers and 2-3 of their best fights. Those who have particular interests in a boxer could contribute per that that interest, and the same goes for posters who have interests in particular weight classes (i.e. Sweet_Scientest with the lower classes), time periods, or regions.

Feel free to also add different categories, such as 'Best Clinics', 'Greatest Wars', 'Greatest from Feather weight', etc. Use your creativity or just let your interests guide you.

I will place your user name next to your recomendations to provide other posters with some information as to where these recommendations are coming from. Also, I will include your notes as to a particular feature of interest in the footage or why you chose it.

Thanks everyone for contributing if you find the time, and for making this a good point of embarcation for posters interested in getting footage for any reason.

 

Azuma Nelson
Fenech (rec by SS fan)
Gomez
Villasana (rec by SS fan)

Kid Gavilan
Eugene Hairston (rec by acb-- see '51 Gavilan in 1st year of title reign, sharp, superior defense)
Buker (rec by acb-- earliest known footage of Gavilan, in Havana)

Ismael Laguna
Buchanan (rec by SSfan)
Mando Ramos (rec by SS fan)
Ortiz (rec by Nobidius-- see Laguna's use of the jab)

Jose Napoles
Cokes (rec by SS fan)
Lopez I, II (rec by SS fan)
Griffith

Roberto Duran
Lampkin
Dejesus II, III (rec by SS fan, 2nd for excitement, 3rd for polished skills)

Willie Pep
Cadilli (rec by acb--quality of video is high)

 

Here's a few and I might add some later on as well:

Barney Ross
vs. Jimmy McLarnin III - 33 Minutes is available of this great, high speed chess match and its in immaculate condition.

vs. Tony Canzoneri II - ditto here, 33 minutes of awesome footage showing two great contrasts in style.

vs. Billy Petrolle - 22 minutes of great footage, with Ross putting on a clinic on a very capable fighter.

Tony Canzoneri
vs. Jackie Kid Berg II - Canzoneri showing who's boss in this brutal slugfest, which can be seen complete.

vs. Lou Ambers I - Canzoneri imposes himself on the strong, hard Lou Ambers through a mixture of will power and guile. 14 minutes available on film.

vs. Jimmy McLarnin I - Canzoneri's last great performance, putting the beats on a 6 pounds heavier Jimmy McLarnin. There's about 18 minutes of this fight available.

Billy Graham
vs. Kid Gavilan III - Just a high quality boxing match. Gavilan gets the better of it for mine, though Graham makes it difficult for him with his cageyness. This is Gavilan and Graham at the height of their powers. Available complete.

vs. Joey Giardello II - Graham has an argument for winning all three of their encounters, and the ending to this one is certainly controversial. From the 25 minutes I've seen of the bout, I thought Graham had the best of it, and although not as sharp as he was against Gavilan, he still schooled the younger, more inexperienced Giardello.

vs. Tony Pellone II - Graham lost both Pellone fights in close controversial circumstances, but again, from what is available here on film, I see Graham outboxing Tony with ease. Good fight to see a younger Graham in action. About 11 minutes can be seen of this fight.

There are a few other fights worth watching if you want to see Graham utterly school some fighters (e.g. vs. Cleo Shans, Doll Rafferty, Paddy Young etc. but it's good to see him in against the best)

 

Buddy McGirt
vs. Frankie Warren II - Frankie Warren was a poor man's Henry Armstrong and he managed to get the better of McGirt in their first fight encounter through force of will and perpetual motion. Buddy comes in better prepared in the rematch and puts on the best performance of his time at 140 with short, sharp counterpunches in an action packed bout taking place in Frankie's back yard.

vs. Simon Brown - Few gave Buddy an honest chance in this one and truth be told it did turn out to be a bit of a mismatch - only it was in McGirt's favour. Totally picked Brown apart. A pleasure to watch for any purist.

vs. Pernell Whitaker I - Has there been a more skillful encounter at welterweight since this 1993 fight? Probably not. Two generals of the smaller weight classes meet with an expectation of a chess match. Turns out to be a bit of a brawl actually. To quote Larry Merchant: "Boy, this is world class stuff guys. You just don't see much of this feinting, jabbing, hooking, it's just wonderful stuff, it's better than you could have imagined. Boy, if this is chess, it is violent chess."
You gotta be doing something right when you make a grizzly old ******* like Merchant excited, right?

 

I like this one:

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Johnny Famechon
vs.Jose Legra - This is how a lower level version of Willie Pep vs. Muhammad Ali would look like at featherweight. Johnny playing the role of Pep, and Legra the role of Ali. This isn't a terribly action packed fight but it is taut with tension the whole way through and very good boxing skills are displayed by both. Legra has the edge on the outside with his longer reach, Johnny on the inside with his body work. The bout carries its share of controversy too. It was a terribly close decision, and your final verdict may rest on how you read Famechon's slips/knockdowns. Famechon was losing his footing regularly throughout the fight, and sometimes doing so after being knocked off balance by Legra punches. The ref didn't call any knockdowns, but I was crediting Legra on a few of the knockdowns and giving him extra points, which made it really close on my card. Johnny just pinched it for mine.

vs. Fighting Harada II - Harada was well past his best here and though he tried to force the action, much of the energy, balance and speed were gone. Johnny did what he had to do and boxed well before sending Harada out of the ring. Get the same feeling watching this fight as one would watching Rocky Marciano destroy Joe Louis. A ring legend died that night.

vs. Vicente Saldivar - Recently out of retirement, Saldivar comes out and proves he's still the king of the featherweights by wrestling the crown from Johnny Famechon. The bout was farily close for mine, and though Saldivar clearly took it, Famechon was dictating some of the later rounds, which is amazing, given that Saldivar was usually the one that owned the championships rounds. Saldivar was old and could no longer motor in the last rounds perhaps? Yeah, maybe,but he still stormed home against Legra in the bout previous to this, and was by no means done with when he fought Johnny. 2 point win for the Mexican champ here, with Johnny showing his mettle and legendary stamina. Boy was a marathon runner.

 

Short and sweet. Davis was pretty much done by that stage, but still a great poleaxing.

 

Heh. Never saw anybody recommend Billy Graham fights before. Good stuff. Sweet Scientists' recommendations are fantastic. Got any Yuri fights off the top of your head? Ohba?

That third Gavilan fight is a GREAT fight, & highly recommended. People calling that fight a "robbery" were either Graham homers, or never have seen the fight. It was a close, close, fight, with momentum shifts.

Some of my favorites that may be more "obscure" are...

Jose Torres v.s Eddie Cotton
-One of my absolute favorites of a grizzled veteran trying to take the title away.
Nicolino Locche vs. Paul Fuji
-One of the most lop sided title bouts I've seen-great quality as well.
Mauro Mina vs. Henry Hank
-Mina was a long range stylist who had to retire due to eye troubles. GREAT fighter.
Alexis Arguello vs. Jose Luis Ramirez
-I LOVE Alexis, but I thought he lost. Another recommended bout is his title shot against the under appreciated Marcel.
Marcel Pigou vs. Eduardo Lausse
-BIG middleweight contenders. Knockdowns back & forth.

Gene Fullmer vs. Florentino Fernandez
-This is one of the most gruelling middleweight bouts I have. Silent, & in color. Gene Fullmer is one of the toughest SOB's ever-he takes tremendous punishment in this one.
Eduardo Lausse vs. Gene Fullmer
-Lausse had a lefthook that was a wrecking ball sledge hammer-makes Tito's hook look like a bunch of kisses. He consistently lands it off of Fullmer's noggin', & even scores a knockdown.

I wanted to point out these Fullmer bouts to show how incredible it was that SRR was able to KO him with ONE punch. IMHO, Fernandez & Lausse were bigger punchers at MW, but SRR executed to it perfectly.

 

33 minutes?

 

33 and a half actually :good

 

Cheers mate.

If I was to recommend a Yuri Arbachakov fight, it would probably be his first fight with Chatchai Sasakul. A real high quality boxing match. His fights with Muangchai Kittakasem and Nam Hoon Cha are also of value.

For Ohba, his fight with Chartchai Chionoi is an out and out WAR and I recently watched his fight with Betulio Gonzalez, which is again, a really excellent boxing match. I had Betulio taking that fight by a point, but it could have gone either way and I recommend everyone give it a watch if they can get a hold of it.

Agree, that was classic boxing and in no way shape or form a robbery. I think those that do call it a robbery, do so because Graham started to come on late in the fight and swept most of the later rounds, whihc were the round sthey had most recent in their memories. Gavilan put enough rounds in the bank early on though to probably nick it.

Some great calls my man. I'm with you on Ramirez earning the duke against Arguello. Was awfully close though. Can't really complain with Arguello edging it.

As for Eduardo Lausse, I agree with you, he had a left hook that could fell an elephant. I recently watched his fight with Chico Varona and for the life of me, I thought he killed Varona with that Ko punch. The way Chico's leg unnaturally folded when he fell made it look all the more ghastly.

I also agree with you about Fullmer's toughness, and the incredible placement of Ray's shot to Ko him like he did. Fullmer was an absolute ANIMAL.

 

I wouldnt call your collection modest anymore acb1 You must be rivalling Bill Cayton by now!! You're the modest ne my friend!! Haha,

 

Your Yuri & Ohba fights are good picks as well. Very fine taste, indeed. I've seen many of them, but need to collect them all over again (Jung Koo Chang,Myung Woo Yuh, & etc. too) I have fond memories of Arbachakov-he got me into Asian boxing again, after I lost interest for years.

Another thing about Bill Graham-like the Keed, he was never knocked out during his career.

 

Unlike the Keed, Graham was never even dropped.

 

If you are interested in building your collection up again, I recommed you drop a poster on this site called Raging B(_)ll a private message. He has everything you'd want and more and will give you fights for a generous price.