Jim Watt- underrated

He and Gutteridge were legendary. Reg was the man.

Watt was a tactically smart right-handed southpaw, so he had a very strong jab and would slide back a few inches as more talented fighters attempted to load their fast combinations, to take the sting off the shots. He also had a great chin and great toughness if shots did get through.

Amazed he's not in the US based 'HOF' for his work as a commentator as well, although they probably have no idea.

 

Superb calm cool technician

 

Yeah man Reg and Harry. Reg called more of the great fights though - Monzon, Holmes-Norton, Pryor-Arguello, Leonard-Duran, Hearns-Leonard, Hagler-Duran, Hearns-Duran, Hagler-Hearns, Honeyghan-Curry, Tyson, Benn, Eubank, Bowe-Holyfield etc

Harry was Ali, Watt, Graham, Bruno, McGuigan and the Cartel's stables

 

Jim Watt was a good ring technician, but what people will always remember is the title bout with Sean O Grady, and what occurred during that bout. Alexis Arguello beat Jim handily, but Watt did put up a fight and went the distance in a losing effort.

 

Sean had him beat until his blatant, calculated head butt.

That’s all he should be remembered for. But he did take a good ass-whuppin’ from AA.

 

Agreed.

 

He's underrated, alright. UK fans always seem to rate guys such as McGuigan (stretching that one, I know, but he did win a Commonwealth Games gold for Northern Ireland and take out British citizenship to contest the national title), Hatton, Winstone etc. ahead of Watt, when in reality Watt should at least be on an equal footing to them and has a claim to be above them all.

A bit strange that his in-ring achievements have become overshadowed by his commentary and been largely forgotten / ignored by subsequent generations, because towards the end of his career he did become big business and a popular name. I was reliably informed many years back that, at the time of his retirement, Watt had actually earned more money than any other UK fighter up to that point. Certainly linking up with Terry Lawless revived his career and gave it a big shot in the arm, because for a while after that excellent losing effort to Buchanan he looked set to just fizzle out.

He's probably not helped by the fact that, rather than grow in significance as time passes, his signature win (Davis) maybe looks less impressive now than it did at the time. Davis of course was considered almost as good a prospect as Ray Leonard and came out of the Montreal '76 Olympics with similar expectations upon his shoulders, and it was an upset when Watt beat him....But as we now know, Davis' professional career never really hit the heights most expected, and as a result Watt's win over him has perhaps dulled a little over the years. Nevertheless, Davis still ran Rosario close and gave Meldrick Taylor a decent argument (though he didn't deserve the draw), so Watt beating him just as well, if not better than fighters of Rosario and Taylor's calibre is still a decent feather in his cap.

The O'Grady win did stink, mind you. It was close for about seven rounds, but O'Grady had been clearly on top for about three rounds before that bad headbutt in the tenth which swung it back in Watt's favour. A mystery to me how the referee missed that, and an even bigger mystery how all three judges had Watt ahead after eleven rounds - two of them by a whole four point margin. Even if the fight had gone to the cards after O'Grady sustained that horrendous cut as it should have, he'd have still been jobbed.

Watt did redeem himself somewhat with his ballsy showing against Arguello, though.

 

One small point: the ref didn’t “miss” the intentional headbutt to O’Grady, he willfully ignored it.

 

Haha yep well you're quite right there, @Saintpat, but I thought I'd be diplomatic about it. No doubt the referee wouldn't want to be the man to upset that boisterous crowd, a few of whom were busy throwing programmes into the ring near the end.

 

Not flashy but did everything well. Anyone who can go 15 with a still prime Arguello is a good fighter.

 

Watt should have been so much more. He finally showed what could have been in the late 70s, but in someways that was more frustrating, as if he had shown his abilities earlier, he would have had the series with Duran rather than DeJesus, he was that intelligent and good!


But he was the best thing in British commentary in the 80s. Reg and 'arry were the icons, but both had jumped the shark in quality (but not popularity) by the time the decade rolled around.