I watched the first Laguna fight last night. I hadn’t been able to find this fight in years. A very good evenly matched boxing match for the most part. Laguna looked a lot sharper this fight then he did by the time of the re-match. He was able to land a lot of snappy, flashy punches upstairs but Buchanan was excellent with his left and was sneaking in plenty of sharp rights. A lot of trading rounds and after 11 rounds it looks Lagunas fight (slightly) but despite the searing heat it’s Buchanan who handled the last four rounds best. He hammered Laguna in the 12th and 13th and did enough to win by anywhere from 1-3 rounds. The Puerto Rican crowd even booed when the ref had it for Laguna but he was overruled by the other two judges.
He was very good. Not many Europeans (or Americans) can say they've travelled to a Latino country to beat a Latino Hall of Famer for a world title.
I started watching highlights of him first and i was suprised at how smooth he was .Then i watched some of his complete fights and now he's a favorite of mine
Smooth, aggressive, slick and tough. He’s one of my favorites too. He had a couple of good autobiographies. My only gripe is that he was a bit too caught up on Duran and running the narrative that he was about to win and was robbed. He was robbed of hearing the final bell though.
Is the first Lauguna bout available? I had a copy but it was really bad. Thats one bout ive always wanted to see.
@ChrisJS you said about Buchanan threads, there are some good ones, and you made quite a few of them yourself
It has been repeated in this excellent thread many times, but Ken was a great fighter for all the reasons mentioned above. But what really stood out for me was his educated jab- my absolute favorite one that I have seen- that he utilized for so many different purposes like as a range finder, a weapon to the body and just to knock someone's head off. Tremendous fighter and a joy to watch.
Buchanan was offered a rematch in Panama but essentially priced himself out, asking for more money than he was ever likely to get as challenger.
He was? Interesting. How much money was offered and what was the date? Buchanan just didn't have enough power to keep a prime Duran off.