Very impressive fighter. His first fight with Foreman was razor close. Imo the cards were way off. Held draws with Lyle and Bonavena and beat willie Pastrano. Def one of the best from Argentina
Great thread Clinton!! I hope to learn more about the guy who I saw in 1970 with my dad vs George Foreman. I first heard of him in '64, when as a fledgling, wet behind the ears boxing newbie, I read about him and his title bout with my early hero Willie Pastrano. Leave it to you to come up with the great threads bud
If you’re speaking literally, no. Fifty years takes us back to March 1971. From that point on he’s 0-2-1 vs. Foreman and Lyle, which is no shame but that’s the only recognizable opponents from that point to the end of his career. But yes he is underrated. And it’s a shame he didn’t land more step-up fights with so much top-tier competition available during his heyday so we could see if he could have done some more noteworthy things.
You know, I was thinking this a while back. What a good career. A lot of fights too. people accuse me of using Peralta as a stick to beat Foremsn with in arguments to do with Marciano but it is an ultimate compliment to how tough and good Peralta was. Foreman overcame a great fighter there, and Peraltas results against elite heavyweights can not be sniffed at. He was legit.
Very good fighter, but he was caught between the light-heavyweight and heavyweight divisions. Too big to make the light-heavy limit at full strength and too light to compete with the bigger heavyweights of that era. True, he defeated Pastrano in a non-title fight, but Gregorio weighed in at 183-1/2 for that fight and had trouble making the limit for their title fight. Even so, it was too bad he got cut in that fight. Pastrano won most of the rounds up to that point, but I had the feeling Willie was starting to fade. What if, could have been, almost was, but wasn't!!
Gregorio Peralta's WBA Heavyweight title challenge of Jimmy Ellis in Buenos Aries in December 1969 was called off two days before the fight, because the promoter didn't make a $75,000 payment he was supposed to deposit. Everyone was in Argentina ready to go. It would've been interesting to see what would've happened had the fight taken place. Two months later, Ellis fought Frazier and Peralta fought Foreman at Madison Square Garden and both lost. But you can watch those two fights and see that a bout between Ellis and Peralta appeared to be pretty evenly matched. Ellis hadn't fought in a year and a half. Peralta was coming off the draw with Bonavena.
Well, it's just been my opinion based on what I observed at the time. I saw both his fights with Pastrano and at least one of his fights with Thornton on TV back in the day. A person who researches the facts now might conclude differently. I've always thought he was on the low scale of weight for a heavyweight even during the era in which he fought. The lowest he weighed for any of those light-heavy non-title fights in the U.S. was 178-1/2 for the first Thornton fight in 1963. He was up to 185 when he fought Mauro Mina at Buenos Aires in 1964. It's possible, I suppose, that he may have been able to make weight as a light heavy, but thought there was more money fighting as a light heavyweight. However, I doubt that he ever made more money as a heavyweight contender than he could have made as a light-heavyweight champion. I
