...any of these fighters receiving their respective title shots? I've always been a real stickler on a fighter receiving a shot at the golden goose. I've just always felt this opportunity should be earned rather than bestowed. And as we all know, undeserving challengers have been rife in our sport. Anyways, just to shake things up a bit and make us all think and research. Can you make a case for these fighters? Al McCoy v Joe Louis Cleo Garcia against Jorge Lujan Julio Hernandez meeting Wilfredo Gomez and Emmanuel Otti and Roy Gumbs against Chong Pal Park Give me what you got!
Not sure I can go down that road, although someone might put together some justifications that would wash if you look at them sideways enough, but I’ve been thinking about doing a thread on ‘explain how this guy got a title shot.’ I’ll probably wait on that one and see how this plays out. Interesting topic.
I may have chosen the unexplainable (other than stating someone dropped off a bag of cash), the kind where even Perry Mason would say, "I ain't touching this case!" But we'll see if anyone can look at them sideways.
1. Las Vegas is over 2,000 feet above sea level. Fighters can have trouble acclimating themselves to that sort of thing. Garcia had proven his worth in that regard by going 1-0-1 in Quito, almost 10,000 feet above sea level, and not even Garcia's home country (not even his home continent!). The man was clearly a beast at altitude. 2. Garcia received three career world title shots, and this was the only one for which he wasn't coming off a loss.
The Roy Gumbs v Chong Pal Park seems a baffling one. I followed Gumbs’ career back then…I was a fan. From what I remember, he had recently lost his British and Commonwealth titles to Mark Kaylor (A domestic grudge match of the highest order) and followed that up with a KO loss at the hands of the dangerous Lindell Holmes (who incidentally is the only man to ever stop the durable Sanderline Williams). So it was after the Holmes KO defeat that Roy got his world title shot. Gumbs was a last minute choice apparently as Park seemed to be looking for an opponent at short notice…Roy was available so off he went. All I can possibly think of is that the SMW division was brand new, there were very few fighters around with any kind of pedigree willing to fight at that weight and at that level against a dangerous champion. Maybe. I don’t know, I got nothing more. What I do know though is that during Gumbs’ 5 year unbeaten spell where he won many, many fights, he couldn’t get a sniff of a world title shot. High risk, low rewards I guess as Roy wasn’t exactly a top draw attraction. He then gets KO’d twice in a row and his phone is ringing! The high risk suddenly became a low risk it seems, so a nice cherry pick to get the new champ at the new weight off to a great start. Maybe not justification as such, just explanation.
Actually, a very good explanation. I would have been OK with the signing on short notice you mentioned. Do you recall if he was a last minute sub and if so, who was he subbing for?
Ohhh, Clum, I chuckled at your "he was a beast at altitude" analogy. As if those alphabet boys were actually concerned about putting together a good match rather than just counting their bag of cash the Garcia camp had dropped off. I'm picturing Perry Mason saying, "Your honor, Garcia was 1-0-1 in Quito, therefore..." As a stretch of the imagination goes, this was a good one.
I don’t recall off the top of my head tbh, Scar, but my feeling is that Gumbs was a substitute for a more suitable opponent, though I don’t remember who. I’ll have a look online to see if I can find out. Leaving it to my memory isn’t my best course of action haha!
Just had an Instagram chat with Roy…he says Iran Barkley was one of the guys who pulled out before he stepped in in the last minute. *Edit. I love Roy but Barkley was a bit green back then. I’m not going to contradict his memories of it all though. It was nearly 40 years ago after all so it’s understandable that he might have got the timeline a bit off!
Pablo Baez against Thomas Hearns is arguably the last qualified fighter ever to be in a co-headliner title fight on PPV (Peter McNeeley wasn’t in a title fight, giving Pablo this dishonor). He was 10-9-2 per boxrec and I doubt there’s many ‘hidden wins’ unrecorded out there as he was a was a California fighter who fought I think twice outside the U.S. that we know of (both losses, so doesn’t seem like he had a foreign benefactor flying him to another country for off-the-radar wins, haha). You can almost make a flimsy case for him being qualified to fight for a title, however. He beat Zeferino Gonzalez for the California state junior middle title (of course this somehow got him into the welterweight title picture somehow) two fights after Zeferino gave a huffing, puffing, out-of-shape Roberto Duran a fairly competitive go in a decision loss. I think that result got Gonzalez a ranking. But then Baez goes 1-1-1 over his next three fights and somehow ends up opposite Hearns on a card where Ray Leonard fought Ayub Kalule in the co-headliner. This card was to drum up interest in Leonard-Hearns. Why anyone thought a win over Baez would help in that regard is a mystery, and why Manny Steward didn’t demand someone with a little more recognition and better resume is beyond me (were Pete Ranzany and Joergen Hansen busy?).
Jame “Buffalo Bill” Gumb was the villain in “Silence of the Lambs.” Now that guy was a killer. If he came to the ring with “Goodbye Horses” as his walk-up music, I’d have run for my life.
I remember Baez well and was stunned when this match was made. It had all the earmarks of a keep-in-shape non-title bout only. Baez must've thought it was his birthday when this match was made because he was clubfighter/journeyman through and through.
