I was watching Kalambay beat Doug Dewitt on YT last night and was reminded of what a crisp precise and brilliant boxer he was in his absolute prime which I consider to be 87/88. Hes being matched with the Sugar Ray Leonard who had just beaten Hagler. The fight is over 15 rounds.
Kalambay. I'm not a fan of Ray at 160. Sure, his game plan worked against Hagler but he is not outboxing Kalambay who at that point was every bit as good on the outside and bigger than Ray naturally. Outside of the Nunn Ko loss, Kalambay showed a great chin and was very durable and defensively sound. I don't think Ray can hurt him and don't see him winning a decision either. Ray at that point was going after pay days with other fading fab four fours or cherry picking belts from limited guys like Lalonde. He wasn't going to go near killers like Nunn, McCallum or Kalambay.
Kalambay would be a dangerous fight for SR . Possibly Ray gets a controversial points victory in Vegas .I don't think it's a sensible move
Leonard struggles to get past that jab and Kalambay wouldn’t allow him to get work off when he gets past the jab.
I watched Kalambay take Herol Graham's unbeaten record live in 1987. Herol had been like 38-0. He outboxed closely but clearly the supposed master boxer. I than watched the Barkley,Mccallum,Sims and Dewitt wins which were incredibly impressive. Robbie Sims,not Graham, was arguably the number 1 middleweight contender in autumn 1986 coming off the wins over Barkley,Dewitt,Collins and Duran but of course he was Marvin's brother. Going back to Kalambay.....either side of thar 87-88 hot streak he did have 2 losses out of 2 in his American fights...a close decision to Duane Thomas and the tragic 1 round knockout to Michsel Nunn which to this day ai cant understand. It was a brilliant deserved set up knockout by Nunn but I still feel deprived of seeing thesec master boxers in a boxing duel. Although obviously thats exactly what we see in the actual fight. So Kalambay lost both times he fought in the USA but had the big win in England v Graham. His stronghold was Italy where the judging at the time was notorious although it has no bearing in his wins certainly v mccallum which was almost a shut out. Ray wouldnt go to Italy so theres no chance of him being robbed. Im just gonna assume this as a h2h like everyone regardless of location and assume the nunn knockout lapse was a freak incident in the 64 fight career of Kalambay. I think Kalambay is on his bike all night and Ray adopts the stalker role. Its even through 9 but as the fight goes on Ray starts to land fast sharp combinations on the inside and assured hes ahead after 12 he starts to dance and box the last 3 rounds and wins a decision 9 rounds to 6.
Very tough to decide. Kalambay's jab, defense, counterpunching and movement will give SRL some issues where he will force him to march forward. But with Leonard he still has successes playing the aggressor role and he could certainly steal rounds by throwing his flashy combinations. 50/50 fight IMO. This most definitely goes the distance and the results would be a SD type of decision. If its in the US SRL would most likely be the winner. In Italy it would go to Kalambay. Anywhere else I think SRL could very well get the nod.
I thought Graham wasn't himself in that first fight and was robbed when they later meant the second time.
Yes agreed. Although he probably like the rest of us had no idea how good Kalambay had become. In his book Herol says just before the fight was about to start a female rang him amd told him his partner was cheating on him and it threw him off. The 1992 fight Herol floored him twice early and fought hard but in my opinion down the stretch Kalambay came on busted up Graham's face and I had it a draw or a win for Kalambay
