Why was Willie Pep greater/better then Saddler?

In the third bout Pep boxed in a way any student of the game would wish to be able to do, and he came off the deck from a harsh left hook from Sadler to do so. What a shame he was injured as another clear win seemed his.

 

Good Question.

Alot of people bring up alot of could of beens, that Pep would have been better had the plane crash not happened, but the fact is that Saddler got the better of him in more fights. Saddler is very underrated.

I guess when it comes down to it, alot of people will say that Pep had the better resume. But all in all, I am not that impressed with it even though I consider pep a top 10 of all time. He Beat Manuel Ortiz, Saddler for one time, and Chalky Wright who is a hall of famer not in the top 100. He also lost to Sammy Angott. I'm interested in knowing more peoples opinions.

 

Think if you'd seen Willie live, in his prime, k, you'd have fewer reservations.

 

Well, first of all, he beat a hell of a lot more quality fighters than just the ones you mentioned.

Paddy DeMarco
Willie Joyce
Allie Stolz
Sal Bartolo
Jackie Blair
Jackie Graves
Joey Archibald
Ray Famechon
Pedro Hernandez
Jackie Wilson
Jock Leslie
Lulu Constantino
Cabey Lewis
Charley Riley
Harold Dade

To name a few.

 

If Pep wasn't a bonafide boxer he'd dirty punch Saddler to death, all at the back of the ref.

 

I think Saddler is still a bad match up, alot of Pep's problems was Saddler's stubborness to get inside and hold and hit (which still happens today). I just don't think Saddler would get away with the lace rubbing, thumbing, back handing etc...


Anyway to the question,

Pep was far more consistent and had a long sucessful reign. Pep's reign is only surpassed by Pedroza in length of reign by a couple of months. Throw in his second reign and you arguably have the best and most dominant reign ever in the Featherweights, in fact that aint arguable.

The thing about Pep's reign that people always over look is the competition he faced but you have to consider the division at the time.

There was no unified champ so 2 titles existed NY and NBA. It was abit of a roundabout with Chalky Wright, Joey Archibald and Harry Jaffa for the NY title. The NBA title had Scalzo Lemos and Jackie Wilson competing.

After Pep won the title he added stability to the NY title and defended it four times after beating Chalky Wright, who was considered the best at the weight and favoured to beat Pep, for the title. He beat Bartolo, Wright again and Terranova before unifieing the title by beating Bartolo again.

During Pep's domination as NY Champ the NBA champion was Terranova who beat Callura twice for the title. Then Terranova lost his title to Bartolo who had lost to Willie Pep within a year earlier. Pep then beat Terranova. Bartolo made three defences before trying to unifie with Pep and losing.

After clearing up the ABC's Pep was unified champ and had wins over top contenders Jock Leslie and Humberto Sierra, before losing to Saddler. After regaining from Saddler he went on to make three defences all against top ranked contenders Compo, Riley (Who had beaten Saddler) and Famechon. He then lost the title back to Saddler.

Overrall that reign is amazing it spans a 8 year period (Nov1942-Sept 1950) of which only for five months was Pep not Champion. It included unifieing the title and with 9 sucessful defences over 2 reigns.

Add in his Non-title bouts during the period and you have a near complete domination of an 8 year period. Most of it after suffering in a plane crash.

Then there is the footage and the reports of the time which make it clear to see that on film and H2H Pep is one of the, if not the, best Featherweight.

That is why Pep is better than Saddler (and all other Featherweights) as far as I am concerned.

Compare this to Saddler's relativly flaky reign with his biggest win being Pep (who then bet him in the second bout) and 3 sucessful defences over a timespan of 5 and a half years of which 2 and a half years had no title defences.

 

Far better record, better skills, massive longeivity as champion, and Pep had been seriously injured (one of his legs lost several inches) before he ever fought Sadler. He still had a very good record after his injuries.

Pep before his plane crash (which doctors thought would end his career) had a record of something like 119-1-1! That is absolutely insane.

Pep was the master of hitting without being hit. And one could argue that the Sadler fights had a hell of a lot of fouling, Sadler would be DQed 4 times in a row under today's rules. Let's face it, every style has its nemesis and Sadler's was the bete noir for Pep's. Yet even losing 3-1, past his prime, after nasty injuries, with Sadler breaking the rules repeatedly, Pep still fought extremely competitively.

 

I think a modern ruleset would cut both ways. Pep wouldn't be allowed to hold/grapple Saddler as much as he did as a way of nullifying his longer reach.

Anyway, I don't think the rulesets were the problem. The refs just didn't know what to do in fights where both guys were equally guilty of horrid fouling. I mean, you can't DQ both guys at once, can you? :conf

 

You have a point. From the footage I've seen, it's by no ways a one-way street concerning the fouling.