An excellent fighter with good power and skill . A forgotten man who would give any middle weight in history a good fight
LaMotta cast Cerdan down and fell on him, causing a dislocated shoulder. Cerdan was going to have a rematch with LaMotta, but, for the plane crash he would have won, very sad. He was absolutely a great Champion. Sugar Ray Robinson would have a hell of a time beating him, if he could?
he was also a Welterweight cum Middle, which makes his prowess even more impressive, unlike Jake who started life as a L-HW, was a big middle and has a host of Welters on his record... to state the same. In 1947 little Eric Boon gave Villemain hell in what was "Fight of the Year" in Britain, this is the same board that often denied smaller fighters the sanction to fight bigger fighters. I'm not so sure the French had any doubt who 'their' World Middleweight King was. only, what, 4 loses out of over a 110 fights. That's impressive for any fighter, nevermind reigning as a National, European and World Middleweight Champion, among many TOP Fighters.
This is hilarious! Cerdan had 115 fights, 79 of them were against welters, [a few were lightweights]. This equals Thirty six fights with Middleweights. Little Eric Boon gave Villemain hell? Did he ? Villemain knocked him down 4 times and stopped him in the 10th rd .By the way Villemain was a welter weight too at the time. Boon 144 3/4lbs . Villemain150lbs. BTW Tenet & Walczack 2 of Cerdan's Euro/French title fights were both welters too.
I know, that is because Marcel was a Welterweight... we know Boon was beaten in a hard fight, and we know he weighed as a Welter, but most of his career he was a LW, also this was an end of the line fight for Boon, he was at the very end of his career. We also know Villemain was a Welter too... who, like Cerdan moved up into MW. So what is hilarious about my post? Welters cum Middles LW's cum Welters precisely the order of things as fighters become older start moving UP and even up again at the end of a long career. this was exactly how it was down before recent decades with fighters fighting down 2 & 3 divisions below their natural Stature & Weight, easy with 3-5 months to do so.
You castigating Lamotta for fighting some welters!Two thirds of Cerdan's opponents were welters. Lamotta fought light heavies too. Do you think Cerdan has a better record against quality opponents than Villemain? Dallanoit? Dauthille? You called him little Eric Boon when there was only 5 lbs between them, Boon fought about a third of his fights at welter
Jake often weighed like 164 when fighting welters who came in at 149 or 151 with their clothes on. I haven’t checked to see how many times Marcel was 10 or more pounds heavier than an opponent, but Jake build much of his career on such bouts. Curiously, Jake hardly ever had fights where he was fighting someone who outweighed him by more than a few pounds, and not even a heck of a lot of those. Wonder why he didn’t pick on light heavies when he was waddling around at 164 (after sweating off a few in the sauna before the weigh-in)?
Jake fought 31 men heavier than himself,from a half a pound to several pounds.He was a super middleweight when there was no such weight class for him to operate in ,so he either had to fight middles or lhvs and the money was in the middleweight division.The welters moved up to fight his for the same reason, that's where the $$$ was.
they ALL did it, such was Boxing in the many more fights era, where getting down to Championship weight was only called for in contesting bouts or Championship bouts. Some fought more fighters up in weight others more down, that's what Catchweight agreed terms are. Jake was hardly unique in this, damn near all fighters in near all divisions competed like this.
a few I'm sure, but as you know, they were more accurately called MW's cum L-HWs or Welters cum MWs or Fly's cum BW's and so on in ALL Divisions that's just how it was.
I've only seen a couple of Cerdan's fights but he always reminded me, in build and fighting style, of Marciano. He looked pretty ferocious and unrelenting against Zale and he was courageous fighting LaMotta one handed for virtually the entire fight. I'm curious, how would any of the so-called fab four, Leonard, Hearns, Duran and Benitez have done against him?
To me, one of the greatest disappointments in boxing history is that we didn't get to see Cerdan in more big fights, especially when he was younger. First he was sidelined by the war, then by Zale's trilogy with Graziano. By the time he finally got his first title shot, he was already in his 30s with over 100 fights. Even though Zale was surely past his prime when Cerdan beat him, Cerdan was no spring chicken either, and he pretty much outclassed Zale from start to finish. As an aside, I've always felt that Cerdan's attack style was a precursor to the peekaboo style that Cus D'Amato taught to his fighters.
He seems to engender a lot of division when his name comes up on here. In @Rumsfeld 's survey of 2020, I had him just outside the top ten MWs (at 11).
