You ask me who the most underrated lightheavyweight of all time is, I will say his name. I constantly see top 30 lists without his name on it, He rates in the top 15 all time in my list. Such a shame he suffered a detached retina right before his title shot vs harold johnson, that would have been a legacy defining fight for both. This content is protected Great Boxer-Puncher. Mina Holds Wins/Draw over Bob Foster Gregorio Peralta Henry Hank Eddie Cotton 2x Allen Thomas Jesse Bowdry Hank Casey Heres quick footage of him vs Hank http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjYjaXwyqcw
I've only seen his fight with Hank and liked the look of him.Very good boxer-puncher, but he didn't seem to have much physical presence in that fight. hard to judge from one fight though.
He has an impressive record on paper (the win over Foster and a stoppage of Peralta look very impressive in retrospect), but I always got the sense his actual substance somehow didn't match his record. He had a lot of hype when he came over here to New York, for what was supposed to be a showcase fight against Henry Hank, who had just moved up from 160 and was supposed to be past his peak. Not only did Hank make him look bad, but I thought he outboxed him (which wasn't Hank's normal style), or at the very least got a draw. Mina was reputed to be some kind of big puncher too, but he didn't show it in that fight. Also, my father used to be friends with a guy named Dave Russel, who was really no more than a career journeyman. Russel went down to South America to fight Mina, and reportedly gave him a real hard fight (Russel thought he should've won). He came back here with a newspaper clipping from down there which he showed my father, to prove it. To my knowledge, Mina only fought that one time here in the US, and disappeared back into South America for the rest of his career. I often wondered if a lot of his big wins down there were the result of questionable decisions or some kind of home cooking. There was always some talk that he might fight Pastrano for the title, but I always thought Pastrano would've taken him.
I don't think so, Johnson has beaten guys like Ezzard Charles and Archie Moore. Mina would've been just another contender on his resume, along the lines of Doug Jones, Eddie Cotton, Eddie Machen, etc.
Mina was a good fighter for sure, very good in fact, however as My2sense already pointed out he could be made to look ordinary at times due to his lack of fire/drive if you will. He seemed content to often do just enough to win in many of his bouts and this makes it hard to rate him highly or accurately for that matter. However I will say that at his best and when motivated the man was damn good, I have highlights of several of his bouts from Peru and he looked very impressive in those displaying that excellent jab of his along with very good technical boxing ability. He looked better in those highlights than in the Hank fight thats for sure, much moreso in fact and the Hank fight he really only won due to Henry tiring badly after the 5th or 6ht round and letting Mina get back into the fight to nick it. Speaking of Hank since I mentioned his name now there is a guy who was fun to watch, I have all the available film of the man known to exist and lets just say this guy was never in a boring fight, even against Foster the first time around he gave it his all but by then he was too far past it to get to his taller, rangier and hard hitting foe. He`d make short work of modern middles like Pavlik and Abraham among others and a fight between him and Andrade and 168 would have been a fight for the ages with their respective styles, that would have been a very violent and exciting bout had he been around today.
Yes but this was 1963. Harold Johnson was now 35 years old and past his prime, it would have been competitive.
I don't know about that. Johnson didn't use his legs quite as much at this time as he had in the '50s, but IMO he was more poised, his defense was tighter, and his combination punching was quicker and more fluid. His performance against Doug Jones was one of his best I've ever seen from him. Of course he showed great form earlier in his career as well, but he seemed to sometimes lose his poise or become careless, and that led to him being caught and KO'd a couple of times (vs. Moore and Billy Smith, for example). Even when he lost to Pastrano, I still thought he showed very good form - he just was robbed IMO. In general, Johnson looked good all through his career right up until being upset by Johnny Persol, well after he had lost the title. I don't know for sure how a Johnson-Mina fight would've played out, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if Johnson simply outclassed him like he did to Jones. He certainly wouldn't have had to go looking for him, like he did to Pastrano.
Mysense, you really know ur stuff on this era and as a fellow fan of this era, i cant disagree with anything u said. I do think Harold was at his best when he was tangling with Charles/moore in the early 1950s...speed sharpness was a bit better. Of course in the 1960s he was smarter and more experienced so he tightened up his defense, but he also sacrificed speed and youthness. I do think harold was robbed vs pastrano, but no way does a mid 1950s johnson lose more than 3 of 15 rounds vs pastrano, that fight showed me he was well past it.
