Archie Moore Rates Hardest Hitter

A lot of people named Sheppard as the hardest hitter they ever faced.

The kind of people who had shared a ring with Baer, Louis or Marciano.

 

Moore talk about Sheppard here too......

http://www.eastsideboxing.com/forum/showthread.php?t=400629

 

Which probably means that Marshall was d hardest p4p , unsurprisingly . Marshall was both older and smaller than Wright , while Sheppard younger and bigger . I believe that if none of his fights against good opponents was staged , which is almost unrealistic 2 assume about
his era , then Marshall was p4p a harder puncher than Julian Jackson . Who did Jackson stop/floor and who Marshall floored ?

 

Sheppard usualy lost when he stepped in anainst the best, but he none the less posted some significant wins. He was the only person ever to stop Joey Maxim. Coming in as a late replacment, he put Maxim down for the count in the first round. That in itself speaks of some seriously scary power, given some of the punchers that Maxim was in with.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...0,2509361&dq=joey+maxim+curtis+sheppard&hl=en

 

Well, just waiting for the Marciano elitists to comment on this ...

this also explains how a killer puncher may not have a disproportional KO record ... it is more than power but the over all skill required to land effectively against the better fighters out there ..

That plus the rest of the said fighter's skill set .. you have to last long enough to land and be good enough to land enough ..

 

I honestly think that KO% is more closley correlated with the quality of opposition a fighter has met than their actual punching power.

 

Why is it that fighters always name a guy they beat as the hardest punches?

Not that I doubt Sheppard could bang, but this seems a definite commonality in these retrospective pieces.

 

because most top fighters were good or great in general, or more specifically for other various aspects of fighting traits or abilities
.

 

Not really sure what you mean here, and No, this question is not aimed at only olden time fighters... I have heard the same line of thought from current fighters. I don't really look to fighters for deep insight into the sport, especially objective insight to their own careers. They are primarily egoists and what they say on any topic is only really about themselves.

 

wow, I wish I had such presupposition for people...

it might be that Sheppard hit like a Sherman Tank, plain & simple! No other motive from Old Archie, nor any self preservation!

sometimes things are just what they are!

plus Sheppard was noted for it anyway, so why doubt?

 

WAIL! The CyberBoxingZone Journal
October 2000 issue​

This content is protected

The Hatchetman ​

By Aram "Rocky" Alkazoff​

The "Hatchetman".


Curtis "Hatchetman" Sheppard.

http://www.cyberboxingzone.com/boxing/wail1000_rocky.htm​

Something about the name gives you a cold feeling. Roll it around your mouth and you get the notion you're saying the name of a old time outlaw or gunfighter. That's some nickname, "Hatchetman". How many guys in boxing get a nickname like that? I was starting to think I might have what it took to be a pro fighter when I first heard the name. I was only a teenager, but guys in the neighborhood told me I had a big punch in both hands. That thought got into my young head, and I started to read anything on boxing I could get my hands on. No Gene Tunneys, Billy Conns, Willie Peps, or Tippy Larkins for me. I only wanted to read about the guys who could crack. I related to Dempsey, Louis, Marciano, Sonny Liston. I wanted to be one of them.​

I remember how impressed I was by Rocky Marciano, how he had destroyed so many legendary names, but the job he did on Archie Moore amazed me the most. I couldn't believe anybody hit hard enough to bust up the great Moore the way Rocky did. So what happens? I read a Ring Magazine article about The "Old Mongoose" in which he was asked who was the hardest hitter he ever faced. I'm expecting him to rave about Rocky and what does he say? It went something like this: "Hatchetman" Sheppard. This guy was something else! When the Hatchetman hit you it was like a electric shock struck you! Hatchetman knocked me down so hard I bounced off the canvas. I decisioned him twice mainly by making him miss."​

Who the hell was Curtis "Hatchetman" Sheppard? Could he really hit harder than the tremendous fighters Moore was in with? Guys like Marciano, Charles, Patterson, Ali, and Harold Johnson? There was a picture of the Hatchetman in the article and I took a close look at it. Curtis was a dark-skinned black guy with a cold, destroying look in his eyes. Standing with his shoulders hunched in fighting position. he looked the every image of Disaster. Big bones, gigantic fists, and smooth muscles. I imagined getting hit with his straight right. What was it Moore said? "This guy once hit a guy so hard he broke his collarbone."​

Looking at him, that was easy to believe. The second time I read something about Hatchetman was in a book called "The Great Fights". It mentioned that Joey Maxim, whom I recalled as an iron jawed, defensive boxer, suffered only one KO in his entire career--a one round destruction by Curtis "Hatchetman" Sheppard, a "tremendous puncher". That lesson was never forgotten by Maxim, who thereafter became a safety-first boxer and outboxed Sheppard a month later. But Sheppard had managed to knock Maxim out, whereas Walcott, Moore, Charles, Robinson, and Patterson couldn't. I wondered why I had never heard about him; I figured he must be one of those black fighters of the thirties and forties who couldn't catch a break. A Charley Burley-Lloyd Marshall type. To be black fighter with a murderous punch in that era was to be a victim of...well, let's call it "bad timing."​

The years passed, and I didn't become a champion in the ring. I found a new profession, new friends, and a whole different way of life. But I kept up my interest as a fan, and I never forgot the name Curtis "Hatchetman" Sheppard or what Archie Moore said about him. One day in early 1988 I was indicted by the United States Government for various "organized criminal" offenses. The charges were laid, I believe, so as to pressure me into informing on people about whom the feds thought I had meaningful information. I was found guilty and given a life sentence.​

After almost a year in Detroit Wayne County Jail, suffering through not only a lengthy trial, but a long detainment in solitary confinement for assault on a County sheriff I felt had disrespected me, I was chained up and transported to Chicago. In Federal custody I was driven to M.C.C. Chicago, a skyscraper prison in the middle of downtown, not far from where I had been raised. It was a holding building for people in Federal trial, court, informants, and those in transit to the Bureau of Prisons correctional system. As I climbed out of the bus in the M.C.C. garage, some fresh air got into my lungs for a second. The first fresh air I had taken in for a year. You can imagine the shape I was in, what with the confinement, lack of exercise, terrible food, and depression. I was a mess, a shadow of the man I used to be. I was forty years old and facing the reality of spending the rest of my life in prison, all for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.​

When I reached the thirteenth floor and a bunk, I was very tired. I spotted a few people I knew from the streets, but I didn't even want to talk. I was ashamed of what I looked like. I went into the bathroom and gazed into the mirror for the first time in a year. I didn't like what I saw. My face was drawn, my eyes worn, my hair long and unruly, with twice as much gray as before. My rock hard 190 pounds was no more. I had a little stomach for the first time, and my muscles felt like they had no power. I put my head down in misery and hurt. Then I heard a man's voice speaking words I'll never forget. "C'mon Rocky. Pick up your head and act like the man I heard you were," he said. "I heard you was a good fighter. Well, now you're in the first round of a tough fight. C'mon, son. You've got a fight in front of you and it's time to start fighting back." ​

I looked up and saw a tall, very dark-skinned black man who had the kindest eyes I had ever seen. His eyebrows were grayed and I could see more gray in his beard, but that didn't tell the whole story. Dressed in an orange prison jump suit, his forearms and biceps were solid, sinewy. He had a tucked-in waist and broad powerful shoulders, along with the absolute biggest fists I have ever seen. He was shaved bald, wore spectacles, and was carrying a big black Bible. He was so impressive in his health and vitality for a man his age, I might have


been worried had he not been so gentle in manner.​

"I heard you was a pretty good fighter when you was younger," he said. "I tried it some, but I didn't go all the way like maybe I should have," I answered, figuring he had talked to someone who knew me.


"That's why I knew I could talk to you," he said. "You ever heard of


Curtis "the Hatchetman" Sheppard? That's me."...​

this IS a fantastic story, read the rest on the link!






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