Assessing the Greatness of Alan Minter.

Very good list....props.

Nothing to assess about Minter because he wasn't great. Good, fan friendly but not great. Sort of a limey Vinny Pazienza.

 

I wouldn't describe myself as an expert & nor am I having anyone on.

I've never seen Apostoli ranked as high as #12 at MW & have never seen him above Tiger, so I concede I'm in the minority in these regards.

Apostoli had quite a record, imo. In fights contested at & around MW he went 57-7-1.

He lost to the great Freddie Steele in his 6th fight & lost a couple aged 34 & past prime at the end of his career. His other 4 MW losses were all to extremely good fighters - an MD to Ken Overlin in just his 22nd fight, Young Corbett III, Ceferino Garcia & Tony Zale.

He avenged the losses to Freddie Steele (who had lost only 2 of his previous 133 fights) & Young Corbett III, and also beat Georgie Abrams, Marcel Thil, Lou Broulliard, Paul Pirrone, Babe Risko, Solly Krieger x 2, Swede Berglund, Glenn Lee x 3 & Frankie Britt. I find this MW win resume, relative to only a few prime MW losses all of which were against excellent fighters, extremely impressive.

I was suprised when I completed my analysis to find Dick Tiger so relatively low in my rankings. Tiger's record at & around MW was 48-16-3. A lot of those losses came early in his career in 6 & 8-rounders and a couple came towards the end past prime 35+, so I don't hold those against his standing much. However, I consider his 6 x losses to Spider Webb, Randy Sandy, Rory Calhourn, Joey Giardello x 2 and Wilf Greaves to all be around his prime years when he was forging his impressive win legacy. To be balanced, he also either won or drew against all 5 of those fighters, so I'm open to the possibility I've been harsh in my appraisal of him. I certainly rank him lower than most.

On the whole I find their win resume's comparable (I marginally prefer Apostoli's, but that's splitting hairs), whilst Tiger both lost more, and lost more often around his prime, including to fighters that, Giardello aside, arguably weren't as good as those Apostoli lost to around his prime.

 

Good points and some great research. I don't know enough about Apostoli's era really, other than it was hugely competitive, Garcia, Hostak, Marcel Thil etc...
I can't judge Tiger too harshly on his opposition. Spider Webb was hugely avoided, especially after cutting Terry Downes to shreds.

 

Cheers. I think Apostoli's career is underrated, though to be balanced I rank Tiger lower than most. I'm open to the possibility I'm underrating Dick (not a sentence I ever envisaged typing).

 

Howling !

 

Mike I made a massive mistake about Erskine in the other discussion, should have checked first. But I am sure of one thing. Terry Downes clearly outpointed Giardello also. His best win. Tiger stopped Downes. Tiger I think easily makes top 20 as he also beat Jose Torres at LH I think. Would have to check that first.

 

Same here. He had some really good wins. Lost to Gratien Tonna, then beat him. Stopped Sugar Ray Seales. Decisions over Finnegan which were all close. Still makes him. an excellent boxer as Finnegan so good. Defeats on cuts he probably would have won. GGG would have stopped him. Agree.
Did you see his amateur defeat to the German boxer in the Olympics? Worst amateur decision ever quite possibly. Robbed him of a possible gold medal.

 

Hi Buddy.
No issue with you correctly pointing out Downes did indeed have a win over Giardello, props to you matey, and don't be too hard on yourself , re : Erskine, all of us have at some stage have hit the keyboard in a flurry without doing the research, or in most cases, just plain forgetting !!
stay safe buddy, chat soon.

 

Was the amateur loss worse than Roy in 88?

 

I saw Minter against;
Singletary,Hagler,Antuofermo2,Demmings,Tonna ,Robles.

 

Thanks for that Mike. Pity theres no footage of these fights, or at least I don't think there is ha ha.

 

Wouldn't really like to say mate. Jones loss was terrible, but Minters loss, to a German in Munich, seems as bad all those years ago.
They should have given him a bit of leeway, I believe his mother was German.

 

Kind of thing you say and wish you hadn't. But that was deliberate, so yes.

 

Isn't he the lad that said a black man would never take his title? Guess that backfired on him