ATG FEATHERWEIGHT TOURNIE: SF 1 - HENRY ARMSTRONG UD15 WILLIE PEP

Whichever you prefer; dropped and beaten should be the focus, rather than the semantics.

I agree with this. The Baby series is the right way to chart his rise. But it needs to be noted how Baby himself was getting on during that time in a wider sense, and it wasn't great. He himself was losing fights to fighters that weren't great in 1938 in his run up to his first thrashing at the hands of Armstrong. Armstrong won nearly every round of his final two contests with Baby though.

Happily, we have one of these fights on film. What can absolutely be said though is that Armstrong got better; he was a better welterweight than he was fighting Baby.

Then again, if I had to bet, I'd bet he was better versus Petey than he was versus Baby, that's a guess but I suspect a good one. The thing is, this is being parcelled up against indisputably prime Pep who put together a run, almost exclusively (but not quite) at the poundage that included 135 victories and one loss. In other words it was indisputably the prime of perhaps the best boxer to have lived against an improving Armstrong. I don't see a lot of accountancy for that fact in what i'm reading.

 

This doesn't really follow. Title shots were about results, popularity and connections and Armstrong's were all excellent. Charley Burley was an unpopular risk-controlling boxer with a tiny following who was horribly managed by a series of unconnected promoters excepting Fritzie Zivic who certainly didn't want him in the title picture.

This doesn't follow either. Armstrong was indisputably prime on film later in his career having suffered losses and gone the distance in prior fights. You're not taking into account the quality of his opposition, which was much lower at featherweight than above it.

Ross absolutely was his best performance on film. But the Baby film is after the Sarron fight, not before. In other words we have film of Armstrong AFTER Sarron looking sub-prime by your own testimony.

Not prime.

 

Yes; as i've said, I think Ross was his peak performance on film. There is film of Armstrong before this looking less good, but it is filmed after the Sarron fight. The Sarron fight falling before the footage i'm discussing, means that Armstrong was indisputably pre-prime pre-Ross, by my eye. Most of all when he was at featherweight.

I do not think the difference is huge in the footage i'm discussing.

I do think, given that his opponent is one of the best ever and is indisputably prime, it might matter.

And nothing i've read in this thread has really reflected these facts. Everyone just seems to be taking about prime Armstrong.

That said, I think I'll leave this here now as I don't want the thread to become too bogged down and I don't see the above really being added to by me.

 

Ten hours left!

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Henry Armstrong proceeded from the semi final to final against Willie Pep having finally closed the distance on him the tenth winning the majority of the remaining rounds to take a clear decision. Early, Pep had found joy in making Armstrong miss and countering whereas Armstrong needed to cross the distance and keep the pressure on to bag rounds early - despite missing wildly at times against sitting duck Baby Arizmendi in a recent fight, Armstrong found hitting Pep easy, almost as if a future version of himself had possessed his body for this crucial contest; meanwhile Pep failed to counter Armstrong after some of these missed punches, which also surprised ringsiders. This kept the fight close going into the final third, when a dramatic fade in Pep's footwork, presumably a result of the terrible pressure Armstrong was exerting, allowed Henry to take the fight inside on the regular where he consistently scored with enough punches to bag rounds.

The official scorecards ran 9-6 twice and 10-5.