ATG LIGHTWEIGHT TOURNIE SF2 - PERNELL WHITAKER UD15 TONY CANZONERI

Fresh from crushing the might Sammy Mandell, Pernell Whitaker must now contend with an even greater figure in Tony Canzoneri who has just eliminated the legendary Joe Gans. Fascinating, fascinating clash of styles, gentlemen.

Pernell Whitaker, seeded four, is the greatest defensive specialist of whom extensive footage exists, not just at lightweight but in all of boxing. He was also essentially unbeaten at the lightweight limit. Nevertheless, his first encounter with a top lightweight, Jose Luis Ramirez, in 1988, was judged a loss by the professional judges in attendance. It is perhaps the most ridiculous theft ever captured on film; Whitaker was a clear winner.

His hunt for a strap met with success less than a year later against Greg Haugen, a fight in which he was no less clear a winner but which the judges managed to score correctly. Haugen was tough, illustrated by his reclamation of his trinket against Vinny Paziena over fifteen a year earlier. Before Haugen-Whitaker it was felt that Haugen would have to push Whitaker back, cut off the ring, take him late, drown him in that deeper water. The fight itself could not be more different then envisaged. Whitaker boxed aggressively, right in front of his man, shifting the angles slightly with tiny lateral moves and relying upon those wonderful feet to get him out of trouble (of which there was none) all the while driving Haugen back. Haugen was forlorn, robbed of his fight plan, reduced to pecking forwards with the jab before giving ground in front of Whitaker’s wonderful combinations.

This may be the most instructive Whitaker performance of all. He did not lose a single round, he established a horrible, clattering jab which he was happy to triple down on while opening up Haugen to the body; if he felt like it he led with the southpaw left, drove Haugen to the ropes, calmly picked his spots.

The unbeaten Lou Lomeli was the next ranked man to try his luck with Whitaker and the impression that Whitaker gave battering Haugen, namely that he was stiffer puncher than he was being credited for, was underlined by a vicious third round stoppage. Whitaker followed this with vengeance over Ramirez, his audition for recognition as the best jabber in all of boxing. It was another fight in which I did not score his opponent a single round, absurd domination against a world class fighter.

Freddie Pendleton gave him more problems with that right hand of his in 1990, but Whitaker was clearly the winner, Pendleton sagging by the time of the twelfth and final round before the great Azumah Nelson stepped up to hand Whitaker the nearest thing he would have to a close call at the poundage. Whitaker made this up to us with a single round destruction of the excellent Juan Nazario, who was fresh from an eighth round stoppage of Edwin Rosario but helpless before a primed “Sweet Pea.” Anthony Jones and Poli Diaz won perhaps a single round between them in dropping decisions in title fights before Jorge Paez provided some stiffer resistance in a clear losing effort at which point Whitaker departed the division, leaving all three major belts vacated in his wake.

Whitaker fought in what was a relatively weak era for lightweights, but he compensated for this in executing the most dominant spell of all the great lightweights. The great ease with which he outclassed ranked men was never repeated, before or since. More than that, he was so good that he was able to do that rarest of things, deconstruct boxing in such a way that it became just another sport. You play basketball, you play football, but you don’t play boxing – unless you are Pernell Whitaker.

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Joe Gans, seeded one, 158 recorded victories to twelve recorded losses despite his turning professional in 1893, just thirty years after the Emancipation Proclamation. A fourth class citizen in a third class sport oozing unalloyed class in every move he made.

Gans asked for his 1900 contest with Frank Erne in pursuit of the world title to be stopped due a cut caused by an accidental clash of heads. That is important to remember – he asked for it to be stopped.

That he re-emerged is almost a miracle. The complexities of being a black fighter in this era cannot be exaggerated. In his 1906 victory over Battling Nelson, Gans was hit low, butted, thumbed, but careful to help Nelson to his feet when he fell; always in the ring his appearance had to be that of a gentleman, especially when the opposition was white. But even good conduct wasn’t going to be enough to bring him back from a quit job and then a dive that saw boxing banned in Illinois. Only one thing could bring a fighter back from that: pure, unadulterated skill.

That skill fostered a three-year tear through what I am happy to call the deepest lightweight division in history. He smashed former “colored” lightweight champion Bobby Dobbs to pieces twice in 1901, added to his mastery of George McFadden, having already knocked out the era’s other defensive genius, Young Griffo, waiting patiently for the mistakes he would use to put his supposed peer away in eight. So consistently brilliant was he that despite the color of his skin and the fact that Erne had already repelled him once, a second title fight was made between the two.

“After knocking on the door for ten years,” wrote the Brooklyn Eagle, “Joe Gans, colored pugilist, is at last the lightweight champion of the world.”

It took ten years and fifty seconds; Gans dispatched Erne in the first.

Trials and tribulations; do they make the man? Gans had walked a hard and lonely road, a decade of warfare during which he had convinced the world of his brilliance, disgraced himself and convinced the world once more. Nevertheless, this is but a sliver of that which he achieved. He staged fourteen successful title defences – fourteen. Nobody does fourteen at lightweight. It’s absurd. And Gans defended against excellent competition.

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Who will win under the following rules?

15 round fight.
1915 referee.
8oz boxing gloves.
10 points must.

Cast your vote and explain yourself in a post below! You have 3 days.

 

Pernell "Sweet Pea" Whitaker took a safe, dull decision from Tony Canzoneri in the second ATG Lightweight semi-final. Canzoneri took the first round based upon quick pressure but Whitaker seemed to have measured his man and landed numerous southpaw jabs on his opponent in the second. Canzoneri got exactly nowhere with his leans, feints and unorthodox punching as Whitaker seemed prepared for all of, neutralising Canzoneri with a dip or walkway and countering him viciously when he over-reached in return.

Canzoneri won the tenth rushing Whitaker but in the eleventh and twelfth Whitaker out-countered his great opponent in the pocket. Peace seemed to have broken out in the final three rounds as Canzoneri, bleeding from below both eyes, seemed content to follow Whitaker round the ring attempting to dip and parry Whitaker's occasional jabs.