Battle of the 80s Contenders: Tony Sibson vs. James Shuler

I've been doing a bit of a deep dive into the 80s middleweight landscape for the last couple days, and both of these men interest me as boxers who hovered around the top 10/top 5 of the division for a good portion of the decade, but never stamped their legacy deeply into time.

Well, dear Forum, who do you have over 12 rounds?

Shuler, with an illustrious amateur background that included a World Cup Gold, a Pan-Am Silver, and qualifying for the nonexistent 1980 Olympic Team, was slick and rangy, able to time and batter at long range. Trained by Eddie Futch and Joe Frazier, in Futch's words the "best kept secret in boxing" before his 73-second KO loss to Tommy Hearns in '86, and then his truly tragic death in a motorcycle crash a week later.

Or Sibson, the rugged, incorrigible English slugger who beat some of the best contenders of the decade but fell short on three separate attempts at a World Title.

I personally feel Sibson's resume is a bit deeper, depending on how highly you rate Shuler's amateur pedigree. Sibson's streak from November of '79 to February of '83 saw him beat Alan Minter and Dwight Davison, both of whom were the #1 contender the year before fighting Sibson. After his loss to Hagler (a night where the Marvelous One might have looked his absolute best), Sibson was never quite the same but did earn a sensational 2-round stoppage over undefeated John Collins, and won the Commonwealth and EBU Middleweight titles.

All this having been said, I personally would favor Shuler. I believe he took Hearns to be more faded than he was after the Hagler loss, expected the cautious start Hearns would give to boxers he respected, and simply chased after him, falling directly into the rights that ended it. I don't think this would happen against Sibson. Shuler was too good at playing with range. I think he'd hold control with his jab and work at angles, take some good shots from Sibson's pressure, but ultimately it wouldn't look all that dissimilar to his win over the (up to that point) undefeated James Kinchen for the NABF title.