Best display ever by a novice up against a seasoned pro?

Good mention. In hindsight, we all know that Witherspoon was very good, but at the time he was green and like you said, coming off an unimpressive performance. Considered easy pickings, just like Weaver when he fought Holmes. Boy were they wrong.

 

In only his 7th pro fight, Fred Apostoli fought Freddie Steele, who was already a 95-2-11 pro.
Apostoli put up a good fight and lasted into the 10th round.
Steele himself had been boxing professionally since he was 13 !

Jimmy Ellis as a novice took on several great seasoned contenders in his early fights. Beat the veteran Wilf Greaves (who had a win over Dick Tiger) in his 4th pro fight, fought Holly Mims twice with his first 9 fights (going 1-1 against him). Went the distance with Henry hank in his 13th fight.
And sometimes people use these losses against Ellis ! I've heard him described as "nothing as a middleweight" and "a failed middleweight". :-(

 

Park vs Canto of course.

A near shutout of a still excellent legend, who is the first world class fighter you are facing.

 

Mante, I NEED to learn about Park.

Worth me looking on YouTube? Notable fights? I'd prefer to ask yourself rather than checking boxrec. :good

 

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUwJKNc7mCY[/ame]


There is Park against the excellent Guty Espadas.It will be more impressive if you've seen Espadas' previous world title fights though.A few are on youtube as well.

He's another smooth very capable fighter defensively, that slipped punches well when coming forward, but he couldn't cope with PArk's speed and placement.

This is the kind of issue i see for Yuh against Chang, though there'sno way he gets stopped.

I just noticed there's some good exchanges between some posters in the comments below the fight.Worth reading.

 

For youtube that's a first yeah, I'm quite familiar with Espadas, thanks Mantequilla :good

 

Cheers mate, good to see someone here has enough knowledge of the era to realise where i came from and the expectation of the day.


Witherspoon had all of 15 fights going into Holmes, and only one that really mattered. That's only 2 more than Nelson, and up against en even more established champion.

Witherspoons showing was thought to be as much about how past it Holmes was getting as about the effort Witherspoon put forth.

 

Witherspoon had only had 6 amateur fights too, so he was certainly inexperienced.

But he'd obviously learned a lot in the environment of Philadelphia's gyms.

 

True and true. But Nelson had some incredible raw talent coming in, and how big was Holyfield's amateur career.

 

Oleg Maskaev vs Tua was an incredible display. The Russian had virtually no exp.

 

You think thats good you should boxrec the guy oleg made his debut against

 

Also i remember Leon Spinks to someone making their debut

 

just to butt in on Park

He was a brillaintly schooled offensive fighter. Fast accurate technically correct shots. Nice economic style.

 

THAT'S the achievement that impresses me more than anything else. Benitez had absolutely no business defeating Cervantes.

 

Ruben Carter 17 - 4 KO'd Emile Griffith who had 42 fights