Better/Greater: Mike McCallum vs Azumah Nelson

Wow. Hmm.

I don't know. Have to think about it.

 

Nelson both ways for me. I think he is underrated and such a great fighter.

 

^^^^This^^^^
2 of my favorite non-Philly fighters. I would say Nelson.

 

I'd probably say McCallum is slightly greater, and slightly better although there's little in it.

 

Zoom Zoom too. But I wouldn't have thought of him straight away if you'd said to pick some slightly higher fighters than McCallum...which shows he's underrated. Good thread.

 

I can't decide.

 

This is tough. Probably lean towards McCallum but they are probably literally right next to each other in the all-time rankings.

 

I rate McCallum higher. Both are still very underrated. Both world champions for well over a decade. I can see Nelson beating the likes of Saddler and Armstrong or least fighting them to the wire but he never gets rated highly in lists. I suppose that's why I don't bother with lists.

 

I think McCallum gets overrated alot of the time while Nelson gets flat out forgotten. Technique wise there close might give a slight edge to Mike while giving the power edge to Azumah. Very very tight. I think it may boil down to whoever's style you prefer watching.

 

Nelson was more skilled, faster, jabbed, put together combinations and had maybe an even better workrate and stamina than Armstrong. He looked like a better puncher too. Armstrong never threw combinations, only throwing 1 punch at a time. Nelson had the better offense and better defense while being more athletic.

 

I think I rate Nelson a bit higher as he might rank just a bit more highly in resume (almost a toss up though), but in general I think McCallum was more skilled.

 

Interesting that the championship careers of these guys ran more or less parallel to one another, and they also beat a similar amount of world title holders and / or name fighters and were both perhaps slightly underappreciated during their runs, too. Never quite included in the superstar bracket of the sport and missing out on the odd fight which would have helped further define them as their risk:reward ratio just wasn't worth it for other guys. Plenty of similarities in those respects.

I'd have to go with Nelson. I just see his absolute top wins as being that just that little more defining and impressive than Mike's. There was something almost indomitable about how Nelson strode into the backyards of Gomez and Fenech in particular (second time of asking in the latter case, admittedly) and bludgeoned them. In the case of Fenech it really was a stunning beatdown almost as great (and following a similar pattern) as Sal Sanchez's against Gomez more than a decade before. While McCallum has plenty of high-class wins and superb performances on his ledger, I don't think he quite has anything like that, totally and systematically taking apart a genuine pound for pounder with such a spellbindingly dominant showing.

McCallum also loses a few points here, I feel, as he never really proved he was the top man in any of the three divisions he won titles in. Now, you can technically make the same argument against Nelson: no unification with McGuigan or Esparragoza at Featherweight, nor with Mitchell at Super-Feather. But it's a little less damaging to Nelson's legacy as none of those guys are considered in his class overall, and with hindsight it doesn't take too much of a stretch to imagine him winning all of those fights had they happened. In contrast, the shadow of Hearns, generally rated as the greater fighter of the pair, hangs over McCallum at Light-Middleweight. We also saw that he couldn't beat Toney in two attempts at 160 (he deserves a pass for their third fight, to be honest) and was, at best, only just above even terms with Kalambay and Graham. 175 lb was never really his weight, so can't be too hard on him there, but again he picked up a strap there at a time when the division was fragmented and there hadn't been a unification in years.

All that combined leaves me in no doubt that Nelson deserves the nod here, though on a personal level I'm a bigger fan of McCallum. Nelson is a top fifty pound for pounder, for my money. McCallum isn't all that far behind overall, but I see him as more of a sixty - seventy man, off the top of my head.