You can see the reasons why many would pick the rushing and stylish Walker to topple Monzon, looking at his record against bigger men, but Monzon was superb against men his size. Monzon would have to tame the untameable against Walker, but he would find his own ground in there with his right hand slugs out of the rough clinches. It'd certainly be a sight to see if Monzon could start to slow Walker's assaults down and take over with the smarter, long shots. Greb may cause more havoc with his speed and reportadly rougher style of fighting. Very interesting again. The aspect that you could never count out against Monzon though was the fire that he brought into the ring - had he been allowed to be rougher in the ring, say in France against Bouttier, he would have been, and probably ended up fighting more effectively. If Greb started to throw in elbows and butts, Monzon would shoulder him in the clinches and pound his hips. Again, because Greb fought naturally bigger men and won the vast majority of his bouts, there is probably a natural inclination to pick him (forgetting the fact that he is a boxing demi-god at the moment) when Monzon was as solid as solid could be at 160lbs. A points win for one and a viscous fight. As already mentioned, for personal reasons Valdez did not bring his A-game into their first encounter, their second bout is much more lively, and Monzon did extremely well to fend off that kind of a dedicated attack through 15 rounds. Valdez was a top fighter and cracked Bennie Briscoe, which everybody else who fought him found impossible. Every great has his 'bad' fight and for Monzon it was the rematch against Griffith, who fought smarter and got less involved, but Monzon was a bit dry that night; having to quickly adjust before hand to make the weight. Still if you're in the ring, you're in the ring, and Monzon won - Griffith is a fighter who Ted Spoon could see proving a speed bump in Haglers career. Emile was a slippery fish of a fighter and you'd expect the other greats to assert themselves and get more 'involved' with Monzon, which would prove to be the ultimate acid test.
Excellent article. Very well done! The only thing I have to add, is the observation that, nearly all great fighters of the past have had losses, either humbling, or close or just plain devastating, that you can use make a judgement aginst them in evaluating their overall career, or in assessing their relative greatness and place in boxing lore. The only thing you can hold against Monzon is maybe a sub-par defense against Emile Griffith in 1973, that he won anyway. Monzon is somewhat unique, almost like Marciano, in that how can you knock a guy who was a WINNER? There have been a few others, like Sal Sanchez, whose mystique is wrapped up in the fact that he died while on top of the game, but his career was abbrieviated, and he didn't have the quality or quantity of defenses that Monzon had. Monzon, however, reigned for nearly seven years, fought the best, won them all, and not always without near calamity, ala Briscoe and Valdez, but most of the time, he made it look fairly easy.
Ted Spoon- Facinating hypotheticals and valid analysis re Monzon against Greb/Walker. Enjoyed the post very much.:good