Eddie Thomas, Dai Dower and Brian Curvis

Brian Curvis popping up on the underrated fighters thread and the general lack of attention that he receives made me think about him and also the respective careers of Dai Dower and Eddie Thomas, though I don't really expect this thread to get much of a response.

Thomas of course later became more known for training/managing the likes of Buchanan, Winstone and Colin Jones; something that generally obscures the notion that he was an accomplished and highly capable fighter himself, very tough and in the classic stand up mould, who probably ought to have done more when you consider that at his best he was good enough to decision Billy Graham. I'm not sure about the welterweight ratings back then in 51, but it seems that the loss to Humez cost Eddie a crack at Gavilan, who ending up facing Graham of all people instead. Thomas's career after that never really took off again when Wally Thom upset him and he was done at just 28. The snippets of footage that I've seen sort of suggest where Buchanan and Winstone got their foundations from. Much like Curvis I think he would have matched up very well with the likes Stracey, Jones, Laing, Honeyghan etc.

Dower will probably be best known on here for being tanked in one round by Pascual Perez, but he was a far better fighter than that imo who languishes in the massive shadows of Lynch and Wilde, even the lesser shadows of Kane, Paterson, Monaghan and Allen (who he took out in 2). Very nice and nifty little pure boxer type with good all round movement and an excellent jab; a bit similar to McGowan in a way without the tendency to cut up, although nowhere near as tough and with slightly inferior overall ability. He'd been on National Service for 8 months and rather unwisely took the Perez fight on just 3 weeks notice, having to shed a load of weight in the process. Perez would have been a bad matchup for him anyway even without the extra baggage, especially with the comparative lack of punch resistance that was also taken advantage of by Young Martin. Still a very, very nice little boxer though. Various snippets of him can be found in the BBC archives and on the British Pathe site iirc. Another one who done by his mid-twenties too.

I'll not go on about Curvis again seeing as I already did that in the other underrated fighters thread, but does anyone have any thoughts on him, Thomas or Dower?

 

I'm not half surprised tbh with the way that Emile gave his ribs the full jungle drum treatment for 15 rounds. Curvis far from disgraced himself in that fight imo even though he was outclassed in the end; it was a fair step up in class compared to anyone he'd faced previously maybe other than Ralph Dupas.

 

Is there anybody there, said the traveller......

 

Cheers thistle, agreed on every point. Thanks at least for replying, this type of thread on here usually dies on it's arse worse than Jim Davidson at a LiveAid concert. There are too few in Britain alone who give fighters like these blokes even the basic attention that their achievements deserve, so I suppose I can hardly expect much more enthusiasm from other regions of the globe.

I was thinking about maybe trying to jumpstart a discussion on someone like Jock McAvoy, or maybe Joe Bowker, Pedlar Palmer or Digger Stanley to see if anyone will bite.....

 

Will somebody throw me a ****ing biscuit?

 

What did you think to Curvis-Griffith, Green Man?

 

Emile was very complimentary about Curvis the last time I spoke to him on facebook iirc and impressed by his resourcefulness and endurance. Curvis vs Cokes might have been an interesting fight at the time if Curvis had had enough left in the tank.

 

I'm bumping this in honour of the late Mr Curvis.