Edwin Rodriguez RTD1 Derrick Findley

1. Rodriguez started at middleweight himself.
2. Findley is disadvantaged in size in 100% of his contests.
3. Findley has gone the distance with: Curtis Stevens, Matt Korobov, Andre Ward, Fernando Guerrero, J'Leon Love, Maxim Vlasov, and Gilberto Ramirez Sanchez and not been down once in those bouts. He also soaked up plenty of leather in his two round war against Fonfara, but scored the bout's only knockdowns himself. AFAIK, he was only ever down once before Rodriguez dropped him twice in a single round - and that was a shot after the bell to end the 5th landed by Phil Williams in their 8-round draw.
4. Findley has literally walked through and laughed at the power of guys like Ramirez Sanchez and Stevens, willingly blocking with his face.

 

:good

 

He means 1, actually. Findley, despite his diminutive stature, is a career middle and super middle, splitting his time between them about evenly.

(though, granted, with Rodriguez coming in a couple of pounds over the limit at 177, this was technically a Cruiser bout...)

 

True but those are some of the best super middles.

Of the non-elites he is capable of stopping a good deal and can outbox those he can't stop. (like George)

He's no slickster but neither is he a caveman. There's as much a gulf in boxing skill between Rodriguez and someone like George as there is between the elite and Rodriguez.

 

There were two knockdowns, though...

AFAIK he was only ever down once before, on a foul (after the bell shot from Williams)

...and he really did eat up power shots like candy from Curtis Stevens, never so much as wobbled, and commented that "Stevens doesn't punch very hard IMO".

(I don't know exactly the interview or context in which that came up but the remarks were referenced by the commentator on the SNY broadcast of Findley vs. Russ, a former boxer whose name escapes me, but who knew Findley personally... apparently the accumulation from Andre Dirrell lighting him up was more painful and debilitating than anything he took from Stevens in almost twice as long...)

 

I was going to offer to upload that match, by the way (Findley vs. Russ) in case anybody was really keen on seeing it and missed the replays on SNY - or doesn't get it.

...but then, I realized that would be an inordinately time intensive task - involving holding my phone up to my TV screen to record in small batches, and then uploading them one by one - and decided the hell with that, nobody wants to see it that badly.

Findley cleaned Russ' clock, though (although he shipped lots of leather in the process, in customary fashion - obviously, as that giant lump didn't come from nowhere) - and the commentary about his resiliency and his firsthand accounts of comparing the power of past opponents was interesting.