[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH_6dOsbzMo[/ame] Hardly a great display of DeJesus's abilities as the opponent wasn't much, but any footage of DeJesus outside of the Duran fights is hard to come by. Here is atleast some.
Poor quality film of DeJesus defending the title against Buzzsaw Yamabe for those who haven't seen it: [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3yynKBLPbQ[/ame] [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bDFLsT1AJg[/ame]
Brilliant stuff TGA, thanks for posting. De Jesus could really string shots together wonderfully at his best, shortening or lengthening as appropriate to the range and keeping the defensive radar in tact all the while. It's almost like watching Napoles bombing out Urbina there at times (in fact, some of the technical aspects of their game look identical - the way they throw that left-hook straight-right combination for instance).
That is exactly what I was thinking. DeJesus wasn't perhaps quite as accurate as Napoles and the opponent wasn't in Urbina's class, but I couldn't help but to compare the two having reviewed both fights today. [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5oVr4jN7Ek[/ame]
Awesome! Thanks. Gotta love Dejesus. He reminds me a bit of Napoles in this one but with only good, not flawless, footwork.
Critics say Duran never legitimately knocked out a great lightweight, but it was his knockout wins over DeJesus which prevented Esteban from being defined as an ATG at 135! Nobody else ever beat Vita at the weight, and he only lost to reigning champions.
The danger with these fighters is that they end up getting overlooked. That's obviously a danger with any older fighter, but particularly one who's best known for losing to a great - especially a figure of controversy like Duran - as they end up just being another guy who got knocked out. There's much more flattering footage of, say, Mosley laying out over-matched opposition in his "reign" at 135 and people just presume he'd do the business against a De Jesus-level operator. I mean, if we had footage of De Jesus beating Lampkin, Viruet, Ishimatsu etc. and only getting trounced by Mayweather to show for Mosley's career, you can imagine how distorted the picture would be. This kind of film puts things in a whole new light.
I've seen the DeJesus vs Ishimatsu and Viruet fights. Never saw the Lampkin fights though, DeJesus was probably at his best then.
Excellent post. Actually, it's fortunate for DeJesus that his reputation can be bolstered by extant footage of him in winning situations aside from the first Duran fight. It makes one wonder about all the near greats who weren't so fortunate to have such high profile media coverage and filmed records of their careers. After Duran I, all boxing fans knew who DeJesus was. Duran II, III and Mamby were all aired on live high profile English language broadcasts. Rodrigo Valdez is another who's very much in the same boat, cordoned off from acclaimed greatness by the presence of Monzon. Beat Briscoe thrice though, and only he was ever able to take Bad Bennie out.