A mixed bag imo. Charles's handspeed is fine, but his accuracy in the early rounds leaves a lot to be desired, he lunges in and is off balance when he misses. This content is protected Oma has little problem tagging him with left leads. The last round flatters him because he is hitting a stationary target, a target that doesn't look to be in the best of condition and who has dropped his hands as exhaustion set in. To put it in context Oma had been banged out by Satterfield less than a year earlier and 3 years before the Charles fight had been kod by moderate Bruce Wood**** in 4 rds . A good win for Charles, but not earth shattering imo.
Very underrated left hook from Charles. Oma was a good but erratic contender who managed wins over Gus, Baski, Mauriello, Nova, Satterfield, Fitzpatrick, Gomez..etc.. Charles is using him as a punching bag here in his final fight, he takes a pretty good beating. Oma was normally sturdy and in at least one of his famous KO losses likely took a dive, http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/n...being-knocked-out-by-bruce-news-photo/3350874
Oma was an extremely erratic fighter who was stopped something like 17 times, if memory serves. But he was also respected as a big man with some excellent boxing skills--which I think he shows on this film. He certainly could make his opponent miss and had plenty of subtle moves. His big weakness watching him is that he is clearly an arm puncher. Interesting is how the announcer dwells on his age (34) which is probably below the heavyweight average today. Personally I didn't think his jab was scoring that well on Charles. The wild swings in Oma's career, big wins followed by awful losing streaks, were apparently at least somewhat due to a reputation as a playboy who was often in less than good shape for fights. And there were also rumors of dives. On the other hand, off how many KO losses Oma had, a stoppage by Bruce W is not a head-scratcher of any kind. Charles simply looks like a very talented fighter to me.
I have never seen a film to judge, so I really don't have any settled opinion. I am just pointing out that off their records, Bruce W should have had punch enough to potentially stop Oma.
I have absolutely no facts on this, but I was just looking at Oma's record and there is one fight that stands out as sort of...smelly. And that was his fight with Tommy Gomez. I don't know too much about Gomez other than he was named to that 'greatest 100 punchers of all time' piece from Ring Mag awhile back. He seemed to be a tough dude, but when I saw that Oma stopped him in the first round the bells went off. From the film of his bout with Charles, Oma certainly wasn't much of a puncher. To be precise, more of a slapper. Again, I know nothing about the fight, but that result just looked a little funny on paper to me.
Tommy Gomez is, I think, a fighter with such a heavily padded record that it is almost impossible to tell how good he really was. Oma in the Charles fight did occasionally throw a straight right from the shoulder coming forward. That punch might have potentially been heavy enough to stop a 180 pounder with a bloated reputation. Gomez to me is an American Urtain. How good? Who knows? It wasn't a totally phony resume, like Lamar Clark--he did beat some worthy opponents--but it is a "stat" resume.
Every Charles punch is underrated in a wider sense. Every single one of them. He never gets a mention for any of them.
What the hell was Oma doing with his hands down by his waist standing straight up with his chin out? I'd look good against a fighter who did that. I can't help but wonder how Charles would've fared with a bobbing weaving in ur face ......or chest anyway Joe Frazier or Jack Dempsey. Be a hell of a fight with those 2.
Oma was only stopped 6 times in 16 losses in like 80 fights when he returned to boxing in 43 as a consistent contender. 3 of these are suspected of being dives, one was a late sub against Mauriello , one was to all time great puncher Satterfield, he went the distance with both in rematches. I stand by my choice of words. Oma was erratic but could be durable, he apparently survived a bad beating against a Walcott who was tagging him at will, and here against Charles was eating countless power shots with no defense. He was stopped 17 times, yes, but 10 of those came in the first year of his career, 2 more were in the first year of his comeback, the other 5 were spread out over many fights and many years and under the circumstances outlined above.
