This content is protected This content is protected 1. Clinch-filled first, with Charles doing most of the initiating. There are a few brief exchanges in the latter half. Even. 2. Valentino bored in, throwing punches in an awkward style, shooting low, to the body alone, and his punches were half-hearted to begin with. Slow and lazy. Far more active round than its predecessor. Valentino. 3. The two traded blows early. Charles landed a good left hook and overhand right. Charles. 4. Charles landed a booming counter right hand as Valentino came in on him. Best punch so of the fight so far. Charles. 5. Now it was Valentino who was tying Charles up. He's already winded from the little action that has taken place. Charles. 6. Charles appeared slightly hurt at the start of the round. Valentino. 7. Charles. 8. A left-right dropped Valentino, who went down in a lazy fashion. Like his legs were so heavy he couldn't fall very quickly. Final score: 4-2-1 for Charles at the time of the stoppage. Verdict: I saw this fight once before and for some reason thought it was pretty good. I re-read boxrec's article on it, and it said Eddie Muller of the San Francisco Examiner claimed it was "the greatest fight he ever saw". Pat Valentino said it was an exaggeration, and I have resoundingly agree. It was a massive exaggeration. It wasn't a great fight, it wasn't even a decent fight. I have watched quite a bit of Charles in the past (not anytime recently), but have not really given his 40s stuff a serious looks until recently (not that there is much to view). I don't think this is anywhere close to one of Charles' best performances, overall. The right hand punch in round 4 was wicked though. It was actually more devastating than the KD of Valentino. DECENT Charles performance, but not a good fight and not a significant performance.
What I notice about Charles, is that for a classy fighter he doesn’t necessarily work off the jab does he? when you think of Ali or Joe Louis or Sugar Ray Robinson, you get to expect to see a double jab start off the combinations. But Charles punches straight from the stance using classy text book punches that suit the opening. He will lead with an uppercut or a hook or a cross. He does jab, but only when it suits the situation. To counter or to make room and change direction. His poise and punch placements are excellent. Charles circles a lot here. For fighting a brawler he is not using the tactics that worked so well against Marciano is he? With Marciano he was more assertive. Held and often dictated the ring centre. countered well inside, beat Rocky to the punch, turned him, was smart in the clinch, stayed set for the next attack rather than dancing away. Shows how versatile he was. Two different plans for the same kind of guy.
I think one reason Valentino deteriorated so quickly in this fight is because he was punching low, you might have noticed. He focused almost exclusively on punching to Charles' abdomen and nothing else. He had no defense high up when he wasn't punching.
Yeah those kinds of guys used body punches to find their range then Position the body in such a way to trap the opponent up close with tighter hinge-hooks and shovel uppercuts upstairs. Working the body to go upstairs. You don’t see that so much now, but it was effective from the Jack Dempsey like crab style. defensively they fell in behind the body blows looking to protect themselves by smothering to the side of their opponents arms. It looks like they are totally open but they rely on the angle of attack rather than shielding behind higher held gloves and meeting head on. As the rounds go on though, Pat is just chasing him with body punches.
