Favourite Performances?

Trinidad-Vargas. A peak performance from an ATG at the top of his game against a young and highly capable champ. The way Tito accelerates through sheer force of will to take over the fight is brilliant.

 

That last sentence is the essence of Trinidad!

 

Great pick! Vargas showed heart, man.

 

Hopkins vs Tito
Spinks vs Qawi
McCallum vs everyone
Joey Giardello vs Ruben Carter
Lewis vs Rahman II
Toney vs Jirov
Duran vs Barkley
Arguello vs Mancini

 

He had to show too much, I think. Jay Nady could have stopped it earlier in the 12th, but allowed Vargas to take too many flush punches. Vargas' corner should have stepped in too. He never really recovered from that beating. But yeah, tremendous heart - the recovery from the first round KDs was remarkable.

 

Tito-Vargas
Marquez-Medina
Buchanan-Paduano
Jofre-Medel I
Hagler-Sibson
Sanchez-Gomez
Zarate-Martinez
Napoles-Cokes I
Frazier-Ali I
Toney-Barkley

Would probably give a number of different ones tomorrow.

 

To me the Watson fight was the best McCallum ever looked. If someone had never seen him fight before, that's the fight to show them.

Some others:
Kalambay-DeWitt
Oguma-Park I, dirty a performance as it was
Starling-Honeyghan
Williams-Czyz I, even though Williams took two counts
Bernal-Kobayashi
Marcel-Arguello

For losses (not counting unjust losses like Everett-Escalera):
Lopez-Espadas I
Santos-Drayton
Carrasquilla-Hong (impressive for a 17-year-old to look that good, even though he couldn't finish the job and got stopped the next round)

 

Michael Nunn vs Frank Tate: Perfect fight from start to finish, Nunn does everything against an olympic champion and undefeated world champion that beat him twice as an amateur.
Guillermo Rigondeaux vs Nonito Donaire: Donaire was awarded as the 2012 fighter of the year, P4P #3 and Rigo made him look ordinary.
Chavez vs Taylor: both of them looked amazing.
Terry Norris vs Simon Brown II: Boxing lesson by Norris and revenge, I haven't seen many 154's at that level.
Eddie Mustafa Muhammad vs Marvin Johnson: Great lesson on how to fight a southpaw.
Dela Hoya vs Mayorga: The first fight I saw, Mayorga was talking mad ****, he didn't knew Óscar was a mean mofo.
Salvador Sanchez vs Danny Lopez: Sanchez with amazing movement and counterpunching from start to finish.
Barrera vs McKinney: McKinney was a really good fighter and Barrera outfought him and outboxed him.

There are a few olympic fighters that had amazing performances: Roy Jones, Lomachenko, Teofilo Stevenson, Vyacheslav Lemeshev, Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Balado, Howard Davis, Pernell Whitaker, Mario Kindelan, Serik Sapiyev, Julio Cesar La Cruz.

 

Billy Joe Saunders vs David Lemeiux: I always thought that Saunders is an elite talent, some of the techniques he displayed against David were elite.

David Benavídez vs Porky Medina: Insane combinations by Benavídez.

Sumbu Kalambay vs Mike McCallum: Great display of footwork and against one of the greatest.

 

Good call. Duran at his peak.

 

Gotta give Mayweather recognition for the way he shut down Corrales. At the time that was a juicy matchup between boxer/puncher (Floyd) against Slugger/Boxer 6ft. Chico Corrales who was knocking people out in impressive fashion.
Mayweather was just perfection that night. You can't do it better.

 

If you want to go to a whole different level of boxing nerd click on Sweet pea vs Harold Brazier. It wasn't one of Whitaker's well known fights but to me that was Pea at his best. Just methodically picks apart a good contender/journeymen Brazier in a way only Pea could do it. He was like a computer shutting down every avenue that Brazier attempted. Not hurting him too bad at the same time sort of a teaching template on how to dominate without being noticed.

 

Agreed. Like Tito, we thought it was over in R1. Vargas had other plans...

I always liked Vargas. Managed poorly, but great fun to watch.

 

Jose Napoles / Adolph Pruitt.
The lead up, suggested Napoles might be a little wary of Pruitt, that Pruitt might be a handful for the champ, for his part Pruitt was riding that wave, maybe the great champ was not so confident, for Pruitt was a good box/puncher in his own right, and looked ( on paper at least ) a live challenger.
Napoles, was ( like Monzon ) the type of fighter that , generally was ok to take it easy, especially early in fights, knowing he had the tools to complete the job, as and when he chose ( Charles fight ) unfortunately, as it turned out for Pruitt, the champ was unusually irked, by all this rubbish being talked, and vowed to do a number on Adolph.

From memory the fight was over inside 2 rounds, a quite rare occurrence for a Napoles fight, and I vividly remember counting the days for the Boxing News to arrive at my local sweet shop ( thats what they were called back then ) well , as you all know it was a massacre , Pruitts face was battered and torn to shreds, there was a picture in that months Ring of Pruitt holding a blood soaked towel to his cheek, eyes closing and bleeding, lips already swelling, dear oh dear !!!
The reporter in his report said ( I will nether forget this ) " it was the biggest mismatch in Mexico since Pancho Villa took on the firing squad "
Those were the days, oh yes they were...

 

Holmes/Shavers I

One of the most artistic displays of boxing in heavyweight history. I love how Larry had a dynamic to the whole fight, only toward the end did he begin actively dismantling Shavers.That fight should be shown by any heavyweight boxing trainer to all who want to learn the Sweet Science.