Fighters that couldn't be beaten in a brawl

This is interesting to me, these are fighters that couldn't be beaten by brawling. They got be out-boxed, out-moved, out-thought, there were ways to beat them but you couldn't out-and-out outfight them. They're also some of my favourite fighters.

What's fascinating to me is how different they are. There are similarities - and a granite chin is among them so I won't be mentioning chin from hereon in - but it's the differences that make them really really interesting. Here are some of them, maybe you'll add a couple or tell me why i'm wrong.

Kid Gavilan

KG, the keed, was actually out-brawled, but only late in his career by the likes of Ramon Fuentes. When the two met when KG held the title, the champion out-brawled him at a canter to take a ten round decision.

Most instructive on film is his first fight with John Bratton. Bratton tried a hybrid style, giving ground, brawling, giving ground, brawling, trying to pick his spots. Gavilan split his jaw and dominated him savagely for fifteen rounds for his trouble (the third fight seems to have been an even worse beating).

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Check out two minutes for an instructive spell. Bratton goes all in on a brawled exchange and is consistently out-hit. The last despairing left hook he throws over the top before getting beaten back is really sorrowful and it made me sad to see it - KG then just tees off on him with right hands as he's going back, bludgeoning him to the ropes. In colour this fight would be stopped during the follow-up barrage KG lands on him. This is just the first round

In the second, Bratton spoils (forgivably) but in the third he's back on the front foot and mixing lead-rights in with a body attack. KG stays low, invites him in and tries to counter. Very patient. It's amazing how much he makes Bratton miss while letting him run this round. Brawls break out at 4:50, 5:50 and KG puts the frighters up Bratton in both - then he goes to his boxing and runs some rounds together.

But Gavilan just waits. Bratton's reputation was for a fighter who boxed and then made quick war in the final few seconds of the round. Gavilan, I think, plotted to win all of those exchanges and he did so on the evidence of the truncated film we have here. It's masterful execution that rather reminds of the undoing of an honourable mention, more of which later.

And that's the key to the Keed's anti-brawling style. Patience. He waits and waits for the right moments to out-brawl the opponent. His excellent defensive skills keep him out of trouble in the meantime against all but the likes of Robinson and his absolutely elite stamina - Keed is in the top 0.001% here - means he can deliver on his trap for the fullness of fifteen rounds if required. His dearth of power meant it was often required. He's the best advertisement for an anti-brawler who can't hit.

Dick Tiger

Tiger is a bit of an anomaly power-wise. Terry Dowens described being hit by him like being hit by a bag of coal, but he didn't score that many knockouts. I think the problem was that people just knew they didn't belong in the pocket with him so they didn't allow themselves to get hit that much. Tiger's weakenss was boxers but he turned a lot of very rugged men into sub-standard boxers who didn't have a hope in hell of beating him because they didn't want to fight him.

His record against brawlers was absolutely outstanding. Florentino Fernandez the huge Cuban puncher tried it on against Tiger in 1962 and Jesus Christ did he get a shellacking.

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Tiger went right for him and I think got hurt to the body in their very first exchange. Sometimes Tiger showed a slight inability to adapt, and perhaps his greates weakness was he felt that if a fighter was "running away" from him, that fighter was losing. He complained endlessly after losing such a contest that there wouldn't have been a fight if it weren't for him and therefore how could he have lost it? A minor swarming adaption could have brought him even greater success. But in brawls he consistently read the messages brilliantly. Look at Tiger's guard for the rest of this fight - elbows tucked in, slightly low, over his front foot, coming in behind a punch, taking it close. It's a perfect designation for avoiding punishment to the body. (Dumphy's observation that Tiger has his "gloves up high" in commentary is not accurate - rather he has his chin down very low). Tiger crowds his man and it comes at the expense of getting hit with combos when he gets caught on his heels, but he leads with punches of phenomenal commitment; a great defence when undisturbed is married to surety in his ability to hold a punch when he is found while attacking.

Tiger used solid boxing ability to force the brawlers hand and then consistently out-fought him. But key to his unbrawlability (now a word), is his phenomenal strength. Tiger looks like a modern-day steroid freak in his musculature but this was not for show, nor was it a numbing draw on his limitless stamina. His functional strength was off the charts; he once threw the strong Gene Fullmer straight to the canvas during a test of strength. Brawling Tiger was like fighting iron. While The Keed used his smarts, Tiger relied upon his enormous strength and durability to make himself the brawler's bane.

Of course, Tiger was famously out-brawled - but dragging his 5'8 frame up to light-heavyweight to take on perhaps the deadliest puncher in the history of that division isn't relevant here. All these fighters could be out-brawled if we look at this example - Gavilan could be out-brawled by Hagler, and so on. Brawling outside your weight division is asking for trouble.

1970s/60s Bantamweights and some Honourable Mentions

I want to stop here and take a note of the elite bantamweight brawlers of the Olivares era. These men were not brawlers remember, none of these guys are, these are the anti-brawlers, the guys it is impossible to brawl and win, but there were a horrible vipers nest of them in and around this era. Olivares was eventually out-brawled by Herrara; Hererra in turn was out-brawled by Olivares; Harrera and the perhaps the greatest contender in bantamweight history Chucho Castillo swapped fights where one out-braweld the other for spells; Olivares out-brawled Castillo - in amongst this madness were elite brawlers like Pimentel and Borkhorser, it was ****ing crazy. This is worth mentioning for two reasons - one, any one of these guys deserves an anti-brawling passage of their own and their rivalries are instructive of a fact: specifically that there is no such thing as a fighter that is immune to brawlers which kind of defeats the purpose of the thread, but i'm pitching something near-as here. Anyone can land a perfect punch.

Which leads me to the definitive HM, Manny Pacquiao. Wtf are you doing trying to outbrawl Manny you ****ing nut? Well, Marquez was trying to finally get the nod. IMO he won II and III with skills but in the end he chucked in the towel and instead roided up and decided to knock his man out. And it worked and it was very very beautiful. He drew Manny into brawls, changed the angle, dipped and punched, something he'd been doing throughout their rivalry but upon which he never relied as definitive strategy. Here, he did, changing Manny from the ultimate anti-brawler to the ultimate KO victim in a high-level brawl. Tough break.

The same can be said for Roberto Duran. Watching him reduce the brawling Barkley to a victim (it was close but come on) is one of the most special things i've ever seen in boxing. His left-handed strategy to keep Hagler off him was also a thing of incredible beauty. Unfortunately he ran into Tommy Hearns and got outbrawled onto his face, like Manny. Tougher break.

Finally, I want to mention Vitali Klitschko. He's promlematic because he was only involved in one out and out brawl and he lost it But it was on a cut. He has all the attributes required to be outbrawlable and I'm not sure I would bet on anyone other than Lennox to pull it off, and perhaps not twice. Tough luck Vitali.

I was gonna do Sandy Saddler/Henry Armstrong as a comparison but 10,000 characters is my lot

 

^ Some cool nominations.

 

One cool thing about this subject is it's very hard to nominate heavies or cruisers. Once you meet a certain minimum requirement for weight there are just too many very hard punchers in the division for it to be likely. Even if you cordon them off into little weight islands and nominate anti-brawling styles there are too many guys on those islands who could end a fight with one combination for anti-brawling to really negate the opponent.