that was a great fight. I was at all of "The Animal's" fights from Randy McGrady thru Scypion. Frank gave pure action for every penny spent. I also was at a lot of Hamsho fights in Atl. City and tons of Philly fights in the mid-late 70's. Except for Franklin at his best in the 70's and occasionally Briscoe, Fletcher and Hamsho were my favorite fights to go to. They provided pure action and with Fletcher, sheer brutality. You can have all the Maywethers and the like and mythical pound for pound guys you want, for me, the only fighters that matter are the action heroes who give you good action and fights for the buck. They are the ones who should get paid the most.
you're right, there sure was a ton of stiff competition around at the time. I always thought Joe Frazier & his gym were never really given enough credit for getting so many young guys interested in the sport of boxing. there was that great era of tough middles in the second half of the 70's & then it seemed like a new breed that turned pro in that 78-81 timeframe. Speaking of Fletcher, I really liked the Roldan fight. back then you knew Roldan by name and record only but had only seen him against another tough guy Teddy Mann. Based on that, I thought Frank would handle the guy but once the bell rang Frank just could not deal with the strength of Roldan and that surprised me. What a strong guy he was if you stood in the pocket with him. And just so awkward in there. I think the tough tough sparring those guys had for all those years effectively wore them out & took years off their careers. There was no path of least resistence which is the only method you see used most often today. How effective would a guy like Jermain Taylor or a William Joppy be if they were sparring with all those tough hombres for a bunch of years?
