Maybe greats too strong of a word, but he's definitely one of the best forgotten fighters of the 90's in my opinion. "Lil' Hagler" went 37-0 over the course of 11 years in the ring. No mean feat by itself. He was the sole fighter to ever cleanly beat Juan Manuel Marquez in my opinion. Knocked him down too. Unbeaten period at his best weight class, featherweight. Stole two 0's in a row against 23-0 Taskashi Koshimoto in Japan and 36-0 Julio Pablo Chacon in Argentinian. This man was NOT afraid to go into your backyard and kick your ass in front of your friends and family. His absolute destruction of Koshimoto was one of the most one sided fights I've ever seen. Beautiful. The single shot he put him down and out with left him out cold for several minutes. Anyone remember Norwood?
He was ugly at times. Definitely wasn't great looking in the Marquez fight. In his title defense against Koshimoto he looked unbelievably smooth and capable, though.
I don't think he clearly beat Marquez. You could make an argument that he did, but it's by no means clear. And don't forget Marquez knocked Norwood down too - arguably two times. My card from that fight: 114-114 Draw Norwood winning rounds 2 (10 -8 ),4,5,7 and 11. I gave Marquez rounds 1,3,8,9 ( 10-8 ) and 10. Rounds 6 and 12 even. I think, besides the 6th and 12th rounds, a big swing round is the 8th. Norwood got knocked down, and it probably should have been called a knockdown, but it wasn't. I gave the round 10-9 to Marquez on the assumption that Norwood was knocked down (Norwood otherwise controlled the round), but if you don't count the knockdown that's a 10-9 round for Norwood. Now as for Norwood as a fighter? A good little fighter, but no where near great. I was hoping at the time that he'd fight Hamed and knock him out but I think the most likely scenario is that Freddie would have been ko'ed.
