Fulgencio Obelmejias and Hagler?

Wasn't Hagler supposed to fight somebody else? I vaguely remember somebody being a replacement, and had a better shot at winning.

 

Reminds me when Aaron Pryor went Sang Hyun Kim on the Korean. Like you said the WBA sanctioned this title farce. Kim had no business in the ring and didn't fight the type of opponents that quailed to even make a good journeyman. Thankfully it was over soon and no one got hurt. Look at his ring record vs. The number one " WBA " contender. Here it is:

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Well, in this case. Kim had been a world champion before, with the WBC. He had wins over Saensak Muangsurin and Ricardo Arredondo. But yeah Pryor was in another whole level.

 

Im not sure, really...

 

Kim was a former WBC champion, was the OPBF champ, and had wins over some recognizable guys throughout his career. He didn't have much for Pryor, but not many guys at 140lbs did at that time.

 

By beat who ( what his record ) and from where? I'm talking about the WBA, not the WBC.

 

The two I mentioned were world champions too. And it stands to believe that if the WBC too recognized Kim as world champion (previously), no less, then it wasn't a WBA "mistake" only...

 

I asked for their records and nation of origin to highlight my point. Sang Hyun Kim never beat anyone good and had no business being ranked #1 by the " you pay now " for the #1 ranking WBA.

As Scaretissue stated the WBA was in with some nations. This is exhibit #B. Really this topic deservers it's own thread.

 

That's it, he wasn't too bad

 

Start a new thread on WBA guaranteed title shots. This includes the WBA title match with DK Kim and Ray Mancini. Dk Kim has no business being in the ring with him, and it cost Kim his life. The match cost more than DK Kim his life. Kim's mother committed suicide by drinking pesticide on January 29, 1983, and Richard Greene, who refereed the Mancini-Kim fight, committed suicide by shooting himself in the head on July 1, 1983.

The end result hurt boxing as well limiting their championship fights from 15 to 12 rounds. It also affected Ray Mancini, who honored Kim by listing his son in South Korea.

 

I disagree. I think Kim’s performance in his title shot, despite the tragic ending, showed he was worthy of being a contender and fighting for the belt. It’s impossible to argue that he deserved a No. 1 ranking and mandatory shot, however.

There are certainly examples of inept challengers in the WBA (and WBC) ranks but I don’t think he was one of them.

It’s like blaming the WBC for allowing Lupe Pintor to fight Johnny Owen because Owen died. Likewise, his performance showed he belonged despite the tragedy.

 

Did DK Kim beat any contenders? No he wasn't worthy of a title shot.

I did not see the Owen vs Pintor mach, nor do I plan to. It was another alphabet special title shot, as Owen beat just one good fighter. The 1980's had a problem with lower weights and men getting title shots, some of them were fatal.

 

I think it’s more complicated than that. Basically for a long period of time you had pretty much American and Brit fighters who were ‘contenders’ and it was a closed door to most everybody else unless they wanted to relocate or were fortunate enough to get a winnable fight against a contender in that contender’s backyard or a promoter with enough money and clout to lure a contender to their lair.

Let’s take Carlos Monzon as an example — by your standard he absolutely did not deserve a title shot. The only meaningful result on his record was a draw with Bennie Briscoe (in Argentina) that occurred more than 3 years before he fought for the championship, so it had no bearing on him getting a shot. And Briscoe was 19-4 at the time, having lost three of his last six (with one no contest, so only winning two of his last six) and that wasn’t exactly ‘omg he held a top contender to a draw’ material.

But he was South American and Argentinian champion.

To me, especially in the days before air travel was more affordable and more common, being the best fighter in Europe (Johnny Owen) or Asia (Kim) makes one a championship-worthy contender — or South America or probably Africa or a lot of other areas of the world. Without a mechanism to say ‘hey, you’re a contender and we’re getting word this guy from halfway around the world is good, so we’re mandating that you fight him so we can see if he’s really contender material’ then there has to be some way for a fighter from an area without other contenders to get in the mix. Being the best at your weight in some area of the world should count for something. It’s WORLD rankings.

Look at the World Cup this year. Nobody said ‘hey Morocco is one of the best four teams,’ but they got the chance to prove it and … they were.

But here’s the thing, and there’s no getting around this: both Kim and Owen, had they not tragically died, acquitted themselves quite well against the champion when given the chance. They pass the eye test. In neither case can you watch their tragic title fights and say ‘oh my this guy is way out of his depth, this is a travesty for him to be fed to the lions like this.’ If they didn’t die, they’d have gotten other opportunities because of what they proved in those losses — and me, your nor anyone else would say ‘what a farce giving that guy a title shot.’

Likewise, there have been deaths in fights where no one questioned a guy’s worthiness to be in the fight where he died. Benny Paret was not thrown in over his head but we still had a tragic death.

The shame of Fully Obel is that he got completely outclassed and get got another shot … at the same champion who showed how far below championship level he was when given the chance.

 

What's fu ny is that the first fight had an impact on Hagler .. I believe Marvin had questions about his stamina and going 15 and in the first Obel fight he almost punched himself put and had to seriously regroup before stopping him ... I feel this showed in Hagler after not going balls rot the wall over than the Hearns fight where he simply was ready to kill or be killed ...

 

He looked pretty decent enough vs. Hagler.