How many big full-blown welterweights did Armstrong take on ? I know he made about 20 defences of the welter crown, but is it true that most of those were men coming up from lightweight or smaller welters ?
Boxrec is the way to go here. Off the top of my head guys like Furr, Zivic and Manfredo were proper welters whereas Day were smaller. A mix.
Yeah, it looks that way. Ernie Roderick was a proper welter. Pedro Montanez was 144 pounds but had spent his career mostly as a lightweight, or 140ish, so he was a bit smaller. Looks like Armstrong fought quite a few legit welters, esp. if we include his post-title career. I'm not familiar with many of these fighters though, so i can't make any judgement on their quality.
Here's the list of meaningful fights he had at WW (not including any fights that were made below 138 as they're essentially above the limit lightweight fights) Massey, Ross, Garcia, Pacho, Roderick, Fontaine, Montanez, Junior, Zanelli, Junior, Jenkins, Zivic (L), Zivic (L), Rangel, Shank (L), Spoldi, Rodak, Turner, Zurita, Zivic, Jenkins, Turiello, McDaniels, Larkin,Turiello, Shapiro, Angott, Joyce, Robinson (L), Spoldi, Turiello, Wills, Zannelli, Thomas, Zannelli, Davis, White (D), Joyce, Spoldi, Belloise. Any losses after 43 I haven't included because he was too far past prime for it to count in my eyes. Some of these guys were LW's moving up but so was armstrong to be fair. Each of these were a "real" welterweight fight imo and each was against a ranked/avenged/hof/premiere/top 5 opponent.
just looking there, he was only 142 when he fought Garcia for the middleweight "title", Garcia was a full blown light middle at 153.5.
WTF?! Why have I believed for years that Armstrong had beaten Garcia previously at Welterweight? I'm off to committ seppuku.
And garcia was blatantly the best mw in the world when armstrong beat him. I can't recall why from the top of my head but i'm sure of it.
No he'd fought lew massey at ww previously. Champ from feather to welter is amazing but in the context you state, remember he never defended the fw belt.
