History Lesson: Kid Gavilan

What an absolutely brilliant, innovative, improvisational fighter. This is the guy who gave Sugar Ray Robinson the two hardest fights of his career and was arguably robbed according to fan reactions after the first bout. I've still never seen more varied, unorthodox, yet effective punches in a fighter's arsenal. He could throw accurate, effective bolos and looping punches from different angles. He could box, brawl, and improvise with the best ever at the weight. He had a fantastic blend of both power and finesse, sometimes all at once. A truly fluid, versatile fighter. Granite chin as well. I rate him in my top 5 WW's(arguably just behind Robinson or Griffith) and I rate him 26th all time P4P.

Watch his fights with Johnny Bratton and Gil Turner on Youtube.

 

I think Benitez style-wise could have a pretty good style to beat him. I think a fight with Duran would be unbelievable. Seriously, what an amazing blend of power, skill, and versatility.

 

As high as he rates all time probably. He rates top 5 in both greatness and head to head categories in arguably the most stacked division ever.

Watch those two fights I requested on Youtube, the entire fights. He was really Ray Leonard before Ray Leonard. Leonard's style more closely mirrored Gavilan's at times than Robinson's.

 

He had already won the title by that point, and Armstrong was pretty much shot, but still, good win with Armstrong and great win against Gavilan.

If there were a couple fights on film I'd like to see it would be their two matchups. Unfortunately they're not on film.

 

I think you underrate Napoles greatly if you think all Napoles has going for him is power. I love Gavilan, but I'm an even bigger Napoles fan, and I'll tell you the unbiased truth about both. Napoles was even slicker than Gavilan, smoother in an offensive sense and slicker in a defensive sense. Gavilan was more offense, but both had great chins and great combinations of power and finesse to their game. They rate right there with each other in both categories though. I'd give Gavilan a better chance(and a pretty good one at that) of beating Leonard than Napoles due to Napoles's tendancy to cut. But as far as head to head between Napoles and Gavilan, I might give it to Napoles on the basis that he was an even more fluid, smooth boxer than Gavilan.

 

I'll have to get my hands on it. I'll go out on a limb and say Raging B(_)LL has it in his collection. That limb I'm on is more like a second tree branching off.