How good was Virgil Hill???

I enjoyed watching him fight though he could be less than impressive at times.. His first round stoppage of James Kinchen was one of the earlier fights I've seen him in.. I've since viewed his title fight with Bobby Czyz and several others.. He failed to capture the imagination of the public and most certainly the casual fan.. His style was more about "not losing" rather than actually going out and "winning" if that makes any sense.. But he had sound boxing skill and good movement.. Plenty of stamina and reasonably good chin as well.. Probably the biggest thing he suffered from was lack of competition.. The light heavyweight division wasn't in the greatest shape for much of his reign and by the time better opponents came around, he was too old to beat them..

 

Here's his 1989 KO of Kinchen. It was only a round.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDBY4cXABWk

 

He was a very good and under appreciated fighter. I do concur however with his critics that he needed some better opponents in front of him while in his prime.

 

There were quite a few decent light heavyweights during Hill's reign, but he avoided most.

For example, after Dennis Andries lost his title to Tommy Hearns (who vacated) and Bobby Czyz lost his title to Charles Williams ... Andries and Czyz fought to see who would meet Hill. Andries won, and Hill fought Czyz instead.

At one point, Virgil Hill, Michael Moorer, Dennis Andries and Charles Williams were all champs at the same time (each with either a WBA, WBO, WBC or IBF belt).

Bob Arum and the USA Network tried to put together a unification, but Hill wasn't interested. He never fought any of them.

Instead, Hill fought Hearns, who was supposed to be old and was supposed to launch Hill into the superstar category, but Hearns beat Hill easily.

Finally, Hill fought Maske (who had dethroned Williams) and barely edged Henry. But Hill didn't put up much of a fight against Roy Jones. And Dariusz Michalczewski beat Hill, too.

If you were rating just the light heavyweights of the 80s and 90s, including guys like Michael Spinks, Qawi, Moorer, Hearns, Jones, Dariusz, etc., Hill would barely crack the top 10, even though he racked up a lot of defenses.

He's kind of like Sven Ottke in that regard. Rank the best super middleweights in the 90s and 00s, including Eubank, Benn, Collins, Jones, Toney, Calzaghe ... and Ottke barely makes the top 10, even though he had a ton of defenses.

 

That's really one of the only times Hill looked like that.

His boring 12-round decisions over guys like Tyrone Frazier, David Vedder and Mike Peak are really more representative of what his reign was like.

Which is too bad. Because, if he opened up more, he might have done just as well and certainly would've won him more fans.

 

No. I saw Vazquez fight a few times. And he wasn't a champ very long. And he wasn't very good, IMO.

Hill and Ottke were good. Don't get me wrong.

I didn't think Hill deserved to be elected to the Hall of Fame a year or so ago. And Ottke was recently on the ballot, too.

I think both only got on the ballot because of all the defenses they made. Hill and Ottke had like 20+ defenses each, three times as many as Vazquez.

There were just content to defend their belts against so-so guys and make decent money. When Hill stepped up to fight the very best, he tended to lose. (Ottke didn't really ever step up and fight the very best.)

 

Hill was much better than Vasquez. Miguel Vasquez was garbage. Hill was a good fighter.

But historically speaking, he's not a light heavyweight great.

His best win was over Fabrice Tiozzo, who was previously unbeaten. That was a very close fight, Hill barely edged it. But it was a good win considering Tiozzo is pretty underrated.

 

Point taken, but Hill was a class above Ottke. Agreed though that Hill shouldn't have made the HOF. But then again, there's plenty of iffy guys in the HOF, sadly.

 

Vasquez is THE most boring fighter I've ever seen. Which says A LOT, cause there's been plenty. So... no. Hill was nowhere near as boring as Vasquez.

The first Tiozzo fight I mentioned is actually a pretty good fight. MUCH MUCH MUCH better than any "fight" Vasquez was ever involved in.

Vasquez should have had his boxing licensed revoked he was so boring. Just a horribly, horribly negative fighter and I hope he's never on tv again.

Hill was more entertaining than Ottke as well. Ottke was pretty effin boring to watch, save for the grand moment when he KO'd Anthony Bumdine.

 

Hill was a regular on tv back then. Always entering to "Final Countdown" by Europe. He was fairly active, usually in good condition, had solid boxing skills & good speed. Didn't have much of a right hand if I remember correctly. Wasn't he a converted southpaw or something? He was all jabs & hooks. He wasn't safety first but he was purely an outside fighter. I think he was a decent boxer who would trouble most guys.

His legacy would be higher if he'd fought Williams or Moorer. A unification tournament was talked about but that would have made too much sense!!

 

I think he was a decent champion. At the time I didn't appreciate him and hoped he would lose every time he fought. I was glad when Tommy beat him.

But in fairness, he was a decent champion.I remember him kicking the **** out of Joe Lasissi, a former friend and sparring mate. Hill was often accused of being a pacifist, and I guess he was. But in that fight he had a mean streak, refusing to touch gloves after a clash of heads, I think it was. He scored a 7th or 8th round TKO, if memory serves.

He fought out of his hometown of Bismark, North Dakota, on a few occasions. It was kinda his base of operations, so to speak.

He was kind of a staple on TV back than. (At least in my country.)