How highly thought of was 'Sweet Pea'..

except about three of them were robberies that actually should have gone his way.

 

At the time he was considered superb, I think most assumed he would also go down as a great.

Defensively, I think there was a healthy debate as to his place in history. I do not remember too many looking past Burley as number one, but after that Whitaker's name deserved consideration.

But again as mentioned, he was respected not loved. I like my boxing and am very confident that know more about the sport than 99.9% of people, but still even I would turn off many of Whitaker's peak fights.

I was not alone; I remember Whitaker/Chavez was not shown on UK TV, and there was surprisingly little fuss made about that...

 

He was sometimes hard to watch. Very tactical and defensive, similar to Floyd in that respect. I appreciated some of his performances, but he certainly wasn't a casual fan's type fighter.

 

Possible better than Floyd... did you mean clearly better?

 

Huh? Did you mean did well to win against the great Julio?

 

Wut? He won almost all of his big fights? Are you thinking of the right guy?

 

He won them but he didn't "win" them.

 

I meant what I wrote ( that time )

 

I checked the record. It was a draw.

He did damn fine work to earn that draw against such a great fighter.

 

It was a draw officially, but but it was a bad decision. Pernell outboxed and, at times, outfought Chavez standing right in front of him. The WBC favored Julio and bad scoring helped him against Whitaker, almost saved him in the first Randall fight and won him the second Randall fight.

 

Local PNW fighter and champion Greg Haugen, who Whitaker handily defeated to capture his first title, and who later faced many of the best fighters of that generation including Chavez was asked who the best boxer he ever faced was and Haugen said, "Hands down Pernell Whitaker".

 

I love Mutt but he wasn't exactly happy about the beatdown he got in Azteca.

 

I think his offensive abilities and his entertainment value were and still are massively under-appreciated.

 

There are no robberies or deliberate bad decisions in boxing. Just decisions fanboys disagree with. Why would Mickey Vann or Franz Marti, neither of which lived in America, and both of which worked for other organisations, give a sh it whether or not Whitaker, won, lost, or drew in Texas?

 

All kidding aside, you're not serious, right ?