Is Danny Lopez The Most Flawed Fighter To Achieve Greatness?

He's certainly one of the most flawed fighter for someone that was able to achieve greatness. Lopez really made the most of what he had. He had almost zero defense but his dangerous power and heart was what really got him far. I think Julian Jackson was also similar when it comes to fighters that managed to have a good career despite their major flaws.

 

Who trained Danny Lopez? You'd think a good trainer would teach him not to stand so straight and take so many hard shots.

 

Bazooka Limon is a good mention. Ricardo Mayorga is also someone that managed to get as far as he could with his obvious weaknesses.

 

Rolly Romero was a titleholder, so if you count that as greatness then it's gotta be him in my book

 

Is Max Baer considered a great?

 

Danny just didn’t defend himself much but he threw hard, accurate punches with good technique. He had incredible heart and powers of recovery.

 

Howie Steindler and Benny Georgino were excellent trainers, but Lopez fought the way he fought.
If you watch Freddie Roach, you would think that Eddie Futch wasn't much as a trainer.

 

Lopez punched very hard. Like many guys that hit hard, he was willing to trade because he had faith in his power. So encouraged exchanges.
Little Red was the only hero, the only idol, that I have ever had in my life; when I was 7 I saw him for the first time and was enamored. When he lost to Chacon, I went to the gym to learn how to fight because I wanted to beat up Bobby Chacon. And here we are 50 years later.
I outgrew that hero phase- and you should, too, if you walk around wearing a jersey with another man's name on your back. As I learned in the gym, became knowledgeable in the business and saw how things worked, I put my idol in perspective.
Little Red could hit hard and was exciting to watch. His whole defense was his legs in his younger years, when he could move pretty well, actually. But he would stand in and trade because very few guys hit harder. He was carefully matched throughout his career because he was easy to hit; the Chacon fight was a good money fight in the days where good fights drew crowds and you got paid more.
In my mind, my idol was a tough, willing guy, that fought his heart out every time. He could end a fight with a right hand at any time and that, and his willingness to take a few to give one, made him exciting to watch.
But a great fighter? No how, no way. If you ever went to a gym, determined to fight just like your idol, you would understand that it is a lot of fun to watch Little Red Lopez fight, but it is no fun at all to try and do it yourself.

 

Right. We have no idea what Lopez was like without their coaching.

People often see a fighter (or any athlete really) and blame the coach for their flaws. I have news for you, learned first-hand in boxing gyms and on little league fields and from observations of high school, college and pro athletes (some up close as in being at practices and then seeing them at games) — there is a difference between coaching and puppetry.

A puppeteer can control what the puppet does. A coach cannot control what the athlete does. He can try to influence, but some horses won’t drink no matter how you try to lead them to water.

Ask any veteran boxing trainer how many times he has tried to teach someone to keep their hands up and chin down only to see the fighter get in the ring and … drop his hands and raise his chin.

Just because a boxer does something a certain way, or fights a certain way, doesn’t mean that he’s following the blueprint of how the coach taught it. To me it’s more like sculpture … some clay is more malleable than other. Some guys are more coachable than others.

Usually with me, and I worked with a lot of guys from day one — believe me it was much more pleasurable than working with someone who brought certain habits from previous experience that you just couldn’t break — I’d watch them for a while just teaching them the very basics of footwork and punch technique and try to get them in shape. Then I’d begin to see how I thought their assets could best be used style-wise and their weaknesses best hidden. I could try to correct some things but if a guy’s natural stance, say, was more straight up and after a long time of trying to fix it we got nowhere, I’d go ahead and go with it and try to teach him to be a better fighter with a more upright style … same with a guy who crouched … same with a guy who was going to go forward and mix it up no matter how you tried to temper that instinct, or one who was more inclined to avoid going toe-to-toe.

A couple of my favorite achievements were taking two guys with no real athletic ability (one of whom is now a bank vice president and the other a chiropractor) to state Golden Gloves titles. They weren’t there to become pro boxers but they wanted to try it. First one was kind of soft and had not a lick of explosiveness but once he got in shape we found out what he had in spades and that was grit and toughness. He just kept coming. So we made use of his gift of conditioning and made him a volume guy who just kept wading in throwing six to the other guy’s four. The second was very short and short-armed but had good feet so we decided to make him an in-and-out guy who would engage in short bursts and then slide out to the side, move around until he found another attack point. He’d have four or five exchanges a round and probably win three or four of them. We found what they had that would work and leaned into it.

It’s a big bag of physical ability and temperament and their sort of natural rhythm and style. Somewhere in all that mix, the ones who stuck with it we’d find a way to make it work the best way possible within all of that. It’s why most great coaches don’t have one cookie-cutter style that they try to fit every fighter into, because that doesn’t work well — you don’t want Ali fighting like Tyson nor Benitez fighting like Dempsey, nor vice versa.

 

Hi Buddy.
Excellent write up on Lopez as a fighter, few could have said it better, also the backdrop to your journey with Lopez is equally interesting, sometimes it's not all about the boxing, the anecdotes and asides are what make up our younger lives, so a good piece ,and thoroughly enjoyed the read, as is the case with most of what you contribute .
stay safe hombre, chat soon.