Julian Jackson vs John Mugabi

Yeah, but Mugabi was a very fast starter as well. And Jackson was beating worse competition than Mugabi was on the way up.

He should have fought a "mid level guy" before fighting McCallum. But he went straight from C or D plus competition straight to McCallum.

Then he won a vacant title over defenseless In Chul Baek.
Drayton was old and fading and Norris had no chin.

Don't get me wrong, Jackson was very good, but also very limited at the same time.

Same with Mugabi.

Prime for prime this is a shootout.

 

And Mugabi hit much harder than McCallum.

 

Mugabi didn't have the chin of McCallum, or the skill, or was as good picking his shots.

 

Irrelevant.

Mugabi still hit a lot harder than MM who took out Jackson in 2.

Like I said Jackson couldn't take anything like the punishment from Hagler that Mugabi took, at any stage of his career. Hagler would have walked through Jackson the way he walked through Tommy and stopped him inside a round.

He COULDN'T and DIDN'T do that to Mugabi. Therein lies the difference.

Or to simplify it even more for you. Pre Hagler, Mugabi had a chin. Jackson only ever heard about other peoples.

 

What Jackson did was come back and show he had the character, intestinal fortitude and actual ability to be champ.

That same chinny Norris that Jackson decimated in 2 rounds came back and obliterated Mugabi just 6 months later in one round.

He also moved up and won the Middleweight world title over Herol Graham which was a huge win for him. Graham was a very good fighter.

Jacksons resume is light years ahead of Mugabi's. He is also the far better fighter. Mugabi would have a punchers chance but Jackson is far sharper and is more skilled. His offense is more compact as well. He would be a solid favorite over Mugabi.

 

A favorite, sure, but maybe not "solid favorite." I see this as fairly close to pick'em.

Edit: Sorry for the necro, but I didn't realize how old this thread was! I had just re-watched a few Mugabi fights, and I immediately wondered about a potential match-up with Jackson. And once I Googled it, this thread came up.

 

Marvin missed more left hands vs. Mugabi (whether that’s age, timing or just something in Mugabi’s style throwing him off a bit) than you can count. If he’d landed more of those, we might have seen the Beast cracked earlier.

I think Julian finds Mugabi clean in an early exchange and it ends the way a lot of fights did for the Hawk, with his opponent going down as if shot by a sniper for the full 10-count.

Jackson KO 3.

(I know it’s unpopular to pick ‘even’ or ‘even-ish’ matchups to end early, but it happens all the time in real matchups that did happen. These guys could bang so it could end at any time and I’m saying JJ gets home first.)

 

Jackson for me hes the better boxer much more precise puncher. Jackson has underrated skills, and i think hes more accurate punches get the job done within 6 rounds.

 

Mugabi has become sadly underrated nowadays. This fight is closer to 50-50 than people might believe.

 

You must mean for his division & accounting for actual in ring weight right?
If so I completely agree.
But not remotely so in absolute terms.

He may hit as hard as the hardest LHWs, & if you include guys who for decades rehydrated to approaching or possibly over 190, that is really saying something!

But the latter is the very furthest you can go.
Remember Jackson's results depended in part on the effects of punches on men clearly smaller than even same day/actual 175 lbs. mean.

 

All good mate.

He's a solid fave for me, absolutely. I don't rate him near as high as quite a few seem to. Jackson is on another level for me and that's reflected in their records.

 

I rewatched Mugabi's Rene Jacquot and Duane Thomas fights and have to say I was not massively impressed. The Jacquot fight was probably the most bizarre championship winning fight I have ever seen with Rene jumping about like a chicken after breaking his ankle. Fair play to him trying to continue though. I thought Thomas looked the better boxer in their fight and Mugabi seemed over confident and then utterly disheartened by the stoppage. I honestly cannot tell if it was a thumb or not but John seemed to fold very quickly, perhaps looking for a DQ win?

Don't want to be too hard on Mugabi, he showed lots of guts against Hagler. But when I started watching boxing I only saw him get KO'd by Norris and McClellan and he didn't seem to have much going for him. The Hagler fight was great and on paper he only lost to decent fighters up until his late 90s comeback. None of his performances apart from Hagler seemed that impressive.

 

Realised I didn't really answer the question! I think JJ would win. It does sound like Mugabi had two careers, pre and post Hagler, but JJ just seems to have the more solid credentials. I rewatched his first fight with McClellan and he landed a lot of hard clean shots, and until the headbutt it seemed a pick em fight, I just can't see Mugabi withstanding similar blows. I am starting to think the Hagler fight was a bit of an anomaly on his record as John seemed quite susceptible to hard punchers in all his other championship fights.

I mean it took Mike McCallum to give The Hawk his first loss, and while I suppose I could see Mugabi blasting him out in a war I rate McCallum a lot higher than The Beast. While I don't think Jackson would have won I do think he could have been given another round or so vs Mike and he also wobbled Mike to his boots in round 1, who had a steel chin.

 

I agree

I tried to make solid points of why this woud be a competitive shootout but I seemed to be in the minority. Hell I even thought the usually crazy and long banned FOXY made some good points about Mugabi's worth but being Foxy he underrated Jackson and predicted a blowout the other way

 

I don't think hes underrated i think hes rated exactly where he should be. Hes class below Jackson in most departments, and Jackson with his better accuracy, technique, and better boxing skills. Should be favoured over Mugabi and rightly so. Its not a 50/50 fight, because Jackson is a higher class of fighter than Mugabi. I'm not writing Mugabi completely off and he has a chance, but i do not see this as a 50/50 fight at all.