Kalule vs Finnegan & Seales

Haven't seen it, but apparently he handled Finnegan quite a bit more convincingly than Hagler was able to. In fact the Finnegan fights were supposed to have been among Hagler's toughest in his early career.

 

Kalule-Finnegan fight was a world class boxing contest, a purist's dream. Finnegan, recently described by Mickey Duff as "gifted", really knew how to handle southpaws but Kalule was was already the uncrowned light-middleweight champion of the world and proved a bit too good.

 

6 rounds of the fight was shown on danish TV (I saw it). Unfortunatly it was way before my taperecorder days. Finnegan had one good round landing a heayvy righthand, but the rest of the time Kalule was the better man.
I have not seen the Seales fight.

Woller

 

I saw both fights, and the one against Seales was a bit more competitive than his fight with Finnegan - though not as close as the majority decision would seem to indicate.

 

A question to those of you who have followed Kalule's career...Had he slowed down by the time he fought Ray Leonard? Or is the Leonard win a real quality victory over a very good fighter? Thanks.

 

Slowed a notch i would say, but the main thing was Leonard's own talent and fighting the right kind of fight to take advantage of Kalule's weaknesses.Kalule is like Locche or Maxim in that he just isn't a fighter who will ask questions of you physically ie roughhousing, using his weight on the inside etc.. you will either be skillful enough to beat him or you won't.Even someone as feeble as say Cotto would probably do okay physically moving up and fighting him, though he would be thoroughly outmatched technically.

Moore and McCallum is where his legs and most snap/sharpness/timing had gone, though still a solid fighter who could make good moves.Moore was countered as heavily as he was against Duran, there was just nothing on the punches.

 

Mogens Palle, Kalule's Danish manager, used to say, "I have to saw off a leg in order for him to make 154." Logically, he should never have been battling the scales, he should have gone full steam ahead at middleweight. Earlier in his career he was the Commonwealth middleweight champ, had beaten Seales, Finnegan, Love and Robles and was doing very well. But perhaps Palle saw an easier road to a title at 154 and had him suffer to make weight. I personally would have loved to seen him in the mix with Hagler, Sibson, Minter, Parker, Davison, Hamsho, etc. The Leonard win was still good for Ray, but against a drained fighter. Note when Kalule came back at 160 after a hiatus, how strong he was. Watch his blast out of Jimmy Price on youtube. His wins over future champs Kalambay and Lindell Holmes are also noteworthy. I just don't think he ever realized his full potential.

Scartissue

 

I think Kalule's lack of punching power would hold him back against some of the rougher and tougher middleweights of the time. I think he was probably better pre-title reign than after winning the title. He cleaned out the division of various former and future title holders, but was avoided for years. He was the kind of a fighter who should have been contending for a title inside his first 20 pro bouts, not after 30.

Finnegan was a bit inconsistent. I'm surprised that he lost to Charlie Weir the way he did.

 

Finnegan was a lazy Starling-esque fighter without great physical ability and also cutprone; but tough as nails, cute and strong fundamentally.

He just went through the motions against Weir.Not getting the decision in any of the even fights against Minter, losing on cuts twice to Hagler and then on points to Kalule must have been demoralising for someone who only a few years previously had been on the verge of a shot against Monzon before he broke his jaw in a non-title fight.

 

Seemed like he just gave up there but he showed his toughness by decisioning Sibson and Tonna afterwards.