What are your thoughts of this pencil-like welterweight? I liked him as a fighter, thought he had a lot to offer, if not spectacular. Good power, a better left hook and body attack than his stablemate Hearns, though nothing like the explosiveness or overall skill of Tommy and a good boxer too.
I thought Hearns developed a better left hook to the body later than Milt ever had, but Milt's left hook was ok, but Tommy had a better right. Milt was overrated a bit. Thomas Hearns was so great that people thought that all Emanual had to do was have another 6-1 1/2 fighter and he would be as good as Hearns. So people immediately annointed Milton as Hearns, and he was not as explosive or as powerful or as good a boxer. From 1-10 Tommy was a 10 and Milt was a 5 or maybe 6. Milt was a decent fighter but very average. Curry actually had the same problem as Milt. People annointed him the next Leonard, but Curry was closer to Ray than Milt was to Thomas.
i liked milt but felt that he was cast in the hearns mould which he was never going to live up to, sorta like mark breland.
He was extremely overrated when he was undefeated.Too many people trying to make him into another Hearns when he wasn't showing that kind of talent or power. Nowadays he's probably relatively underestimated, especially with the way Curry knocked him out.I think he would fare well with the majority of subsequent Welter champions(though that says as much about them as him)and at his best was a better, slightly grittier standup boxer than the more lauded Forrest.More solid overall than the other lanky standup guys Breland and Blocker, though Mark was the best offensive talent of them all. His gutsy effort against McCallum deserves a lot of respect.
He was very tall for his weight class but I believe weight draining eventually took away from his punch resistance. Now the Curry left hook would have knocked most fighters out and McCrory showed his toughness in getting up, but he looked shaky even before the knockout. Against McCallum at a healthier weight he looked a lot more sturdy until eventually succumbing to awesome punishment. At his best he was never a special kind of talent but nonetheless a solid boxer with physical advantages going for him. [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbwqPcKKKPY[/ame]
I thought he was stronger and more resilient than he looked, being so thin. He stood up to an excellent body attack from Jones when a guy like Breland would've caved for sure. The first McCrory-Jones fight was interesting, a tale of two fights really. McCrory controlling the first half with Jones dominating the second. I thought a draw was fair. I'd like to see the second one. I know he put Jones down in the first, which from what I've read was more or less the margin of victory.
I liked Milton as a fighter, actually thought he was better than Donald Curry up until the Colin Jones fight, and then I felt Donald had surpassed him.He had mentioned in an interview that he had to lose a lot of weight to get down for the Curry fight, but I think Donald surpassed him in skill once they became champions.Interestingly, I think he may have beaten Donald in they had fought like they proposed in late '82/early '83.
Milton was a nice fighter who improvement was lacking from a certain point in his career, certainly could've been better than what he was.
He was overrated I think because of when he came along after Hearns. He was marketed as a tall lanky guy like Hearns, but his reach was only 73 inches if I recall. Hearns was 78.. McCrory was tall but his reach was not so great for a tall guy.
Manny Steward was quoted as saying that when the Ice Man started with his hands in proper position, his hook was actually harder than the Hearns right, but this was largely dismissed as hyperbole by Manny at the time, the sort of thing that has continued to undermine others such claims by Steward (such as his statement that Lennox was the greatest HW Champion since Ali, something few think Manny ever actually believed). After Hearns, I would rate Kenty as Steward's best Kronk coached product of the early 1980s, then perhaps Milt.
