Monzon vs. McCallum

McCallum said that Steward explicitly told him that he would get no part of Hearns. Gave him a photo of Hearns and said: "This is all you'll get of him". Later on Manny has also gone one record saying he thinks Mike would have beat Tommy.

I love how Leonard is accused of ducking everyone from Pryor and Curry to McCallum and even Hagler, but nothing gets said about Duran openly ducking McCallum in favour of Hearns, and Hearns quite clearly doing so himself.

 

:good

 

Yea I suppose he'd get an idea if he could take Hearns power in the gym and if that's the case I have a fair degree of certainty that McCallum beats Hearns. Guys like Hagler/Duran/Hearns can do no wrong but Leonard/Jones/Mayweather are hated in every conceivable way. It sways even the objective posters. McCallum would absolutely terrorise Duran, outboxing him on the outside, beating him up on the inside, Duran would not like that body attack, I can conceivably see Duran taking a pasting before being stopped late

People say McCallum was underrated and now he's overrated, actually he's still very very underrated, his resume is underrated, his ability is, so is Kalambay, that was a hell of a boxing generation

 

Duran openly ducking McCallum in favour of Hearns.

What a *****.

 

Actually, those two are fighters you would expect would be overrated here, but I also feel they are underrated. That's only good, though, makes for a good argument.

More irritating is the insanely inconsistent standards for who ducked who and for when a fighter suddenly is past prime. In the rematch against Kalambay, it was actually Kalambay who was coming on strongly towards the end. It's quite unusual that the fighter most removed from his prime is the one doing that.

 

Monzon. Size, range dictation, great straight punching of his own, and strength in the clinches. McCallum might give him some briscoesque trouble, but trouble doesn't mean he'd win.

Escopeta by wide decision.

I agree with some of the posts ITT though; he would have KO'd hearns and outworked a fat, lazy Duran.

 

Agree with this fully. It's all about dictating that pace in this for me.

 

I can't really fault him, though. The risk/reward ratio just favoured a fight with Hearns so much (before the fight, that is).

What bugs me is all these Duran fan boys screaming about how Leonard ducked that one and that one and pushed for that fight at that time etc, but make absolutely no mention of this. An neither is anyone saying anything about Hearns not coming good and defending his titles against McCallum after beating Duran. Instead he took on a lesser fighter, then moved up to MW. Imagine if it was Leonard who had done that... We would never hear the end of it.

 

It's always funny to me how people look at monzon and dismiss him. "oh, he's not that coordinated, can't throw 4+ punch combinations, slow, etc" They miss the point. He's got unbelievable judge of distance combined with great ring generalship based upon not a cheap bullying, but cool confidence and self-belief. That alone would make him a good fighter. On top of that he has size that he knows how to use, great strength, bludgeoning KO power maintained throughout a fight, and a well honed jab, straight, uppercut, and hook. No he is not a slickster or even a complete standup range fighter as arguello would be but he is very smart at setting things up and as a complete physical package he's a horror for anybody moving up into the middles or otherwise.

Very undersold as a complete package

 

He was also offered 10 times the money for such a "ducking".

 

Agreed.

 

Yeah, because McCallum is overtly comparable to Briscoe both stylistically and in terms of class, isn't he?

Wider than the ones he eeked out over a faded Griffith and Valdez, who would obviously both have run rings aroud McCallum at 160?

Hearns would have blasted Monzon out of the ring.

 

-Briscoe "esque". As in, I think McCallum would have applied a pressure fighting and crowding approach. I am not saying he would fight exactly the same.

-Taking shots at my comparisons and then making goofy ones of your own?

- you're a hater of all standup fighters that plant their feet and Hearns would have probably been knocked out by a Monzon fart.

 

McCallum was never a crowding pressure fighter though, he does have a point there.He was a counterpuncher and mid-ring boxer-puncher that liked to turn fighters.

 

yeah, I mean he isn't the best technically, but he is a great ring general. He has all the stuff you mentioned, and good points, plus multi directional movement. He's not nimble of foot but he navigates around the ring well whilst using his great timing as a vehicle for his authoritative shots. He basically wants to keep you at the end of his shots, in HIS range at which HE is comfortable fighting at, not you. If you rush him etc (some have had success like Napoles early, and McCallum would because of his use of angles on offense) his tactic is to simply batter you about the mid section with swinging hooks and the like until you back off into the range he wants you in again, at which point regular procedures are resumed and you're back to square one. Not flashy but very effective.