Style. Technique. Delivery. Basically things that mediocre to good fighters did that impressed you far more then the over-all fighter in general. Hell, even poor fighters with attributes that always caught your eye would be good. I just watched Buck Smith vs. Antonio Margarito, and I liked Smith's left hook. Hit Margarito hard with it several times. Marg's great chin showed even back then. I can see how Buck stopped Kirkland Laing right before Laing would go on to knock out 14-0 Trevor Smith in a good fight and then stop 37-1 Antoine Fernandez, both for titles in the UK.. And Laing's fight before Smith? 35-1 George Collin's. All decent British fighters. Got to hand it to Buck, epitome of a fighter who remained local his entire career and never much branched out... Went over to the UK to be fed to Laing as he climbed back from a loss only to ****ing knock him out. Got to love the underdog. Wonder if it did it with that hook... So, who've you got?
I always liked Ross Puritty. Big strong guy that held those hands up real high. Almost like Sven Ottke and he was a heavyweight. Like Ottke, Ross the boss couldn't punch real hard, but what he would do is walk thru anything and have the other guy back up. He might get outhit 8-1 or something but he sure wasn't going anywhere. Big chin and determination and you had to be in top shape to beat the guy. Not someone to show up out of shape against or have that B game for. Beatable for sure, but there was some other heavies I always wanted to see him in there against & I think he could've had some more wins. He was a road warrior and I wanted to see him and Hide. Or Grant. Or Dokiwari when he was on that undefeated early ko streak. Maybe Ibeabuchi even.
Carlos Quintana, i just like that style, he used it so well against Williams when he beat him. Slipping Williams' very innacurate sloppy jabs and making him pay roughing him up with awkward overhands and strong counters. I just thought of this now TBH, but i did think it was quite good to watch. Also, when James Hare was on that winning streak of his a few years ack (i must say i was more of a hardcore fan in terms of present day boxing round that time), i used to look forward to seeing him fight. Every time he fought it went like this- both men are standing off one another, and then the other guy drops, no1 saw what happened until the replay showed Hare hit him. He did this all the time, hit guys with short unorthodox punches on the point of the chin that the opponent never saw coming. Proof that if the mind is not ready for a shot, the fighter can be felled. By the time the Sky TV guys were realising that Hare was doing this, i was expecting it, as i was watching him a lot.
Wow, extremely well said. He wore down more then one very good fighter keeping those hands high. High guard + unbelievable chin = death for power punchers with limited durability. Look at how he did against Tommy Morrison and Wladimir.
I have a lot of respect for him in that Vitali bout as well. I sure didn't like it at the time, because it was 2 of my favorites fighting each other. How Ross the boss takes some of those shots I'll never know. And he got hit on the button too. The funny thing with vitali is that he only throws that straight as an arrow right hand when he starts teeing off on an opponent. The rest of the time it's his normal wide hook & he never even threw that A#1 against Lewis. But it's a fight finisher when he throws it. Ross took it better than anyone and it was that nasty cut that stopped the bout. It looked like you could slip a credit card in that cut though, but there's Purritty walking forward with those hands up and chin tucked. Like I said earlier, I sure wanted to see him in some matchups against other guys where I think he can win late. JL Gonzales was another guy I wanted to see him in there with. Alex Stewart. Botha.
