Non-Greats Who Possessed Sublime Skills

Mike "the bounty" Hunter was a perfect example for this thread and completely slipped my mind.

He was known as a top notch sparring partner from memory and was a truly eccentric and erratic character whose outside the ring issues prevented him from going further with his career. But when he was switched on he was very good. He beat Oliver McCall, Pinklon Thomas, Tyrell Biggs, Dwight Qawi, Ossie Ocasio and Alexander Zolkin who were all better credentialed but he was really tricky, smart tactically and a fantastic defensive fighter.

What I mainly remember him for was when he was brought out here to Australia as cannon fodder for a young Jimmy (later James) Thunder who was being heralded as an Antipodean answer to Mike Tyson at the time. Mike Hunter badly exposed Thunder by completely nullifying his one dimensional style, completely out boxing him and stopping him in 4 one sided rounds.

 

is calderon not a great? he is in my mind

 

Walter McGowan had elite boxing skills but paper thin skin and spent most of his career boxing outside his own weight

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Joel Casamayor from recent times. He looked smooth as butter when he arrived on the scene.

Mike Gibbons supposedly changed the face of US boxing from Minnesota.

 

The 50's and 60's had a number of HWs like Folley, Jones and Machen with very good skills, but who fell short at the very top.

 

Esteban DeJesus.

 

Herol Graham and Herbie Hide

 

Howard Davis - unbelievable in the '72 Olympics. I thought this would translate into a great pro career but it did not.

 

Jimmy Glenn trained Davis he is the guy with his arm around me in my avatar He owns Jimmy's Corner Bar in West 44th St NYC an excellent low priced boxing bar.He is a really nice guy too.

 

He had two great scraps with your Dad in which they one one each, an immaculate boxer.

 

Zahir Raheem.

I still remember watching him shut Erik Morales out in a manner no one had done before in a superb display of boxing. He completely befuddled and off set all of Erik's attributes over 12 rounds in a massive upset and then....nothing.

He lost a close one to Freitas and his career pretty much petered out. The night he beat Morales I thought we were watching the break out performance of a new force in the lower weight divisions. The skills and ability was all there.

 

Bazooka Limon. Wide open for counterpunching. Squared up all the time. Sloppy defense and held those hands low. Not the fastest handspeed guy around by any means. Telegrapher of the highest order. And then he'd fight anyone anywhere.

But what the guy did, aside from his toughness-was bend at the waist so well. Who dipped better? His early days were something the way the guy would dip and fire off major shots. And the effective jab even. He looked off balance all the time and the next thing you knew he was firing off 3 nasty left uppercuts in a row and landing them all. Hard body puncher and he dug those hard hooks of his in with both hands. Brutal. That's something else you rarely see continual hooks to the body before coming upstairs. It seems like everyone loves to come over the top after just 1 body shot.

Just try and think of other fighters having 1 iota of success fighting with Limon's style. What a tightrope act for a fighter to pull off and Limon would do it for 15 rounds even. and even managed to have a long career.

 

Manuel Medina

 

Dominated Chartchai Chionoi in both fights until he was stopped on cuts.