Oddball matchups that actually happened

Thought we could do a ‘Ripley’s Believe It or Not’ type thread and see what we come up with.

I’ll get us started:

Iran Barkley vs Gerrie Coetzee: Iran cut his teeth at middleweight, has some success at super middle and didn’t quite cut it at the higher levels at light heavy.

So what’s a poor guy to do? The Blade moved up to heavy and won seven straight fights I think it was (against journeyman type opposition) at heavyweight, starting at 205 and settling in the 220s … he was 230 for this one.

Coetzee had been off more than a year before coming back to win his return and then getting KO’d by Barkley in what turned out to be his retirement fight. Gerrie was a bloated 253 for this one.

Floyd Patterson vs Pete Rademacher: Pete, an Olympic gold medalist, decided to cash in on that accomplishment by putting together a financial package for Patterson to defend against him in his pro debut in a gimmick fight (the gimmick being the amateur had zero pro fights before challenging for the most important title in all of sport at the time … the world heavyweight championship.

Patterson, as he often did, managed to get knocked down by the debuting challenger, and got up to win by KO.

What are some other puzzling matchups?

 

Battling Bozo and Slapsie Maxie Rosenbloom would like a word.

These two somewhat/sometimes comedic light heavyweights fought, I think a few times, with Bozo getting a draw at least once.

Bozo, aka Curtis Hambright, was a colorful character from Birmingham, Alabama, who would do things like tap an opponent’s shoulder to get him to break a clinch, making the other fellow think it was the referee, then clock him on the break; he would cup his ear as if listening to the other guy’s corner, carry on conversations with ringsiders while exchanging volleys and wing his right hand up windmill-style only to throw a left uppercut.

(I think he once got in trouble with the law post-retirement when he was running a restaurant and short on customers by introducing the concept of topless waitresses.)

Maxie, too, was an entertainer who happened to be a fighter. So I’d rate their now-obscure meetings as higher on the clown-vs-clown scale than Baer-Galento, although the heavyweights were far better known.

 

Yeah, if youre playing how to connect fighters of different eras à la However-many Degrees of Kevin Bacon … Muhammad Ali vs Archie Moore can get you there.

Like let’s connect Butterbean to Joe Louis:

Butterbean fought Larry Holmes who fought Muhammad Ali who fought Archie Moore who fought Jimmy Bivins who fought Bob Pastor who fought Joe Louis.