Pep's win over Saddler vs. Lamotta's win over SRR. Two wins for fighters who only won once in a classic series of fights. Which one you got?
Pep's win over Saddler, given the circumstances was in my mind the better, more significant win, given what he had to overcome. A bigger LaMotta beat a younger, smaller Robinson and was promptly beaten in a rematch weeks later. Still a GREAT win given who it came over, but, while Robinson was very highly touted, he was the smaller man(then again he usually was), and had yet to come into his true peak I think. Pep, on the other hand, was not supposed to be able to fight ever again after the plane crash, and while making a good comeback, was blasted out by Saddler in their first meeting. Saddler seemed to not only be the foil to Pep's style, but it also appeared Pep was no longer the fighter he once was. For him to overcome all of that and give Saddler, by all accounts, a boxing lesson in the rematch is amazing. That shows true greatness.
And against the #1 P4P fighter ever in many eyes. Yet, I agree with Pea on this one. My reasoning is the mental concentration and perfect gameplan that was required for him at that point to beat Saddler. It was like walking a high wire between two sky scrapers. What it took to pull it off was nothing less than viruoso.
Sandler was a huge banger, and would have beat Pep before the plane crash. Pep was a better boxer then Sandler but his hands were slower. It was the classic boxer vs puncher match-up. If the fights went the full rounds Pep would have won everytime most likely. I guess what im saying is that they were evenly matched. Lamotta was not even close to being as good as Ray. I would say that Jake's win was bigger cuz it was kinda a fluke, but it took more for him to get the win then it took for Pep.
LaMotta's win over Robinson by distance for me. Saddler was made to destroy Pep. With what LaMotta actually had in his locker, there's no way he should have been able to beat Robinson. He bulled and bullied his way to that victory.
Pep over Saddler was a bigger win because it was evident he was at a stylistic disadvantage and had lost in devestating fashion previously. Plus people thought his career was done after his plane crashed.
Pep's was better the fact that Pep was in airplane crash and came back to win is to amazing to be overlooked.
