[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBcJ_XbTgNI&feature=related[/ame] This guy ...Freddie Steele was 125-5 in his career! He broke his breastbone in a January fight that he lost in 1938 but fought twice the NEXT month and four times that year before he lost his middleweight title to Al Hostak. These guys were tough back then. In my opinion he would be the champion today against any of the current middleweights.
Purses were small compared to today and there was a lot more competition for not as many titles in only 1/3 of the weight classes there are today. You had to fight more for less. This weeded out all but the very toughest and skilled. Compare 8 weight classes back then with one champ per weight class, to 24 weight classes and 4 champs per weight class today. The eight back then had to take a much rougher road than the diluted 96 today
Indeed, they were tougher than steel, but I can't help but notice fatal flaws in their technique quite regularly.
I agree. I've uploaded a couple other of his fights to my channel as well. Here he is KOing former champ Vince Dundee: [yt]NUL-6M9wKwA[/yt] Here he is against another underrated '30s MW, Fred Apostoli: [yt]fE8KiGA4EEU[/yt]
