Overlooked Skills/Traits Of Certain Fighters?

Oh. I thought it was you I irked when I first said it, sorry :good

 

Those KO's are savage. I think Cervantes was very heavy-handed, quite a bit more than his KO percentage suggests tbh. Quite a few of his decision wins came early on his career iirc, a bit before he'd fully developed his style. He fought quite a lot of tough nuts too: Montilla, Kim, Furuyama, Thompson, Mamby, Locche etc and quite a few others. Had some other good wins apart from the ones you mentioned too, over Lee, Thompson, Gonzalez, Giminez and the like. I've heard quite a few whispers that Duran bypassed him slightly and wasn't very enthusiastic about the job when it came down to it in terms of risk/reward etc. That fight might have been a lot tougher for Duran than some realise imo, his style would have played to Cervantes' strengths in some ways. Not that I'd make Cervantes the favourite when you look at how Duran handled strong types like Buchanan and Palomino, but he did opt to fight off the back foot against Hector Thompson for long stretches. Better for Duran to pursue the more lucrative fights up at welter really.

Locche and Benitez were just poison to Cervantes, though I think he did better against Benitez than most give him credit for. I know what you're saying about not getting into him immediately, he's got the Monzon syndrome in the way that you have to watch him a lot to appreciate him fully, though he was probably never quite on Monzon's level all round. Arguably the greatest light welter ever in terms of achievement if we're only going on people who were champions at the weight. His only real fault was his slight lack of pace variation against the types who didn't give him enough to counter. That and not having the fastest hands against two savants like Locche and Benitez, and being ready to be taken by the time Pryor came along. I wouldn't rule out Cervantes beating Pryor actually, if they'd met in their primes.

He's a fighter that I've come to appreciate in quite a big way.

 

Who said that?

 

Thanks, as always, great post from you :good

And yes, I'd agree with the general sentiment: 'Monzon syndrome' indeed, and yes, a notch below but a dominant champion nonetheless. A fight with Muangsurin was a missed opportunity when both shared the lead and were fighting regularly, and a much more do-able fight than Manos de Piedra.

I imagine it's the amount of tough operators he fought, like you suggested, that see him both perceived as a lesser puncher, and also made him appear less of a puncher in some footage.

I mean, he's no Julian Jackson in the footage: but his shots came in choppy and, with his length, seemed hard to judge and hurtful if they met their target.

And yes, definitely one of the greatest 10 stoners if we're talking about 'Light Welterweight' as a bona fide division. Still top ten when taking into account the likes of Canzoneri, Berg etc etc

 

Some peeps did back on the Classic, Pea.

And recently, there was a chat on here about 'light welters that would genuinely have little chance of putting Hatton away'

Some obvious feather fists were mooted, but I saw Cervantes name chucked in the mix as well.

I've been focusing on ten stone after the last couple of weeks; deciding it was no better time than to really focus on Cervantes, I am glad to see my findings have cleared up any (if there was any ) controversy, and, at the same time, maybe shown some peeps some nice footage of Cervantes ;-)

 

Cheers man. Nice avatar btw, just don't let some some **** walk in and shoot you in the old bi-focals.

I'd forgotten about Muangsurin actually. You're right too, it was probably a missed chance in hindsight. The other thing I'd meant to say that might have affected Cervantes as an overall puncher at times was that he was a bit of a headhunter and not the most committed body-puncher. He was similar in body type to someone like Arguello, and we all know what bodyshots added to Arguello's arsenal. Poor Kobayashi......

 

The name/pic were picked by a friend :good

Cervantes was just fairly cumbersome I think, over stepped a lot when swinging for instance, but knew how to use his lanky frame: and I think that's probably why he went for the head more, to stay up straighter.

He was VERY dirty in the De Jesus fight IMO.

Kobayashi: I haven't seen too many people raised from the deck by body shots :-( Is his fight with Tetsuo Furuyama available? Lion impressed me a bit in the one fight I've seen of him.

 

Yeah, fair points. I think he had to be dirty against DeJesus in a way so as to impose his size fully and stop DeJesus working his way forward with the left hook and getting his own offence going. Reminds me of Saddler a little bit in that fight actually. Speaking of Saddler, someone mentioned Elorde on this thread I think and I might weigh in with something on that fight later on. Elorde's overall skillset doesn't get much of a mention anywhere tbh; he was outboxing Saddler pretty clearly for my money in that fight. Superb ring general.

I've not heard anything about any film of the Furuyama fight tbh, I'm not sure how many of Cervantes' defences were filmed. RagingBULL or GreatA might be the ones to talk to (as you probably know ).

 

On Elorde: I imagine his non-title win was much of the same. I also made a comparison to Saddler re: De Jesus fight, so good comparison there ;-) :good
Elorde was a quality fighter; I've still not seen much of him though. Only the Saddler fight, where he is admittedly quality. More dirty ****ish tricks from Saddler there though (like Cervantes a capable, long fighter who knew every filthy trick in the book, Saddler more so than Cervantes from what I've seen, probably the dirtiest post-30s fighter I've ever seen

Back to De Jesus fight: As always, a quality punch picker, De Jesus was getting to Cervantes after their insane opening session. I'd agree that Cervantes felt the need to rough him up to re-assert himself after almost dropping the ball in the 1st when De Jesus rallied to buzz him a couple of times.

In summary, been much more impressed with Cervantes now I've given it time to settle and have re-visited him. Top-notch fighter indeed, good blend of attributes=ATG 140lber IMO. Which is all I'd heard of him before I first watched him, maybe I was expecting too much. Now I wasn't expecting too much I have been astounded by him.

 

I was talking about this on the Classic yesterday, it's a good shout. Obviously a great deal has been made of Pacquiao's arc of progression under Roach, way too much imho, his balance, his footwork, his jab, defence etc and so on. But his feinting and drawing people in is the most notable improvement alongside his right hand. He's become a much better 'trapsmith', I believe was the term, drawing people who usually have very good timing onto extremely well-timed counters of his own. ie. Cotto and Marquez with the knockdowns. Roach knows how it works with this, the sly old dog. Most trainers nowadays don't bother to teach their fighters this type of thing, so when a fighter uses it against a fighter who can neither use nor spot it, it only serves to double the level of effectiveness. It's worked better as Pac has moved up in weight too, something I think Roach was banking on all along. You see the bigger fighters like Mosley, Clottey, Margarito etc flinching at the feintwork and becoming wary of throwing anything, as Swarmer (with whom I was discussing this) rightly pointed out, for danger of walking onto a single hard counter which if it doesn't severely hurt them anyway is followed up by a midrange bulletstorm from nowhere. And Manny isn't frightened to take a few shots to get his own lumps in.


Like I said, though his improvement is quite overstated at times, it's good to see him taking on board this type of thing.

 

I said it:twisted:

 

The size difference between De Jesus and Cervantes is enormous too, isn't it? His fight with Thompson looks like two middleweights in the ring.

Saddler, great though he was, is pig awful to watch most of the time, probably moreso than any other great fighter I've seen.

I think that Elorde-Rivas is on youtube btw. I wish Ortiz I and Laguna were available though.

Sorry, I'm in danger of highjacking the thread here....

 

Yep, have only seen Ortiz stopping Elorde in their rematch.

Will watch some more of him next week I think :good

But this week I've got more to do on 140.

 

How do you rate buchanans win over Ortiz? Not worth much considering Ortiz was at the end of his career or do you think it adds anything to his legacy?:good