Holy cow! Great pic of Trejo. See him almost every night at my work. Great guy. Big Salvador Sanchez fan
# Armstrong beat Top 10 fighters all around him between 1936 and '40. # He beat Lou Amber to win the Lightweight title who is an all time great lightweight. # Won 3 of the eight belts and was apparently extremely unlucky only to get a draw when challenging Ceferino Garcia for the middleweight title. Won the three titles in a 10 month period. # Defended the welterweight championship successfully 19 times in two years still a record. # The International Boxing Research Organisation collection of historians have Armstrong as a Top 5 ATG at Feather, Lightweight and Welter and No.2 P4P great. I have never heard anyone state that Armstrong wasn't a worthy champion and in fact his achievements listed above are the greatest in boxing history in the minds of many students of boxing. I have no doubt of Jones Jr talent but where are the defining fights. That you run Armstrong down for poor opposition and say Jones Jr talent wise is superior to anyone is somewhat contradictory. There are better boxers than Robinson and Robinson couldn't fight on the inside............. There are better boxers than Robinson............... There are better boxers than Robinson..................... Who are these better boxers than Robinson??????????....... Robinson could box standing on his head............and he proved it unlike some of the other "greatest talents of all time". I'm new to Eastside but I've read this stock answer a few time........it seems that when arguing in the face of reason the answer is........."I've read every available fight report and newspaper article on boxing in the last 80 years or I've watched all the footage including very rare film. Well I have 29 of Robinson's welterweight fights on film which cost me serious money over the years but I suppose as a multi-millionaire I have to spend my money on something. I also have the second Greb v Tunney fight on film which is a real humdinger.
10 years later the champions happened to be Willie Pep, Ike Williams, Ray Robinson. True, it's unlikely Armstrong would have beaten all 3. But those 3 guys didn't beat all-time greats to hold those titles either.
Let's take the IBRO's historians opinion for a second as a starting point: Featherweight ATG's 1 Willie Pep 2 Sandy Saddler 3 Henry Armstrong 4 Abe Attell 5 Johnny Dundee Lightweight 1 Benny Leonard 2 Roberto Duran 3 Joe Gans 4 Henry Armstrong 5 Tony Canzoneri Welterweight 1 Sugar Ray Robinson 2 Sugar Ray Leonard 3 Henry Armstrong 4 Barbados Joe Walcott 5 Barney Ross I like these lists as I think they look at the full history of boxing and include the old timers fairly in their considerations. I also think as they are compiled by a pool of histoians they are fairly balanced. The IBRO have Armstrong in the top 3 at feather and welter and 4 at lightweight. Coming up from featherweight Hank would have strugled with SRR at welter. The Ike Williams fight was well within Armstrongs grasp and a fight between Armstrong and Pep in their primes would have been some contrast in styles. Looking down through history Hank would have held his own in any era and thrived the way he did in most decades. The IBRO hasn't forgotten about Packy McFarland either and have him at No.16 ATG lightweight.
I think he means that there are more boxers who have better fundametal skills than Sugar, but these guys are not overall better fighters. I dunno is it true robinson used more of his own natural speed, and reflexes than learnt boxing fundamentals in the ring??? Robinson's defence was good not great and his infighting was pretty great to me...
Excuse my language, but... IBRO don't rank McFarland in their P4P Top 25. That's a horrible ommision to me, proving most of the historians who contributed to that list don't know **** about him. They also ranked Jack Blackburn at lightweight, which shows they don't know **** about him. The fact that they only ranked McFarland #16 at lw shows they don't know **** about him. I never questioned that. Abilities (talent) and achievements are two separate things. You want me to list every Robinson fight I have with duration, resolution and screenshots to prove that I have them?
Go fot it.....its always good to know whats out there in the rarified collections. If you haven't got them archieved I'm sure it would be good for you to put your film together in a list.
I think Robinson's fundamental skills were unbelievable. He mastered every punch in the book and could deliver knock outs with both hands. His footwork is superb and he was dancing long before Ali copied him. Robinson was Ali favourite fighter as well. There is plenty of footage of SRR at middle and when fighting in a counter punching style dancing style he is hard to pin down....ask LaMotta. Robinson did get hit but he was lightning quick and he had a chin. Also there have been few better boxing brains than Robinson. Robinson fought in a strong era but was regarded as the greatest fighter of any weight class in his time. To be honest I have read some shite on a couple of threads today but I think the manner in which Robinson's talent has been questioned tops the list. Everyone to their own........I could watch Robinson all day long and for me he is the type of athlete that only comes around once a century.
I'm doubting the weight (132 pounds) given in that report for Gunther bout. Several months prior to that (October 13) Blackburn weighed 152 lbs at 3 PM for the Temple bout. A week after the supposed 132-lbs bout at New Castle, Blackburn was to have met Tony Ross, a heavyweight (he weighed 180 lbs later same year) at Pittsburgh. Now, I know that sometimes it happens that the weight difference is huge, but I don't think they'd allow lightweight go against heavyweight, they are not crazy at Pittsburgh. Ross couldn't get in condition and Blackburn met Gunther again instead. Blackburn had no reason to meet Gunther while weighing 132 pounds anyway. The other time he did make 133 pounds at 6 PM, but as I wrote previously he was so weakened by making weight, he couldn't get a sweat even after two rounds of fast fighting, and after 3rd round he began to weaken fast, his punches lacked steam and he was hurt badly by punches to the body. Between the rounds he actually dragged his legs to get to his corner, barely able to walk. This is despite having 4.5 hours to gain weight back and recover some strength.