Pep Vs Pac at 126

That is probably true. At Featherweight, Hamed was much more of a puncher.

Anyone who stood within range was in danger against Saddler, Pep included. Pep was a lateral mover, moved from side to side and under, but was usually always within range. At his best, Pep mastered Saddler, and it makes you wonder how well a truly prime Pep(pre plane crash) would've done.

A boxer off the backfoot is the one I'd choose to master Saddler though. As KG said, Floyd is one I'd favor. Floyd was the truth at 130, so much quicker and effective there than at higher weights, and if he implied the right style, would Decision Saddler. Whitaker is THE perfect style to beat Saddler, but he was a LW, Saddler was a 126-130 pounder, so we don't know exactly how well he'd adapt to LW, though he had the height. But style-wise, someone like Whitaker was the right one.

 

Agreed, and this is a point I've brought up many times, Sanchez fought to the level of his comp. He showed weaknesses and looked lackluster at times against lesser fighters like Badillo as I mentioned, and then looked fantastic against a guy like Gomez.

I think the Nelson fight was defining for him though, because he was fighting someone most assumed he would run through(as very little was known about Nelson at the time), and he had a hell of a time adjusting to him, but he was able to adapt and TKO him late. It was as if he thought he was fighting a lesser opponent, and taking it easy, and then realized half-way through that this guy was no pushover, and turned it up.

 

Yes, and though i am not a whitaker fan, the man was close to unbeatable as any fighter including roy can ever be.

I am not a fan of his style but damn, he was a master with a great chin with his only weakness being a lack of pop in his punches. that weakness though, possibly was the reason he was great at all the other things boxing skill wise as he may have depended on punching power like a Judah or Hamed.

 

:good As you've probably deciphered, I'm a bit of a Whitaker fan.

 

Call me "The Sleuth":good

 

Of course Boxing may have reached the peak most fighters can reach physically and other sports are a bit diffrent as there are no weight classes, so bigger taller faster stronger would apply to these.

College wrestling also comes to mind in comparing eras.

 

Saddler would have KO'd Pac. Pac would get tagged and worn down. Saddler had an excellent chin, and he is bigger than Pac. I think he takes Mannys best shots all night, returned leather, and stops him around the ninth or tenth round.

I think Pep wins a decision. Pep would make Manny miss all night, I mean Manny really doesn't have a lot of wrinkles to his game. He is very fast and overwhelms his opponents with his non stop pressure, but Pep was like watching a genius in the ring, he had it all except punching power.

Saddler beat him because of his size and rough house tactics. It's a testament to Peps ability that he was able to come back and decision Saddler, probably his best win of his career.

 

I have simply to watch footage to be able to tell if a fighter is modern or primitive. Watching a guy like Bob Fitzsimmons, who fought in the late 1800's and early 1900's, you get the idea of a fighter who was great for his time, but not by modern standards, same with a guy like Jack Johnson. Not AT ALL the case for guys like Saddler, Elorde, and Pep.

While today's conditions may be better, the athletes in boxing are not always the best, whereas back in the day, boxing was THE premier sport, so the talent pool was a lot deeper. I agree with what you're saying, but it depends on how far back you go. In terms of techniques, boxing has not evolved since about the 40's and 50's as a whole, that is where the modern era began. The only thing I think that has changed significantly is the Heavyweight division, due to the size of the competitors in recent years as opposed to back then. But then, you see what I mean when I talk of the depth of the talent pool, with the mostly sluggish Heavyweight division we have currently, aside from a guy like Wlad.

For one, Ray Allen is by no means a B level player, how can you be a B level All Star? Second of all, I don't see much in Allen's game that West didn't have. A shot is a shot, regardless of era, and West was just as accurate, even moreso from the field in fact. How do you come to the conclusion that Allen is better? Because he's a better athlete? In that case, look at Larry Bird, John Stockton, Steve Nash, etc. Not top class athletically, but top class players for sure. I bet if Bird played 40 years ago you'd be saying the same thing, but the fact that he's tested against modern competition shows you otherwise.

How about Wilt Chamberlain? I hope you won't even try to say he was primitive. I have yet to see or hear of a big man as athletically or physically impressive as Wilt, even to this day.

Also, while the NBA and top notch professional basketball had only been around about 15 years before it developed such talents as Wilt, and about 60 years to this point, boxing had been around about 60 years before it peaked as well in the 40's or so, so I don't see how it's so hard to see that the sport has peaked, and even began to slide on some fronts from about the 80's.

 

I have seen plenty of Pep, though most of it not in his prime. I have seen clips of him closer to his prime though, and the difference really is something else between a prime version and a post plane crash version.

I have seen plenty of footage of a prime Saddler and a past his prime Saddler. Even a well past his prime Saddler was able to wear down and stop a prime Flash Elorde, despite not having the power or physical ability that he used to.

The footage I've seen of Saddler is probably more definitive than the footage of Pep, as I've seen full Saddler fights in his prime. But did you get to watch the clip I posted earlier? Even in it, you can see how good Pep was(as it showed some young Pep in there as well, the skinnier, younger looking one obviously). His use of angles, feints, and lateral movement is better than anyone I've seen, I still haven't seen a style like it.

 

Most of the footage in the clip is of a past his prime Pep. I'll post it again and tell you what to take notice of, and see if you see my points.

1)Watch the sequence at around the 20 second mark(the younger, closer to prime version) or so when he first appears, watch how slick his feint to the left is, only to slip around to the right and land the counter punch. I don't understand how you can see anything primitive about it, in fact, I haven't seen moves like that in most any era, and I've watched a lot of boxing.

2)You can also see great use of angles and movement in the sequence against Saddler(a past his prime Pep) at around 1:15 or so.

3)You can see how good his placement is and how slick he is at around the 1:40 mark, and then at around 1:45 in the next clip you see how quickly he can go from landing a shoe-shine combo to ducking and weaving whatever the opponent throws back. That was also a younger pep in that clip. Same with at around 1:55.

4) Afterwards, simply watch how good he was at ducking low and weaving punches when Sugar is talking about him winning a round without throwing a punch. Most of the rest of the footage is of him post-plane crash.

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Pep was in another class altogether, Pac is a tough good fighter but all you have to do is look at the last 11 rds of the marquez fight and you will see how Willie would totally outclass him

 

In other words, you're saying that head to head Allen is better. West is not considered a top 10 ATG because of just his skills, he's considered one because of his accomplishments, which is always a top criteria for judging greatness.

You didn't answer any of my other points about someone like Bird though. Does he looks that much better on film than West? No, not at all, then why was he able to do so well? I would bet the house that LeBron would beat him in one on one, but LeBron doesn't have half the accomplishments or legacy, therefore is not rated nearly as high all time just yet. It's pretty simple.

I don't see any edges fighters of today have over fighters of yesterday(back to about the 40's, as I've stated) other than in the Heavyweight division with the increasing size(yet seemingly decreasing skill). Otherwise, technically, the sport has not evolved for quite some time, and while the medicines, supplements(steroids) have come into play, the talent pool has gone down.

 

Is it possible that with yesteryears tech, that the film footage may not be doing justice to the old eras fighters abilities?

 

What makes you think they wouldn't? He looks very modern, and even innovative by today's standards at his best, therefore I don't see where the skepticism comes in. If you were talking about a guy like Ketchell, Johnson, Fitzsimmons, etc from the much earlier eras, I would agree, but with someone like Pep, who fought into the 60's successfully when well past his prime(with guys like Ali, Napoles, etc who most certainly were not primitive), I don't get it. His skills are modern, and innovative, by any standards. I still haven't seen people apply movements and feints like Pep did.

 

Depends on how far you go back. Watching footage of someone like Benny Leonard in the late 20's(one of the first modern fighters stylistically) he doesn't look as good as some would say, but undoubtedly the film plays a role, less pixels, more rigged, odd looking movements, etc. Around the late 30's, 40's and 50's, the film is still grainy, but the timing is right for the most part.