I really have not seen much of Carlos Deleon, only clips really. He was however, one of the better cruiserweights in the history of his division. I think he won fragments of the cruiserweight title on some 3 or 4 separate occasions.. What was your impression of him, and how good do feel he was?
He was a good technician. Not much dedication and prone to bad lapses in concentration.Not a fighter that could be relied on to turn in a good performance. he was already past it by the time Holyfield got to him, with the poor cruiser division allowing him to hang on for a lot longer than would have been the case in a tougher division.
Hung around WAY too long from what I remember. Looked okay against a peak Holyfield well past his best, relying almost completely on skill. And did appear to have solid skill in that fight.
..............He was technically solid enough to always be at or near the top of a painfully bad division, so I think anyone first seeking him out may look at the title of "four-time champion" and take that out of context. The truth is he was rather ordinary. Not really proficient at any one thing, but decent in a lot of ways. Certainly not without skill, but badly lacking any kind of X-factor that he could have used to build on and make more of what he had.
No he did not hang around too long IMO. Granted he could of done with staying retired following the Sanders fight, but he learnt his lesson post Nielsen, which was only his second fight too much; which is not bad for former title holders in this sport! To answer the question, I always thought he was a little overrated by the magazines in the 80s. But he was a sound fighter, if a little flaky, he gave a fair effort against a peaking Holyfield, and looked impressive beating a streaking Sammy Reeson over here, when some of us figured Sammy had caught Deleon at the right time. Looked awful next time out against Nelson in possibly the worse title fight there has ever been, and that was pretty much it for Carlos. To his credit in a decade of superb fighters, he was the only fighter to be a title holder (at the same weight) in 1980 and as the new decade began....
