This content is protected That's a seriously tough draw. Watts, Hagler and Kalule all in your first seven bouts? Granted...he was probably always going to incur a high number of stoppage losses. His chin wasn't great. It was plainly written on the wall: he was stopped multiple times in the amateurs (granted by hard punchers like Alan Minter and Emilio Correa Vaillant, but still. Headgear and everything...) He could have certainly used a touch of mercy in his matchmaking, however. It started bad and never let up. Forde would end up losing to Luis Resto (yes, that Resto...but Forde went the distance with him, so I guess this was before Panama Lewis started loading gloves and was still restricting his cheating to crushing asthma pills into water for stamina boosts), Mike McCallum, Juan Domingo Roldán, and Matthew Hilton, plus several less recognizable names. Amazingly, in the midst of all that, he did manage to somehow eke out two pretty impressive wins. He beat Dave Boy Green and Kirkland Laing back to back over a three month period. Shows he wasn't entirely useless in the ring. He would later work at Gleason's gym and helped trained fellow Guyanese pugilist Michael Benjamin.
I think this is probably the case of poor record keeping of his early fights. Despite fighting at a high level as an amatuer it's hard to believe he made his debut against a guy like Watts and then jumped into the ring with Marvin the next bout. Guyanese newspapers mention a final record with something like 27 professional wins. So he is probably coming into his "debut" with at 15/16 bouts under his subspecies. Take this guy below. Pretty much since the 'recs inception he was listed a 3W-5L or something like that and people used to take it as gospel to put **** on Duran for defending against a relative novice with a losing record. https://boxrec.com/en/box-pro/253 Mind you one of the Roberto's weaker and more forgettable opponents from his lightweight reign.
