This content is protected Did anyone in history take better angles than Sal? He moves like poetry in motion. And he could punch and take a punch! What couldn’t this guy do? Against a great fighter too. When I watch Sal in action, I see greatness above greatness.
Tied with The Bloody Battle of Bayamon as my 2 favorite fights. Truly great fight from 2 FW ATG’s. Sal is just unflappable and smooth and composed.
I always roll my eyes at those who mention that Azumah had so few fights before this match, as a way to try to detract from Sanchez's victory. I would only ask them, what exactly are you seeing there that you personally could identify as a dead giveaway that he was so unlearned and amateurish? I mean that MUST be the inference if you're mentioning it in this context. What was he showing you in that fight that you would put down if he'd had 30 or 35 fights? I personally see a lot of skill from Nelson there, and a good fight plan.
The only thing you could say is that he didn't appear quite as refined defensively as he did a couple of years later against Gomez, and you wonder how that version might have fared against Chava. But, offensively he was pretty much the finished product, had a really good game plan as you said, and certainly didn't do a bad job of maintaining his form even when Salvador started to get into a groove. It's pretty obvious he was legit at that point in his career.
Ah, one of my favourite filmed bouts. Sanchez is the stoic poet, so loose and smooth. His boxing makes you watch him, not the opponent. And he clearly enjoyed himself too.
I love this fight. I usually watch Sanchez’ career set once a year the week he passed away and I purposely skipped last year so this years viewing will be even more enjoyable.
Obviously knew of this fight but that’s the first footage i’ve ever seen. How sensational was that? I know it was highlights of each round, but they were enough! I suppose you could say technically for 2 great fighters they both threw defence out of the window but who cares.
The other thing to say - and a point someone else made on this forum a while ago - is that Nelson was a substitute so Sanchez had certainly never seen him fight before and hadn't trained to fight him so he had to make in-fight adjustments to deal with this unexpected challenge, something I always see as the mark of truly great fighters. A rematch may have seen a better prepared Sanchez as he would have gone in with his eyes wide open to the threat Nelson posed.
You know when people who don't watch fights that regularly and only watch the odd live event on PPV say 'that was a great fight!' even when a fight was just pretty good? Sanchez-Nelson is one of those fights that I am always tempted to show them and say 'if you think that was great, you need to see this', because that was an unambiguously GREAT fight.
To be fair Nelson really can't have been peak. He gained poise and experience thereafter and certainly this fight didn't hurt his self belief. It would be unfair to Nelson to say he was beaten here at his peak. It is however a great win as Nelson despite his lack of experience really did fight a great fight and would have beaten many a big name even at this stage on this night.
A rematch may have seen some other things as well. Nelson was known to be pretty good at changing things up and adapting/adjusting in rematches.
Sanchez could have been one of the chosen ones. Did he ever look tired? Did he ever look flustered? Dude prob had a poker face during the vinegar strokes.
Yeah, good point. It would have been intriguing to see how it would have played out for sure - a future fight down the road in '84 could have produced a different outcome maybe - though it's very hard to speculate of course. But it's hard to imagine a rematch being better than the fight they had in '82.
