School me: Willie Pep

1. "Willie Pep, in my mind, is the greatest creative fighter that ever lived. In his prime days the man known as "Will o' the Wisp" possessed a defensive ability and an intelligence inside the ring that are unmatched to this day.
   
   Throughout his entire career Pep faced strong and top opposition on a consistent basis, sometimes even fighting twice a week. While doing so, with his great defense he managed to accumulate a super-impressive record of 229 wins and only 11 losses.
   
   How great was Pep's defense?
   
   Just think about this, in a fight against Jackie Graves in 1946, he told ringside reporters, "Watch me, I'm going to win the third round without throwing a single punch." For the entire round he made Graves chase him desperately while he slipped, blocked and avoided every single punch that Graves took and missed widely. When the bell rang, he had won the round on all three judges' scorecards. Enough said".

 

Not that tale again.

 

The round he supposedly won without throwing a punch never happened. His greatest win is the second Sandy Saddler fight. He's top 3 all time at featherweight and most view him as number 1. He's top 25 p4p imo.

 

Once won a fight without even being there...he was that great.

 

He was pretty hard to hit.

 

He won a round before being born. He was that great! Now excuse me as I smoke a cigar and read a newspaper from 1919.

 

No disrespect to Pep as I haven't followed him closely, but didn't Sandy Saddler beat him 5 out of 6 times? How great then was Saddler?

 

In Pep's defense all of those were after he was in a plane crash.

 

WIlliam Jellio Persnickitus Theobromus Peppiliano was born in the ninth ward, Brooklyn, 1912. They say he traces his lineage all the way back to Romulus, Remus and Streptococcus Agalactiae, the first gladiatorial emperors of Rome. Before Italy was just a place where they make sunglasses and squid ink. But let's go back even further, to the dawn of man. They say the first time an ape stood up straight and threw a handful of nutshells at another ape for stealing his woman, the ape that ducked the shells looked an awful lot like Jerome Peppiliano, boxer and taffy-puller to the stars. The man who taught Willie himself. In 1951, Willie was said to have invented something called the "up jab" whereby he jabbed up at his opponents...until they complained about it. He married a girl named Henrietta Walker. They had seventeen children, all of them Catholic, one of them inexplicably Irish. That's when "Pep" changed his name...to Abraham Weinberg. But it wouldn't be long before he realised this was not a name to set the boxing world on fire. Old as he was by then, he changed his name AGAIN. But this time, this time he had the right idea. He changed it to "Sugar Ray Robinson." But while the idea was right, it was also late. Another dude had taken it. So again he changed it to Willie B. Pep. Willie B. Pep, in lockstep, toe to toe and schlep for schlep, he would rap.

Sports writers loved him. He gave them quip after quip like "Most of those predictors got it wrong, because I am going to win. I love onions." and "Every man has a plan and I wrote the book on it." and sometimes "Nobody eats at that restaurant no more, it's too crowded. They don't think it be like it is, but it do." So many admired his wit and his skill that one fighter named Irish Joe Gans actually changed his name to Irish Willie Pep. Henceforth, a law was written to protect fighters from copyright infringement. It was known as the Mann Act. When Pep won the title, many said he would never last. But last he did. And did he last. Willie B. Smooth and Willie B. Fast, Ali would rap about him. Pep eventually lost to a man named Sandy Saddler, a man so unbelievably crusty, he was the origin of the meme "Sandy Vajajay." A grizzled ole side o' beef was Sadler. No one ever spelt his surname the same way once, let alone even twice. Sandly Satler was all sinew and gravy. He was known to have spat upon Pep's younger brother, Wladdy, before a fight. Pep made him pay or it, and pay for it he did. He was jabbed. He was ducked. He was punched some. Oh, Lord it was bloody. Mostly for Pep. Who had some weird bleeding disease he caught from Czar Nicholas' son. He was later cured by a lewd and lascivious priest. He lost the title to Buster Douglas, in 1990. But he was said to have stopped moving his head out of pride, a costly mistake in the squared circle. But Douglas was roughly one foot taller and 100 pounds bigger. The only contest of its kind in history. No one counted on Douglas making the weight safely, so he was a pretty big underdog. He later credited asparagus water and poppy seeds for the feat. But he was stripped of the title for failing a drug test for opium. He blamed the poppy seeds.

 

Gotcha

 

This is like the boxing edition of "1066, And All That."

 

Funniest poster in the forum smh

 

He once won a fight after he was dead. Fact.

 

Pep was Lomachenko before Lomachenko. Or is it the other way around?