Spotlight on the Criminally Underrated, vol. I: Stephen Felipe "Two Pounds" Forbes

...bka Stevie Forbes, the man known even before first embarking upon his pugilistic career (a decade in the amateurs from the age of ten followed by eighteen years straight in the pros) as "2lb" - his premature birth weight - has been retired since 2014, when he lost a sixth consecutive decision, having never previously had a skid worse than just two in a row. He turned his attentions to coaching and promoting, and has put on shows in his native Portland, OR. He will be returning in April, however, on the next of his own cards, in a welterweight contest vs. TBA snapping a 4½ year absence, now on the wrong side of 40. I'm not sure where he is going with this, but I support him and just hope to see him not get hurt.

For the young bucks, Stevie was an ultra-slick lightweight & super featherweight contender in the late 90's and early aughts, holding the IBF 130lb title for two years at the very turn of the century. He trained at various points with all three of the Mayweather brothers (Roger, Jeff, and Floyd Sr.) and sparred frequently with a young PBF...so if you spot a bit of their family signature in his style on film, know that he isn't a poseur (like Adrien Broner years later) - he was practically a member of the clan, and his skill-set was sharpened on the very same whetstone as that of "TBE".

He was a hard-luck fighter who never complained about the rotten breaks he caught, and kept trying in earnest for a comeback in his post-championship years. He'd lose, and get right back in the gym and start working on the next climb up the mountain. He shone on The Contender, helping bring some legitimacy onto the reality show, and then arguably got robbed in the series' tourney finals against Grady Brewer...and was unequivocally jobbed HORRIBLY in his subsequent bout with Bernard Hopkins' nephew Demetrius. Just when he got himself going again scraping past formerly hyped prospect Francisco Bojado, the GBP firm came and tapped him on the shoulder to be Oscar De La Hoya's tune-up in between the Mayweather and Pacquiao fights. Now, it might be a stretch to say that Forbes "softened" up the Golden Boy for Pac-Man to make short work of, but he did put up a hell of a lot more resistance than anyone expected (including a bemused Oscar, whose surprise almost blended annoyance with newfound respect), ignoring the script in what critics widely derided as being an enormous mismatch on paper (ODLH was a natural light middleweight, after all, whereas Forbes was if anything a smallish lightweight - and ODLH was perceived as slightly past his prime but still a major player, and until very recently had been a fixture on p4p lists) and bloodied the Mexican-American icon's nose in a performance that, while less successful than his old training partner's, was certainly more courageous than Floyd Jr.'s, and with greater (albeit isolated, and never with adequate concatenation to win any individual frame) moments of offensive success despite Forbes being cut from the same cloth (stylistically and in defensive-minded temperament for the most part).

After that, our happy but star-crossed warrior took on a prime unbeaten strong natural 147 pounder Andre Berto in yet another cherry pick, where he was more competitive than expected in defeat (the scorecards were wider than they ought to have been), and thereafter he was never able to get himself back on track. His stock at this point had fallen low enough that he was getting the B-side treatment (and the shaft on the judges' scorecards) even against journeymen, when he couldn't stop them. He was only ever stopped once even in these lean years down the stretch - and that was by Karim Mayfield after having the kitchen sink thrown at him for almost 10 rounds nonstop.

With the advent of social media bringing fans & fighters closer than ever before, Stevie has been a breath of fresh air - never using his platform to proselytize about religion or extremist political views (although he is very involved with raising awareness of Native America issues, being one-quarter Choctaw and highly reverent of his grandfather, a still living tribal elder who even today doesn't speak a word of English!) and instead just providing a consistent and clear-headed rational viewpoint on the current scene while encouraging and cultivating young talents. I have always found him a pleasure to wax fistic with, and he knows his stuff.

Basically the kind of guy it breaks your heart to imagine coming back for the wrong reasons...but somehow I doubt that's the case here. I think he just has to scratch that itch. War Stevie!!

 

Sidenote: as of when he cherry-picked Forbes, it wasn't even known that DLH would be taking on Pacquiao next (that actually sort of got slapped together last-minute). It was instead widely assumed that he and Mayweather, having set PPV records in 2007, would rematch in the second half of 2008, and DLH - ever one to stack the deck in his favor, saw the Forbes match as basically a way to sneak in some extra practice against Floyd's unofficial "little cuz`n", basically milking the fans with an HBO main event that was seen by contemporaneous insiders as nothing more than a dozen rounds of glorified, public sparring in prep for The World Awaits II.

 

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Cheers, this was fun, looking forward to doing some more.

Forbes' most important wins in term of his personal achievement were his pair over John Brown (when he won and retained the IBF title) but he also brilliantly schooled K9 Bundrage in the Contender semifinals, a win that aged very nicely when Don King guided K9 to a light middleweight title reign some years later.

Sidenote: nope, Oscar was looking to regain his WBC light middleweight title from Mayweather.

 

IMO the peak weight at which Stevie - within his style and given his bodily proportions - could be really effective (and this is talking in his prime!) was light welter. His record above the 140lb mark, since first exceeding it when he knocked out Arthur Cruz fifteen years ago, is 11-11 (5). So while I understand that even a gym rat can't fight genetics and the ravages of middle age forever, and that he's probably too pudgy to ever get below 140 again, I really hope for his sake that whatever opponent he picks for April is no hard-hitting big, natural 147.

 

5′ 7½″ - with his frame (and with his lack of serious pop to keep the giants honest and hold them off from mailing him) - is ridiculously tiny for a welterweight. The fact that he was even competitive with guys like DLH and Berto, already then kind of shopworn (on top of being outsized) is remarkable. Might seem a little strange to say of a boxer with a slick defensive style, but Stevie is the epitome of heart - between the ropes, and beyond.