Sumbu Kalambay’s excellent boxing performance against Mike McCallum (first fight)

Incredible fight by Sumbu! McCallum is my all time favorite fighter and the guy I watched the most when I was a fighter. Both guys were so good technically.

 

One of the great performances in MW history. Fantastic display.

The rematch was much more competitive, but Kalambay looked brilliant in that one as well. One of the most elegant fighters I've ever seen. Just in pure boxing skills, I don't know if any MW beats him. Awesome fighter.

 

I agree. It's just like the other thread you created about Joey Archer and Emile Griffin. Those two guys were just phenomenal fighters that really don't get talked about that much. Instead we get threads about Max Baer that last for 10 or more pages. Sumbu was so special.

Thanks for posting some good content on here.

 

Always nice seeing Kalambay, and this performance in particular, getting some attention. He's so underrated it's a joke.

People talk about Graham and McCallum being difficult to look good against, boogeymen to the Big Four, avoided etc., but Kalambay stood both of them on their heads in his first fights against the pair. Could easily have got the nod in the rematch with McCallum, too...But then again, he could just as easily have lost the rematch to Graham, so it more or less evens itself out. However you slice it, 3-1 against those guys (with two of those wins being totally dominant) is a good indicator of Kalambay's class.

I think the loss to Nunn probably hurts Kalambay's standing more than it should. Personally, I've always thought that fight was a bit of a freak occurrence, fluke, whatever you want to call it. Not that Nunn won, of course, just how he won, the sudden nature of it. He wasn't known as a one-punch KO artist and Kalambay was usually hard to hit cleanly. I think if he'd have boxed Nunn another fifty times, that wouldn't have happened again. Kalambay's chin wasn't granite (Graham had him down and buzzed a couple of times over in their rematch) but it was usually dependable enough.

Also not helped, perhaps, by the fact that a couple of his other best wins, namely Barkley and Collins, weren't really established as high-quality names at that point, and went on to bigger and better things after they'd faced Sumbu. I'm sure people who haven't thought about Kalambay in years are a little surprised when they go back to examine his record and see that he beat a lot more quality fighters than they remembered.

Anyway, he was outstanding in that first McCallum fight, made an unbeaten modern great, who still had plenty left in the tank, look totally befuddled and outclassed. Awesome in that first fight against Herol, too. The recording of that fight I watched a couple of times over a few years ago had (I think) four rounds missing - I can only assume Herol must have conveniently won all of them, hence the relatively close scores the judges came up with, because in the rounds I saw it was a shutout for Kalambay! I remember thinking that Kalambay was like Sal Sanchez that night, in the sense that his concentration was scary. He looked so cool and unflustered, not even blinking or flinching as he evaded shots by mere inches, always staying close enough to counter brilliantly.

Tremendous fighter, should be talked about much more than he is. Great thread.

 

Great post and great avatar, Chris. Cheers

 

A masterclass from Kalambay.

 

One of my favorite fights!

 

Kalambay was one of those fighters I would show fighters if I were training them. He and Genaro Hernandez when they are boxing and moving were very impressive.

 

It is a popularity contest. One fighter whom Kalambay beat who I thought would be in the Hall of Fame by now is Iran Barkley. So by saying that I thought Kalambay should be in the Hall of Fame, and I would have thought he was already in there with his great career. I loved his foot movement and counters. He was a perfect fighter in many ways. So fluid. Like I said, if I were training a young fighter I am going to show them Kalambay and Hernandez fights.

 

I don't think anyone boxed as well as this guy in this fight, like ever. Seriously.

 

I think lefties troubled Sumbu: the one-punch loss to Nunn may have been a fluke lightning bolt out of nowhere, but he was vulnerable to the left hand from southpaws. Bomber Graham and Ayub Kalule also had success against Kalambay.

 

Yeah, could be true. I seem to remember that one of the early knockdowns Graham got him with came in a similar kind of way to the Nunn knockout, will have to revisit it before confirming, though.

I've not seen the Kalule fight, but the consensus I've gathered from those who have seems to be that it was an iffy decision and that Kalambay was unlucky. Don't suppose you've seen it and could confirm?