The BN24 Classic Boxing Hall of Legends

TERRY MCGOVERN

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"That Palmer kept falling over. It wasn't very exciting?" Mrs.Terry McGovern.

Inducted At: Bantamweight, Inaugural
Years Active: 1897-1908
Lineal Champion: 1899; 1900-1901 Featherweight;
Boxrec Record: 60-4-3

How best to remember Terry McGovern? He is known now, if he is known at all, for his victory over Joe Gans, a meeting that took place shortly after his destruction of Frank Erne. This fight was most likely fixed and as a defining memory, it taints his legacy. Had it been the Pedlar Palmer film that had survived and the Gans film that had been lost, I believe he would be regarded as highly as the likes of Stanley Ketchel or Barbados Joe Walcott whereas McGoven seems often a footnote compared to those two men. I’ll go on record here and say that I consider him greater than both of these, a more terrible monument to the sports brutal and wonderful savagery than either, closer in distinction to George Dixon and Joe Gans. His prime, though short, was breath-taking, and for sheer enormity of achievement, it may represent the single most astonishing year in the history of the sport, though Armstrong, and perhaps Harry Greb, would have plenty to say about that.

Although perhaps not. Three true champions from bantamweight (Palmer) to lightweight (Erne) and the briliant George Dixon (Featherweight) crushed in the space of ten short months by a former flyweight is an incredible achievement. Terry McGovern did it all with a smile on his face, and a roar in his heart.

 

CARLOS MONZON

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"He destroys you little by little." - Angelo Dundee.

Inducted At: Middleweight, Inaugural
Years Active: 1963-1977
Lineal Champion: 1970-1977
Boxrec Record: 87-3-9

Inscrutable, impermeable and perhaps unstoppable, Carlos Monzon went an astounding, record-breaking 15-0 in world title fights and went unbeaten despite excellent competition for an astounding twelve years. He was a horror to face and may have been the single best middleweight ever to pull on the gloves. But why?

In a nutshell, Monzon insisted upon one of two things in the ring: either that you put yourself somewhere where you would be available to be hit for three minutes of every round, (with pressure, say, or aggression), or he would put you there himself. From there, he would rely on work-rate and a consistent and resounding accuracy exemplified by one of the most dangerous jab double-right-hand combinations in history (check out his rematch with Jean Claude Bouttier for a particularly withering example).

If this sounds too simple to work, consider Monzon’s record. He didn’t pick up as many ranked scalps as Hagler, but this may be more to do with cultural bias than anything else. Perhaps the likes of Andres Selpa and Jorge Hernandez did not deserve Ring rankings but their records stood at 119-42-27 and 109-6-1 respectively when Monzon beat them during a savage apprenticeship fought in the figurative bandit-country of South America’s wild-west. And when he hit the heights of Ring’s top ten with his domination of Nino Benvenuti, foes fell to the wayside regardless of what number was propping them up at bell. He probably made Columbian puncher Nino Valdes wait too long but when they met not once but twice, Monzon dropped him and bettered him. His title reign is as close to unimpeachable as it was long.

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ARCHIE MOORE

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"I loved it. Every bit of it."

Inducted At: Light-Heavyweight, Inaugural
Years Active: 1935-1963
Lineal Champion: 1952-1962
Boxrec Record: 186-23-10

"I never went out thinking knockout at the start of the fight," said Archie Moore, who nevertheless became the all-time knockout king with 131 stoppages stretching from welterweight to heavyweight. "I'd go in there thinking, "let's see how I can hit this guy without getting hit. Can I work on is ribs? Can I wound him with a punch to the biceps?" A lot of boxers don't understand that a decent shot to the arm can make an opponent back off."

This is the type of considered thinking and tactical awareness that built in Moore one of the most formidable strategic quilts ever sewn. One of the truly great ring generals, he left no stone unturned in his quest for tactical superiority. After stomach surgery left scar tissue on his abdomen, Moore would make a show of protecting it against an opponent, momentarily expose it and then counter the body shot he knew he had hooked and baited. The lessons he had learned against the Black Murderer's Row would finally be unleashed upon champion Joey Maxim in 1952, who he also beat twice in rematches. In his long run to the title he had beaten fellow great Harold Johnson three times out of four, Billy Smith, Bert Lytell and had also begun edging his way towards heavyweight. In defense of his light-heavyweight title, which he only lifted at the age of thirty-nine, he knocked out Harold Johnson, Bobo Olson, Yolande Pompey, Tony Anthony and Yvon Durelle as well as outpointing Giulio Rinaldi and Joey Maxim.

It took him three decades, but the Old Mongoose was eventually able to distinguish himself from the men that harried him so in his youth, Charley Burley, Holman Williams, Eddie Booker and Shorty Hogue all long retired by the time Archie Moore ruled the world.

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JOSE NAPOLES

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"I was lucky to have fought one of the all-time greats – one of the very best in history.” - John Stracey

Inducted At: Welterweight, Inaugural
Years Active: 1958-1975
Lineal Champion: 1969-1970; 1971-1975
Boxrec Record: 81-7

Jose Napoles took the welterewight title from Curtis Cokes, a man who persistently rellied upon his wonderful left-hand to win him fights. Napoles, though, had perhaps the most cultured left-hand in the history of perhaps the most cultured of fistic divisions, welterweight. Napoles staged his first defense against a true great from the last generation, Emile Griffith. Griffith was past-prime and returning to the welterweight division having swapped the 160lb title back and forth with Nino Benvenuti, but he still had victories over the monstrous Dick Tiger, among others, in his immediate future, making Jose's total dominance of him all the more astonishing. It was not a close fight; it was another wide decision victory for Napoles, who even sent the granite-jawed Griffith to the deck with a neat counter in the third.

A stoppage of the highly ranked Ernie Lopez (who he also beat in a rematch) followed before Jose's single weakness was exposed by Billy Backus; Napoles had a propensity to cut, often exaggerated, but impossible to ignore. He was stopped in the fourth, won a rematch, and then staged an astonishing eleven defenses in a row, before John Stracey stopped him on a cut in 1975 to take his title. Napoles then called it a day. Had he not suffered that cut against Backus, it is likely that Napoles would have managed sixteen consecutive victories in title fights, boxed generally against a high level of opposition. In Hedgemon Lewis, Ernie Lopez, Emile Griffith, Adolph Pruitt, Roger Menetrey, Billy Backus, Cyde Gray and Cokes he dispatched a wonderful collection of competition ranked in the division's top five, to say nothing of men such as Horacio Saldano and Armando Muniz, who were ranked in the bottom half of the top ten. Even carrying such a disadvantage as vulnerable skin, he is one of the finest welterweights ever to have taken to the ring.

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PHILADELPHIA JACK O'BRIEN

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"O'Brien, who was fully forty pounds lighter [than Jack Johnson and] did most of the leading. He landed more clean blows and showed a better knowledge of ring tactics." - The New York Sun.

Inducted At: All Other Weights, Inaugural
Years Active: 1896-1912
Lineal Champion: 1905, Light-Heavyweight
Boxrec Record: 92-6-13

A brief look over the record of Philadelphia Jack O'Brien reveals two results in particular that impress: the 1905 stoppage of Bob Fitzsimmons and the 1909 disputed draw with Jack Johnson. In stopping the aged Fitzsimmons (then 44), O'Brien became the recognized light-heavyweight champion of the world and took a tilt at claiming the heavyweight title too, a claim that was heralded in some corners such was the confusion caused by the retirement of Jim Jeffries. Whilst Fitzsimmons was old, he had beaten O'Brien himself in 1904 and the excellent George Gardner in 1903, and was still regarded as a scalp. It was an impressive result and the Johnson draw was perhaps even more so. Johnson was in his pomp and he was still by far the bigger man, a legitimate heavyweight, O'Brien a super-middleweight. No fight provides more insight into O'Brien's style and strengths. He was in and out in a flash, stabbing Johnson with his left, superior footwork and superior blocking saving him from damage in close.

Jack Blackburn, Peter Jackson, Hugo Kelly, Tommy Burns, Jack Sullivan, Joe Choynski, Marvin Hart and Peter Maher number among the other excellent fighters he was credited as getting the better of over a career that saw him meet fighters of different races and weights, not to mention styles.

 

RUBEN OLIVARES

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"He kept hitting me under the rib cage. I couldn’t get my breath." - Lionel Rose

Inducted At: Bantamweight, Inaugural
Years Active: 1965-1988
Lineal Champion: 1960-1970; 1971-1972.
Boxrec Record: 89-13-3

Ruben Olivares was an absolute doomsday machine of a fighter, a knockout artist and a genius both. He did not so much knock opponents out as immolate them, vaporize them, vanish them from competition and their own senses. A strange separation seemed to occur within the fighter when he landed his best; knockout victories over Jose Bisbal and Efren Torres, especially, instill within me the alarming sense that we are watching a man having his soul removed from his body but that the body has not yet been fully alerted. The slow collapse of Jim Braddock by Joe Louis has always been seen as something special; I think Olivares did this kind of thing almost routinely.

He took the championship from one of the greatest bantamweights ever to have lived in Lionel Rose, destroying him almost as easily as Brisbal or Torres, smashing him out in five. His first defense was against Alan Rudkin, who had been in desperately close fights with both Harada and Rose. Olivares blasted him to the canvas three times in two rounds, dusting him off like a journeyman. His second defense was against perhaps the greatest bantamweight contender in history, Chucho Castillo, whom he ripped and harried and battered to a clear decision defeat. After swapping the title with Chucho, Olivares added number four contender Kazuyoshi Kanazawa and all-time great puncher Jesus Pimentel. His record, which up until recently had stood at 61-0-1 now read 68-1-1. Olivares was atop a pile of bantams as brilliant as had ever been assembled for the second time.

When the punches failed, Olivares morphed into one of the greatest ring generals in history. His generalship failed him only once. Few such skilled boxers held as much power. Few power punchers have boxed with such skill.

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CARLOS ORTIZ

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"I was my own manager. I had no connection with the underworld of boxing. Maybe that's why I didn't get the title fight. Eventually I got Joe Brown. It was a shut out."

Inducted At: Lightweight, Inaugural
Years Active: 1955-1972
Lineal Champion: 1962-1965; 1965-1968; 1959-1960 at 140lbs.
Boxrec Record: 61-7-1

Let it never be said that Carlos Ortiz is underrated on this board; he garnered more votes than Joe Gans. In fairness, he is one of the few champions whose reigns can match the Old Master, going 11-2 in lineal title fights, king in eight different calendar years, ranked among the best lightweights in the world for an incredible eleven years. A champion at 140lbs, too, his career is a glittering monument to fistic excellence. He took the lightweight title from the all-time great Joe Brown in 1962, and boxed brilliantly that night in the Garden, producing as consummate a title-winning performance as can be seen on film. He explored Brown’s limits over the first twelve minutes, losing, for me, those four rounds but establishing a pace that the champion could not comfortably maintain before using the fact to expose chinks in his armour. Brown was a wonderful, cagey, clever fighter but Ortiz basically beat him one-handed, tattooing him with jabs while holding in reserve the virtual threat of his right which forbade Brown his preferred approach, that of trying to bring his opponent onto his punches – too risky against Carlos. I thought Ortiz won every remaining round in the contest to end one of the greatest title reigns in history and begin another.

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MANUEL ORTIZ

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"A real, two-fisted puncher." - Willie Pep.

Inducted At: Bantamweight, Inaugural
Years Active: 1938-1955
Lineal Champion: 1942-1947; 1947-1950
Boxrec Record: 99-28-3

The statistics associated with the career of Manuel Ortiz are astonishing. He reigned in nine calendar years in two spells between 1942 and 1950. His record in title fights is twenty-one and two. He is one of the few men t to have conquered so many ranked contenders as to require double digits for an accurate depiction. He beat the best fighter in the world except himself on more than one occasion. In more than 130 fights he was stopped just once, on cuts. He himself dished out more than fifty stoppages despite a dearth of power, his excellence in dissecting his opposition often resulting in their crumbling. He took the title from the borderline all-time great bantamweight Lou Salica in 1942. It was easy. I haven’t seen a report that gives Salica more than three of the fifteen rounds.

When he finally lost his title in 1947 in a strangely lackluster performance against Harold Dade, he dusted himself off, went back to camp ,and reclaimed it, narrowly but clearly, in a rematch. If you could bottle Ortiz’s essence you would have yourself the stuff of not just champions but of the defining bantamweight champion.

 

WILLIE PEP

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"Wright was a great champion, he knocked everybody out. But if he don't hit you he ain't gonna knock you out."

Inducted At: Featherweight, Inaugural
Years Active: 1940-1966
Lineal Champion: 1942-1948; 1949-1950
Boxrec Record: 229-11-1

Can a fighter be said to be in his prime after surviving a plane crash that fractured both his back and his leg? If not, Willie Pep lost exactly once in his prime, to the naturally bigger world-class lightweight Sammy Angott, also the only loss he would post in his first 136 fights. Already the reigning featherweight champion of the world, Pep had embarrassed the huge punching Chalky Wright over fifteen one-sided rounds late in 1942. Pep was a nightmare for a stalking slugger like Wright. Perhaps the best pure boxer ever to have fought, his style was propelled almost entirely by faultless footwork that left him out of range in two short and graceful steps but brought him back in to range with the same smooth elegance. He feinted with his feet, boxing high on his toes whether he was pivoting, stepping out or stepping in, coming down only when he was ready to punch and it was safe to do so. Fundamentally correct in essence his style was technician-plus in the sense that what he did could not be taught or learned, it was an instinctive understanding of the harmony of distance and relative positioning and a fighter so exquisitely balanced as to be able to take advantage. It is something that can be said or implied about every fighter left to discuss but it is perhaps especially true of Pep: there has never been another one like him.

In addition to Wright, who he beat several times, he defeated the diminutive former featherweight champion Joey Archibald; former featherweight champion Jackie Wilson; tricked, trapped and knocked out future featherweight champion Sal Bartolo; completely outboxed the primed all-time great bantamweight champion, Manuel Ortiz; future lightweight champion Paddy DeMarco; the superb European featherweight champion Ray Famechon; and former NBA featherweight champion Phil Terranova. Terranova was an excellent and difficult fighter who would go on to beat the man that would define the second half of Pep's career: Sandy Saddler. Pep beat Saddler just one out of four in what he himself considered the best night of his career.

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PASCUAL PEREZ

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"He knew how to solve situations on the fly without waiting for the end of a round to be told in the corner how to solve the problem. If the strategy failed, he would devise another one between blows." - El Grafico.

Inducted At: Flyweight, Inaugural
Years Active:1952-1964
Lineal Champion: 1954-1960
Boxrec Record: 84-7-1

Pascual Perez was one of the great champions at any weight, winning the title and then successfully defending it on nine separate occasions. This was a part of his incredible 53-1-1 run, stretching from his first fight in 1955 and up to 1960, when the great Pone Kingpetch finally unseated him. Nor was Perez protected by the Argentine tradition of giving out draws to favored sons. Perez came up hard, boxing under different names and in different cities. Not until he had traveled to Japan and unseated then champion Yoshio Shirai did he become a true hero to his people and a regular at the Estadio Luna Park in Buenos Aires.

The night he took the title in Japan, Perez weighed a mere 107lbs although standing just under five feet tall he was in no way underweight. Perez would never scale the full poundage of the flyweight limit in his championship career, though he embodied the style and did the damage of a much more physical man. A jab both probing and thudding was primary but he was happy to lead with the right hand and did so often; his wheelhouse was the inside, where he kept low and slugged to the body before deftly moving upstairs with the same savage precision. His demeanor in the ring was one of fierce attention.

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AARON PRYOR

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"I would have died before I quit."

Inducted At: All Other Weightclasses, Inaugural
Years Active: 1977-1990
Lineal Champion: 1983-1985, 140lbs.
Boxrec Record: 39-1

One loss in forty fights is a record to be proud of. Pryor's loss, after years boxing at the very top of the 140lb division, did not even come as a part of his core run but rather in the inevitable comeback, more than two years after he retired the lineal champion of the world, stopped by an otherwise unremarkable pugilist named Bobby Joe Young.

That was in 1987. Before that, between 1980 and 1985, Pryor terrorised the 140lb division and everyone in it, including two-time rival Alexis Arguello. Those matches are not without their controversies but the record books continue to show two victories over a fellow great and combined with his 1980 victory over Antonio Cervantes and the many contenders he dusted, it makes for a formidable resume.

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SUGAR RAY ROBINSON

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"It wasn't the heat that beat me. It was God."

Inducted At: Welterweight, Inaugural
Years Active: 1940-1965
Lineal Champion: 1946-1951; 1951 at 160lbs, 1951-1952 at 160lbs, 1955-1957 160lbs, 1957 at 160lbs, 1958-1960 at 160lbs
Boxrec Record: 174-19-6

The above quote is attribute to Sugar Ray Robinson on the occasion of his defeat to Joey Maxim. By this stage past his very best, a combination of a soaring temperature and a larger, stronger opponent inflicted upon Robinson the only stoppage defeat of his career. During his prime, it is very likely that God wouldn't have got anywhere near him. So synonymous is he with greatness in the field of pugilism that he has become the de facto #1 for many with such an interest, and this, perhaps, is no bad thing. He is qualified for the spot and carelessly inserting him on the biggest of boxing thrones spares the eyes the pain of looking directly at such deities for prolonged periods. Putting Robinson under a microscope is akin to studying the surface of the sun with a magnifying glass.

Almost undoubtedly the greatest welterweight of all time, it is at middleweight that a modern observer tend to get to know him for there is much more footage of Robinson at 160lbs than 14. Perhaps most instructive is his unique stoppage of Jake LaMotta, a TKO in the thirteenth round of their sixth encounter in February of 1951. With the world middleweight title on the line, LaMotta showed everything there is in a bull's repertoire to try to keep Robinson under control but when he blasted his last surge into Robinson's midriff in the eleventh only for Sugar to come back at him again, he wilted and was smashed to a stoppage against the ropes by exalted violence rarely seen in the ring. This is what is often forgotten about Robinson. Seen here at the end of the welterweight run and the beginning of his middleweight one, we find him at or close to his savage best and the violence inherent in his style. Yes, he was a boxing genius, but he was also a terrible ring savage who held ring violence in hand. It was a combination of attributes that left great champions wanting at both lightweight and welterweight, but that would also make him a five-time middleweight champion of the world. Past his peak almost as soon as he had stepped out of the St. Valentine's Day ring he butchered LaMotta in, he lost and regained his title against Randy Turpin, retired, made a comeback and re-took his title with a brutal second-round knockout over Bob Olsen, lost and regained his title to Gene Fulmer, lost and regained his title to Carmen Basilio. Other middleweights he brutalized included Holly Mims, Luc Van Dam, Robert Villemain, Jose Basora, Rocky Graziano, Rocky Castellani and Denny Moyer. His form was inevitably patchy at the higher weight but was and remains one of the greatest middleweight warriors of them all. He retired well into his forties in 1965, and is deemed the greatest fighter to have boxed in both the forties and the fifties, arguably the two deepest decades in the history of the sport.

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BARNEY ROSS

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“The ring is kid’s play compared to the battle out here — this is a finish fight with no holds barred and no referee to break up the clinches. And you can tell ’em to give it to my medal to the company. This is no one-man show.”

Inducted At: Lightweights, Inaugural
Years Active: 1929-1938
Lineal Champion: 1933; 1933-1925 at 140lbs; 1934 and 1935-1938 at 147lbs.
Boxrec Record: 72-4-3

Between beating the excellent Ray Miller in 1932 and his retirement in 1938, Ross lost two fightss; one, a split decision loss to the great Jimmy McLarnin, disputed, twice avenged, and once to Henry Armstrong in his very last fight. He beat:

Ray Miller, Battling Battalino, Billy Petrolle twice, Joe Ghnouly, Tony Canzoneri in two title fights, Sammy Fuller, Frankie Click, Jimmy McLarnin twice, future middleweight champion Ceferino Garcia, Phil Furr and Izzy Jannazzo, winning the 135-pound, the 140-pound and the 147-pound titles in the process. Never anything like a full-grown welterweight, he was still able to defend that title several times after winning and re-winning it from McLarnin, before Armstrong caught up with him.

Along with Canzoneri and McLarnin, Ross made up the holy-trinity of that era's boxing deities, and he was the master. He defeated the other two twice whilst losing only once to McLarnin, going 4-1 against his generation's best. Never knocked down in his professional career, a chin of hewn granite was the bedrock of a technical styling that nevertheless placed him in the danger zone against bigger men and brutal punchers. Capable of outboxing the faster Canzoneri, or outfighting the big-punching McLarnin, Ross was one of the defining talents to box between Harry Greb and Sugar Ray Robinson.

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TOMMY RYAN

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“I think I could beat Jim Jeffries, yes.”

Inducted At: Weltereweight, Inaugural
Years Active: 1887-1907
Lineal Champion: 1894-1898; 1898-1906
Boxrec Record: 82-2-13

Tommy Ryan's decade of dominance began in 1891 when he lifted the welterweight title of the world beating Danny Needham over, wait for it, seventy-six rounds. These excessive distances suited Ryan as he was persistently in tremendous condition and boxed intelligently to break his opponent down. Needham was taken apart at the seams, eyes closed one-by-one before a body attack sapped his strength. "Pure science" is how the LA Herald reported it; here then was the successor to Jack Dempsey, The Nonpareil, only Ryan would have the competition to prove his greatness.

Ryan failed to lift the middleweight title upon his first attempt losing out to Kid McCoy but he would add it two years later in 1898, beating Jack Boner in twenty rounds, beating the outstanding Tommy West in fourteen rounds, drawing a rematch with McCoy (once more due to police interference) and once again defeating Billy Smith in the interim. He fought six official defenses of his middleweight title, including one of the bloodiest contests ever staged in his 1902 rematch with West and retired the undefeated champion of the world. Nor did he ever lose his welterweight title in the ring; in fact he lost just twice, once by knockout to the bigger McCoy and once by disqualification. Whilst his dominance is hurt by his failure to match Barbados Joe Walcott, the other colossus of this era, Ryan's being arguably the best welterweight or middleweight for as many as ten years provides a huge counterbalance.

 

SANDY SADDLER

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"He was a terrifying guy." - Willie Pep

Inducted At: Featherweight, Inaugural
Years Active: 1944-1956
Lineal Champion: 1948-1949; 1950-1957
Boxrec Record: 145-16-2

Between 1940 and 1951 only one featherweight was able to best Willie Pep, and that featherweight was Sandy Saddler. Their first fight, from 1948, saw Pep made a strong favorite and with good reason – he was as brilliant and dominant a champion as had ever lived – but there were also reasons to favour Saddler. For two years he had been trailing Pep and was eerily confident of his chances. This confidence was borne out. He found the champion with ease, busting him up, cutting him, and stopping him in four with a brutal left hook. After losing a rematch Saddler auditioned with hate for his rematch, winning twenty-three in a row, eighteen of them by stoppage. In 1950, they met once more.

“He got me in a double arm-lock,” sulked Pep after his ninth round quittage, after suffering a damaged shoulder.

“Body punches,” was Saddler’s riposte. “I could see in his eyes something was wrong but I didn’t think it was no shoulder."

Whether by way of brutality in the clinch or brutality in the body attack, Saddler had carried the day. A fourth meeting was inevitable; it was also a farce. Saddler was slipping by this time and he met Pep between losses to Tony DeMarco. The fight ran badly out of control, as savage a foul-fest as has ever been seen in a New York ring. No featherweight, alive or dead, could win such a contest against Saddler. Saddler’s overall offense, the knotted branch of his summary attack, was too much for Pep. He always found a crack in that genius defense for one form of torture or another. Pep, basically unbeatable at the weight according to all other evidence, bowed three times to Saddler. The first of these is perhaps the greatest win in the history of the featherweight division.

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