The least impressive fighters who beat near-prime ATGs?

Marvin Hart?
Buster Douglas?

 

Not an 'unimpressive' fighter, but Fred Apostoli was a 6 bout novice when he gave the ATG middleweight Freddie Steele hell, until the stoppage in the final 10th round.

Apostolli would defeat a past prime Steele in their rematch.

 

McCall
Rahman
Backus

 

Freddie Steele, Tacoma, was on top of the coast middleweight pile today, after stopping Fred Apostoli in the last round of their 10 round fight here last night. Steele and the young San Francisco bellhop put on a terrific battle, but the Tacoma veteran's experience told in the end. Steele was puzzled during the opening rounds by the crouching style employed by the former national amateur champion. Until the 6th they fought on fairly even terms, swinging furiously and slugging toe to toe. In the 6th Steele began boring in with a vicious body attack which so weakened Apostoli he fell down twice in the 9th without being hit. One minute after the last round got under way Referee Eddie Burns halted the contest to save Apostoli from further punishment

 

Fireman Jim Flynn against Langford. Worse than McCall, Hart or Douglas.

 

@Tonto62, Backus was the first name I thought of, good shout.

Depending on how high you rate Chiquita Gonzalez, I'd say Pascua and Sorjaturong. I don't think he was a near great though.

John and Norwood with Marquez, though I think John was a solid fighter.

I might cop some stick for this one, but Taylor against Hopkins. Hops was past prime and dry at the weight but Taylor was gash, man. Just a jab and a bit of athletic prowess, one of the weakest lineal middleweight champions of all time imo. Hopkins gets a bit of a pass because he went on to school Pavlik, Tarver etc and looked great doing so. A legend, but those fights are a black mark against him big time.

I dunno if the footage of Billy Peacock stoving in Raul Macias is still kicking about. He was a journey man albeit a dangerous one where Raton was genuinely excellent.

 

Iran Barkley

 

You beat me to it. In terms of three-weight world titlists, there can't have been many more limited than Barkley.

Not sure if you'd class Mosley as a near-great, but if so, then outside of beating him I was never impressed with Vernon Forrest. Just seemed like the ultimate 'styles make fights' scenario: you couldn't see Mosley beating him even if he'd had another two or three attempts, yet Forrest then conspires to lose twice to Mayorga, of all people. Also needed a complete gift decision to get a phoney win over a faded Quartey.

 

Brewster with Wlad? Basically just a brave hard hitter with a decent chin and little else. Tbh I've never been that impressed by Sanders either though I don't think he was poor enough to qualify here.

A controversial choice but I really don't like Joey Archer, not as the master pure boxer he gets painted as. Basically just an effective runner with an excellent jab but not much else who was able to dodgily scrape by the slower footed Tiger with a bit of questionable judging to help him. A very good fighter really and highly effective so I'm not sure he qualifies, but I never found him impressive to watch. Kind judging helped him on more than one occasion too, so it's a pleasure to see both the Griffith fights go against him.

 

Willie Meehan

 

Marcos Maidana was a good, brave, powerful and very tough fighter but not remotely in FMJ class. But he legitimately gave Floyd fits in their first fight (I had it a draw) and marked him up and stunned him in the rematch (Floyd won that clear though).

A better fighter in Alvarez didn’t have the success against Mayweather that Maidana did though for example.

 

@young griffo, Maidana just waded in and didn't give a ****, it was great to see. No fighter for a long time since Hatton, who did fairly well early on despite Cortez's ****ish antics, had put Mayweather under such sustained pressure or been undaunted by his reputation. I had it a draw too.

Alvarez was obviously very green, weight-drained and uncomfortable forcing the fight, being a slow of foot natural counterpuncher at a style disadvantage. Anyone who says that they saw that Alvarez becoming the fighter he is today is lying. Maidana though not especially quick and lacking in skill was pretty adept at cutting off the ring, especially with Mayweather being flat-footed by that point. Floyd seemed to struggle consistently anticipating the arc of that ungainly, clubbing downwards right hand and Maidana just kept throwing and following up with body shots or smothering the attempted sharp counters and repeating the process and it took Mayweather an age to figure things out.

 

Better than Flynn in my opinion.

 

Corrie Sanders has to be another.

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