The least impressive fighters who beat near-prime ATGs?

Kirkland Laing

 

Apostoli and Steele were a great combination.

I remember finding a newspaper report talking about the first time the two met in the ring, apparently, it was for sparring in San Fransisco from before Apostoli was a pro. And Apostoli gave quite an account of himself against the already established pro Steele who was on a promising streak, both still around 21.

Could very well be true, around this time Steele mostly fought in Washington, in the month of June 1934 he fought 3 times, 2 of those were in the Dreamland Auditorium in San Fransisco. Apostoli was about 4 months from turning pro at this time and in his first 3 years as a pro fought almost always in the Civic or Dreamland Auditoriums in San Fransisco.

These two just couldn't seem to touch gloves and not fight competitively. It's a shame their series ended on 2, with the first fight having Apostoli early as a pro but very promising, and the second had Steele a lot older in fight years, he was a busy fighter at an early age and I think that along with his manager/father figures death the previous year, and the injuries from a very busy career catching up and not healing fully anymore, just removed him from the high level of competition and pace he had been at for so long very quickly.

It seems he had a love of driving fast cars fast as well. I remember reading a report about the breastplate injury possibly being first caused by a car accident, another report from when he was younger described a crash and if im remembering correctly he went into the lounge of an apartment and the car caught fire. Fighters and fast cars...

Even so Apostoli and Steele seemed to always show they couldn't be boring when in there with each other, i'm glad we have what we have of their second fight, it's short but still one of my favorites to watch. Apostoli looked like an absolute monster just walking at the huge punching Steele, and Steele looked so sharp his punches were fast and accurate. Impressive showing from both in the footage.

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Antonio Tarver ...and the thing gets me the most about this guy is ...if you listen to him talk in interviews ...he really thinks he’s just as good a fighter as Roy Jones lol

 

What about Glencoffe Johnson? Total workhorse. Did nothing fancy, wasn't very strong or fast, yet he beat RJJ & Tarver. As much as I liked the Road Warrior, I couldn't see him hanging with Archie Moore, Joe Maxim, Bob Foster @ LHW. Thoughts?

 

Rahman and McCall scream out..

 

Tarver wasn't an unimpressive fighter

 

Douglas

 

Jimmy was anything but an unimpressive fighter....he was a master defensive specialist.