The Ring's 100 Greatest Punchers (2003)

"He could hit as hard as Jim Jeffries although he was only a lightweight. He landed one of his famous punches that almost tore the top of my head off. I have never been hit as hard before or since. I turned a complete somersault and fell flat on my back. I looked up and saw Herrera standing over me with murder in his eyes. That happened in the fifth round. Around the seventeenth round my head cleared…but I could not recall anything that happened in those 12 rounds. I really think Herrera was the greatest man I met."
–BATTLING NELSON, Lightweight Champion

“Herrera has an awful wallop. I never felt anything like it in my ring experience.”
- -BENNY YANGER, Featherweight Contender (Yanger had never been stopped)

"The toughest man I ever fought was Aurelio Herrera. I don’t believe any lightweight ever lived who could hit as hard. He hit me on the head and I thought the building had caved in."
- -KID HERMAN, Lightweight Contender

“In the fourth round he hit me two wallops on the neck, and up to the gong-tap I didn’t know whether I was on my feet or sitting down. Any other man who wants to challenge him can do it, but they can take a tip from me that Herrera can out a punch nearly as hard as Tom Sharkey. I think he could whip Joe Bernstein and Kid Broad easily.”
–TERRY McGOVERN, Multi-Division Champion

“Herrera was the hardest hitting lightweight who ever lived. And I bar nobody right up to this day [June, 1956]. He hit me solidly only once in the 21 rounds we boxed together. I was pulling out of a clinch and he dropped a right cross to my chin. The punch landed about an eighth of an inch too high or it would have knocked me dead. As it was the left side of my body went numb. My left eye started to twitch and I couldn’t control it. Herrera had the uncanny knack of hitting. He didn’t learn the secret in the gym- it was born into him.”
–ABE ATTELL, Featherweight Champion

“The greatest one-punch knockout artist I ever saw. And I’ve been watching fights for almost 60 years. Herrera and I became quite chummy when I took Sam Langford to California after the first of the century. To be perfectly honest about it, had I been offered a match for my Sam Langford against Herrera, even though Sam outweighed him by about fifteen pounds, I would have found some excuse to wiggle out of it. Sam in all probability would have beaten Herrera, but it wasn’t worth the risk. Not when a man could hit so damned hard as that little Mexican.”
–JOE WOODMAN, Manager of Sam Langford

 

Good research!

 

Pretty good list apart from the omission of Herrera.
Sammy Nesmith,Eugene Hart,Peter Kane, Ike Williams,Peter Maher, and what's that new kid Lucas Matthyse? Golovkin? The other glaring omission is
JOE CHOYNSKI!
. nb Jeffries is far too high on that list.

 

Choynski! Jesus Christmas How'd I forget Choynski? Like listing great tits and leaving out Mansfield.

 

My brother threw mines away that I had stored away in my old room at my parents house along with the 80 greatest fighters over the past 80 years. He moved back with them and when nonchalantly told me that he through that "****" away, for a nanosecond I imagined driving an axe through the top of his skull.

 

“The greatest one-punch knockout artist I ever saw. And I’ve been watching fights for almost 60 years. Herrera and I became quite chummy when I took Sam Langford to California after the first of the century. To be perfectly honest about it, had I been offered a match for my Sam Langford against Herrera, even though Sam outweighed him by about fifteen pounds, I would have found some excuse to wiggle out of it. Sam in all probability would have beaten Herrera, but it wasn’t worth the risk. Not when a man could hit so damned hard as that little Mexican.”
–JOE WOODMAN, Manager of Sam Langford[/quote][/QUOTE]

^^^ This will make you a believer.

 

Good stuff on Herrera.

When you take all of their criteria into consideration its understandable but Johannson always gets undersold on power. That guy had scary power in his right hand. It didnt look like much when he threw it but god the reactions from guys he hit. I have this amateur fight of his when he was a kid and hits this guy and knocks him clear across the ring and unconcious. You hear people call talk about "sick" KOs. Well that one was actually sickening to watch. That poor kid he knocked out literally looked like he had been shot in the head and killed. I wouldnt favor Johannson in too many head to head matchups against other greats/champions but he was the kind of guy that if he landed that right he could change the shape of a mismatch real quick.

 

I started to research him last year at your recommendation. Dude was a beast. Guys seemed to line up to extol his freakish power. Here's a good primer, complete with his sad, almost requisite, ending...

http://www.ibroresearch.com/?p=5112

 

Yeah, great stuff on Herrara.
Sounds like an absolute freak of nature, power wise.

Agree with klompton's comments on Johansson. He had frightening power.

I'd go further and add that, in my opinion, Johansson "should have" beat Floyd the second time they fought too. I kind of see it the reverse of how most people see it. People assume Johansson 'got lucky' because Floyd 'took him lightly'. I think it's more the other way round - ie. Johansson, a massively flawed fighter to begin with, turned to crap after he won the title. I believe the Johansson of the Machen and Patterson fights beats any version of those two anyway. Yeah, it flies in the face of 'received wisdom' and the 'American-centric' history of the heavies, but I see it that way.
Prime Sonny Liston murders him though.

 

Thanks :smoke That's some serious testimony, isn't it?? It took a long time, but it was worth exhuming!

 

[/quote]

^^^ This will make you a believer.[/quote]

:good If any man knew punching power, it was Joe Woodman.

 

Thanks for posting that link. Took me forever to research and write that article (fights in Bakersfield, Ca. in the 19th Century ain't easy to find/research). Glad you enjoyed it.

 

I almost forgot Kid Broad's testimony. This guy was known for his iron chin. He fought Terry McGovern, Young Corbett II, Oscar Gardner, Abe Attell and George Dixon and never had a 10-count raised over him until he met Herrera.

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