the what fights did you watch today\scorecard thread.

I’ve definitely seen fights of his but I seem to get mixed up between whether I’ve seen him against Benny Paret, Jose Stable or Charley Scott or all of them. Fiorentino Fernandez is another one like that - both fun to watch but seemingly forgettable (in my case, anyway). Weird.

 

The only one of his that disappoints is his title try against Griffith. Not because of the result or because he didn't give his usual effort, he certainly tried. He was just so ineffectual and flat. Griffith totally bossed him. When I mentioned how unusually muted Ortega was and how puzzling it was to me, @scartissue wrote that he'd overtrained badly for it, and had nothing left once fight time came. It shows. Griffith, a light puncher, even stopped him, granite chin and all.

 

You guys want to hear a crazy bit of trivia? We have never discussed this fight on this thread. How did we overlook it? I'm sure we all saw it at one time or other, just never went into it. So let's remedy the situation.

Juan (Kid) Meza v Lupe Pintor (super bantamweight title)

Round 1: 10-9 Meza
Round 2: 10-10 Even
Round 3: 10-10 Even
Round 4: 10-9 Meza
Round 5: 10-7 Pintor (scores 2 knockdowns)
Round 6: 10-9 Pintor
Round 7: 10-9 Meza
Round 8: 10-10 Even
Round 9: 10-9 Meza
Round 10: 10-8 Pintor (scores a knockdown)
Round 11: 10-9 Pintor
Round 12: 10-9 Pintor

Total: 116-112 Pintor (actual scores: 115-111, 116-110 and 117-110 all for Pintor)

Man, I remember when this took place and loving this bout. With the thin air of Mexico City, these two struggled to the end, leaving nothing in the fuel tanks. Pintor's heavier shots outweighed Meza's more frequent taps on my card. Damn good fight.

 

Love that one. I had it narrowly for Pintor, but don't remember my actual score.

 

Jerry Quarry v Mac Foster (NY rounds basis)

Round 1: Foster
Round 2: Even
Round 3: Foster
Round 4: Quarry
Round 5: Quarry
Round 6: Quarry stops Foster

Total through 5 completed rounds: 2-2-1 Even (actual scores: 3-2 Foster, 3-2 Quarry and a 4-1 for Quarry)

Y'now, I've seen the 6th many times on highlight reels but this is the first time watching in its entirety. Foster was solid as a rock in there with a solid jab but Quarry was so versatile. He was countering nicely and that left hook to the body had 'ouch!' written all over it. When he hurt Mac, there was no letting him off the hook. Jerry went out there and finished things. What a great contender! One thing was strange that I noticed. Both California boys had NY cornermen. Jerry's Mgr/trainer Johnny Flores only came into the ring once the fight was over. He had NY's Chickie Ferrera working the corner. The same could be said for Foster. Not sure who his trainer was but he had Gil Clancy working his corner. It doesn't make sense that there would be some form of jurisdiction there. Very strange. Perhaps @Chuck1052 could help on this matter.

 

Those are my two favorite teams too, and completely agree about Dierdorf. For a football guy he came to know a lot about boxing and was so very into the fights, it was infectious.

My favrite moment with those two was some bout they were doing when Dierdorf mentioned that it was rumored one of the fighters gained ten pounds in the few hours after the weigh-in. He said, "I don't thik it's possible to gain that much weight that quickly." Wallau merely repied, "watch me."

 

Willie Pep v Gil Cadilli II

Round 1: 10-9 Pep
Round 2: 10-9 Pep
Round 3: 10-9 Pep
Round 4: 10-9 Pep
Round 5: 10-9 Pep
Round 6: 10-9 Pep
Round 7: 10-9 Pep
Round 8: 10-9 Pep
Round 9: 10-10 Even
Round 10: 10-9 Cadilli

Total: 99-92 Pep (actual scores: 99-87, 99-87 and 100-81 all for Pep)

Can't really fathom those scores or the latitude the Athletic Commission of Michigan allowed the judges but obviously there were many 10-8 rounds among them. I will say, for almost 33 years of age, Pep looked really good in there. He pointedly avoided anything on the inside, where Cadilli was clearly good at infighting and banging the body. If Gil managed to get inside, Willie tied those arms up in order to reset to an outside fight where he was just brilliant. Totally enjoyed seeing Willie in action again.

 

Miguel Angel Gonzalez vs Leavander Johnson

1 Johnson
2 Gonzalez
3 Gonzalez
4 Johnson
5 Gonzalez
6 Johnson
7 Gonzalez

67-66 Gonzalez

So i was scrolling through @Jel playlist that he did yesterday for his thread, and i came across this fight which i hadn't seen before. I really enjoyed this fight plenty of back and forth action, Johnson was the aggressor landing his right hand pinning Gonzalez against the ropes. And Gonzalez was the boxer landing some nice combinations and showing some good counter punching skills.

Gonzalez for me clearly looked like the more skillful fighter of the two, but Johnson kept it very interesting all the way with his right hand. And Johnson had Gonzalez in trouble in rounds 1 and 6, but Gonzalez's body punching and overall better skills started to wear down Johnson. And finally in round 8 Gonzalez hurt Johnson with a body shot, and followed it up with a series of unanswered punches along the ropes and Mickey Vann finally stepped in.

Overall a pretty entertaining fight a definitely recommend watching it thanks to @Jel again.

 

Can't bring myself to watch that one.

 

Why's that if you don't mind me asking ?

 

Johnson died after that fight.

 

Are you sure it was this fight ? i thought it was against Jesus Chavez i could be wrong though.

 

Yeah, it was the Jesus Chavez fight.

 

Hmmm. Apologies, you're right. It was Chavez. I always liked Johnson, and remember watching the Gonzalez fight when it aired. No idea why I thought it was that fight that was so ill-fated.

 

Cheers, D - glad you enjoyed it!

The mid-‘90s lightweights were a funny bunch as you had a group of undefeated titlists (Miguel Angel Gonzalez, Orzubek Nazarov and De La Hoya) who didn’t fight each other. De La Hoya met the weakest titlist in Rafael Ruelas (who title-winning fight against Freddie Pendleton is a lot of fun, too) and then exited the division pretty swiftly after beating up junior lightweights. He did eventually meet Gonzalez but at 140. Meanwhile, Nazarov looked good but never had that career-defining win. And Gonzalez put together a solid, undefeated title run before facing De La Hoya up at junior welter. Shame they didn’t unify at 135 but unifications were really rare in the 90s.