Underrated Wins - Name One

Tate over Knoetze.

What did Tate have 15/16 fights? Knoetze was a big hitter and Tate had already suffered 2 brutal amatuer ko's and now he's put in with a puncher. Very risky fight under any scenario & then Arum puts the fight in Knoetze's backyard. 60,000 people and about 7 people are rooting for a youthful John Tate. What you seldom see is the american fighter doing well when they travel to foreign countries and take on the highly pedigreed fighters. They usually lose and rarely ever have their A game for some reason. But Tate fought a beautiful fight and probably didn't lose more than 1 minute of any round. But since Knoetze faded badly after that stoppage, the bout is not considered much of anything anymore.

Those fights in S. Africa sure drew well back then w/ Knoetze & Coetzee.

 

Your example is hardly classic boxing.....

I would say Hearns' victory over Benitez is rarely given the credit it deserves, or for that matter Leonard's victory over Wilfred.

If we are going modern, then Ricky Hatton's win over Kostya Tszyu is often over looked and downplayed, yet Kostya was not looking old coming in, and was a warm favourite even in Manchester.

Chris Eubank is not often given credit for his excellent win in Berlin against the undefeated Rocchigiani.

Fighters are often punished and overlooked for being too small and particularly in the 80s, not being from Britain or North America. That happened to a couple of Brilliant small men who we got to see over here beating our then World Class Flyweight Charlie Magri.

Both Santos Laciar (no slip up, Magri gained a horrible hometown decision) and Sot Chitalada are rarely given the kudos they deserve for some brilliant performances.

Michael Nunn may of turned out not to be the superstar we hoped, but that should not take away from his excellent victories over Tate (then undefeated), Roldan and Kalambay. On that form it was quite easy to see why Michael seemed second to none....

 

Moral victory.

Jose Basora providing the 'other' blemish on Sugar Ray Robinson's 130+ fight ledger

 

Mayweather's win of Jesus Chavez or Carlos Hernandez, two of the better fighters of the time.

 

Michalczewski over Barber.

Everyone knew of Dariusz from his amatuer pedigree but Barber was a hot commodity at the time. He sure hasn't stood the test of time well.

But Barber was the kronk gym project > Moorer. Steward had him winning the title in what his 13th fight or something like that? He had a rock solid chin as well. He'd already made 5 defenses of his belt and was a guy that was doing something very important---winning. Lots of times everyone gets caught up in hyperbole and the next thing you know, there's a loss. Like say Pavlik. But Barber was continuing to get the wins in there. Not necessarily looking better with each bout, but he was winning.

Daruisz did some job in there and that's a bout with 2 tough hombres going at it. Tough physical fight and it was that way for the whole 12 rounds. That Michalczewski accuracy paid off and he came out with the win and the belt. A loss and I'm certain that career nosedives and opportunites dry up.

Leeonzer Barber is a name you don't hear bandied about mostly because he just seemed to disappear. Then it was an ill-advised comeback years later and a loss. He had tools and pedigree and was a young guy when he was champion. Then he goes off the radar screen and it's all over real quick. But his disappearing act after losing the title was kind of like Kirkland Laine did > Duran win, which is another bout that could be qualify in this topic.

 

Rosario KO2 Bramble

Livingstone was coming off some good wins and was considered the number 2 or 3 P4P fighter on earth. Rosario destroyed him.

 

Lou Ambers vs. Al "Bummy" Davis.

Davis is the dynamite punching welterweight, unbeaten fast-rising contender, who had just shockingly stopped Tony Canzoneri for the first and only time in his career. Ambers had recently regained his lightweight title by taking a brutal beating and getting a gift decision vs. Henry Armstrong. Ambers meets Davis in an over-the-weight match and gives probably the last great performance of his career, and schools him to a one-sided decision win.

 

Tate/Knoetze is an excellent call. Everybody remembered how Stevenson had starched him in Montreal, and many expected Tate to be playing with fire against Kallie. Big John had just wiped out Bobick in one with four right hand leads, but it was understood the same strategy might get him killed in SA. After Coetzee, he seemed to have put the Stevenson ghost to rest.

Big John should have dusted himself off after the Weaver disaster, but just didn't have the greatness in him to recover. It was really the dismal showing against Berbick which finished him as a viable entity in the heavyweight picture.

 

Russ, I tended to think of Kallie as more of a clubber with "dirty" type power in his right hand, not so much of a clean, "flashing" one punch artist like Coeztee or Ingo. Unlike them, I felt Knoetze could hammer the body well with it. One look at Kallie's shoulders and mustache reminded me of the look of a bull. (His hook was nothing to sneeze at either.

It's rather odd that Knoezte had stamina issues, as he seemed pretty laid back and relaxed before taking on Bill Sharkey, not the self doubting sort Coetzee could be. He just overpowered Sharkey with size and strength, but ran into trouble whe he couldn't similarly overpower the hulking Tate.

There's been a little footage of Kallie on youtube now and again, not of the best quality sometimes, but perhaps enough so you might be able to form your own conclusions.

Knoetze tended to bludgeon his victims into submission. He wasn't a true single shot artist, and only posted a single first round knockout in his professional career. He was deadly between rounds two and five however, and would have been nearly invincible under the four round "Toughman" format. (Kallie W DOA Beanfart) He recorded three seventh round stoppages, but none in rounds six, eight, nine or ten.

I sometimes wonder if Knoetze was the stylistic reincarnation of John L. Sullivan. Kallie really was a four round brawler.

Ken Norton and John Tate caught the slow starting Duane Bobick cold. But Bobick had a chance to get fully warmed up when Knoetze took him out. So in some ways, that may make Knoetze KO 3 Bobick a somewhat more impressive win.

 

calzaghe lacy

i dont know much about the older stuff as i dont know about the background of old fights