There was very little footage of Napoles at his peak on YouTube ... until now. It's Napoles at his finest winning the Welterweight title from hall-of-famer Curtis Cokes. Took me ages. Computer was groaning from the exertion of it all. (I say I've uploaded it - Round 13 is on its way right now, shouldn't take more than a few minutes.) Classic Napoles. Stuff to look out for: amazing slipping abilities against a technical opponent with a great jab, straight right and jab-right; perfect balance and footwork; laser-accurate combinations; nice jab; mastery of all ranges - inside, outside and in-between. Perhaps Napoles' best performance along with Urbina II, Cokes II, Toro. I'll stick up the second fight if anybody's interested. First round is here, rest is on YouTube. Quality gets better as it goes along. [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=docDwU1zzUM[/ame]
The victories over Cokes were really classic performances by Napoles. I just had a peek at the footage. Great stuff. Go through it later. Tired from watching the World Cup Soccer matches on top of the days work. Anyway, thanks for the upload.
Napoles was the real thing at welter..the king. I was a fan of Cokes, and didn't forsee how Mantequilla would dominate him like that...and how he would do it against months later ala a carbon copy of the first.
A beautiful fighter, executes everything with such skill, his slipping is very impressive, very good fight.
Curtis Cokes was a good champion...and on a run at the time he met that Cuban from Mexico with the bandito mustache. Napoles made dog mush out of Cokes face...and did the exact same thing several months later..after both fights you had the same picture..of a grossly swollen and battered Curtis Cokes...dominated so thoroughly both times by a master boxer/puncher with all the moves.
Napoles repeated right hands to Cokes body looked like they really hurt as the fight went on and caused Curtis to lower his left a little more each round towards the end to try and fend it off.
I have very little knowledge about Cokes as a fighter / champion....... WORD! But he does seem to be a good trainer these days........... STILL! Is Cokes really worthy of IBHOF status? HMMMM! MR.BILL
Well, consider that most people on here seem to think that Cotto is worthy of HOF inclusion (although admittedly that particularl poll was conducted in General, little better than doing so in a lunatic asylum). From what I've seen of Cokes (albeit little, and I'd like to see much more), he looks like a better fighter than Cotto, with better tools, at least comparable skillset and bigger and more durable. He made four defences, three of a unified/lineal title, which Cotto has never won in any division, to my knowledge. In the mid-sixties he was starting to stack up wins over handfuls of top contenders and apparently really good fighters like L. M. Rodriguez. All depends where you draw the line really, but I'd say he has as legitimate a claim as most inductees of his kind.
Like Benvenuti in his last days as champion before Monzon..Curtis Cokes, in his last days before meeting Napoles, had seemed to me to be settling down to a nice long reign as welter champ...he had about 7 defenses and was an example of a good man and a good fighter who had finally established himself at the top, when all of a sudden he has the great misfortune of meeting a GREAT fighter in Mantequilla Napoles...sure Cokes is worthy of IBHOF status...it's not his fault that he had to lose his title to an alltime great like he did..what he did before that makes him worthy indeed.
