He was a pretty good fighter until he ran into a certain tall, body punching German named Eckhard Dagge.
I watched him against Kalule, a year after he lost his title to Dagge... and, honestly, he didn't look like much. I don't know, if he suddenly fell apart after Dagge, and once had been a fine fighter (which I suppose he must have been)... but against Kalule he looked crude, uncoordinated and completely shot.
The only fights of Elisha Obed I have seen are: Dagge, Mattioli, De Oliveira, Gardner and Parker. No television in Denmark from boxing shows at that time so no Kalule fight (known to me) It looks that Obed just got old overnight.
I wished Mike Nixon would have got a shot at Dagge, after he knocked out #2 Gert Steyn in South Africa
I think “good” is an apt description. He won a world title belt, fair play, but came up short against most of the name fighters he faced (and a few more obscure ones) but was, I presume, something of a celebrated athlete in the Bahamas as he had shown well on the world stage. I’m not sure everyone today appreciates that the ‘junior’ titles between the original eight classes took some time to gain any favor with the cognoscenti — most of the ‘big boys’ stayed away from them until shortly after Obed’s time in the 154 spotlight. A fighter at that time could add ‘former world champion’ to his resume and make better money fighting at 160 as an opponent to more established names than he probably made as champ. It wasn’t until the mid-70s that Ring Magazine added the junior divisions in their annual rankings. This is a time when Eddie Gazo and Obed and other lessers (not to say they were bad, but weren’t considered true world title material at 147 or 160) could toil and lay claim to a bauble that enhanced them. A lot of the challengers (and, thus, champs) were foisted upon the division by the WBA and WBC as representatives of some of the lesser ‘most favored nations’ the organizations dealt with. The ‘junior’ titles became more legitimized shortly after when the likes of Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns decided to lay claim to them as extra belts. You can look in the years before and see how many (Duran among them) skipped right over the 130s and 140s and 154s when jumping divisions. I think that puts Obed in some perspective. He was a top three or four fighter at 154 for roughly half a decade, which is an accomplishment, but that division didn’t include a wealth of talent in that time.
Elisha Obed was an enigma to me back in the day, because I saw none of his fights and could only read about his exploits in the boxing mags. So I had to envision. From what was written, I believed he was really something coming up. He beat a young Sandy Torres, an old Bunny Grant, some decent club-fighters out of Phoenix in Paco Flores and Johnny Rico and drew with Dario Hidalgo. I believed he was for real. He was out of the Miami Dundee machine, being pushed by Chris, Angelo, Moe Fleischer, et al, so he had some pull. When he stopped Miguel DeOliviera I thought he was in for a lengthy reign, because DeOliviera could fight. But it seemed to go downhill after that. Tony Gardner and Sea Robinson were clubfighters he defended against and against Eckhard Dagge, he had the German down and was ahead, but abruptly turned his back on him in the 10th, possibly from Dagge's body-punching, but I don't know. When I finally got a chance to watch some of his later fights I was mortified. Against Curtis Parker, he telegraphed his shots and was all arms trying to clinch. Against Rocky Mattioli (which I watched today) he came out for the 7th completely exhausted and Rocky wasted no time finishing him. This was for the world title and you're exhausted after 6 rounds? Could he fall apart so soon after Dagge? Maybe he was just one of those guys like Benitez and Mando Ramos who turned pro so young that they burned out so early.
