What do you all think of Kid Gavilan?

What do you mean when you say he didn't have any "amazing natural ability"?

I thought he was extremely FAST of hand/foot, & he completely understood the concept of putting on a good show for the judges & the fans. If there was no Sugar Ray Robinson, Keed may have been regarded as arguably the greatest welterweight ever.

Always saw Leonard as more "Keed" than "Sugar" in certain aspects.

 

Incredibly gifted physically.

 

If you want to see great Gavilan, see the Hairston, Janiro II, Young, or Buker fights. He was very gifted, great speed, great adaptability, great footwork and more of a defensive fighter than most understand (see the Hairston fight).

Gavilan posessed a solid jab and good inside work. He could fight at distance or in close, could play the role of the boxer or box with pressure-- and of course he also like to counterpunch and trade given his advantages of chin and speed.

His biggest weaknesses were his lack of power and his tendency to rely on his chin a little too much instead of his mobility, a trait that starts in his fights from '53 onward, approximately. If I was better at youtube I would post some prime Gavilan, circa 1948-1951 and am fully confident the footage would change many opinions here on the forum, even amongst classic posters.

 

Great, great fighter. Blazing hand speed, fantastic durability, flashy bolo's, great cunning and brilliant inside. Gave a peak SRR two superb fights and not many, if any in history could have beaten Gav at this time.

 

One of the greatest 147ers, and h2h at his best, right up near the top there aswell

 

Fast, a great boxer, and didn't he have an unorthodox left hook that was hard to get away from?

 

I think he was just as gifted as Leonard from a physical perspective, albeit in different ways. These two had the art of "flurring at the end of the round to steal it" down pat.

Very few guys have handspeed in the vein of RJJ, Camacho, & etc. But the Keed was able to do things those guys couldn't either-I think he is a terrific example of a guy with tremendous flash before the likes of Ali & the like. There is his third fight with Bratton in its entirety, where he puts on a bit of a "show".

He had great rivalries too, with Bratton, Ike Williams, Billy Graham, Sugar Ray, & etc. Fought a few middles in between-the man loved to fight! Would LOVE to see any accounts of his fights with Eduardo Lausse.

His weaknesses, aside from the ones already mentioned, was his taste of having a grand ol' time at the expense of training.

 

Years ago, I saw a kinescope rebroadcast of his ten rounder with Hector Constance (an unsuccessul attempt to secure his one hundredth win), and it was easy to understand why he was featured dozens of times on early television. His bolo punch played spectacularly well on those early screens, which froze his arm in multiple positions during the wind-up before he delivered it with a loud thud. Against Constance, he frequently initiated exchanges with it, leading with it the way others might use a jab.

Just as the recording technology of his day actually did justice to the voice of Hank Williams, so too did early television make Gavilan's flourishes even more dramatic than they appeared on movie film. (Contrast this with both the movie film and kinescope of the Robinson/LaMotta title fight. The severity of the beating Ray was giving Jake at the end is far more obvious on the movie footage.) Gavilan was very unusual in his ability to look and sound better on early television. Like Gorgeous George, he was perfect for the new medium.

It quickly becomes obvious with Constance that Gavilan did not use his bolo punch to showboat, but very much as a basic tool of his trade, just as Eusebio Pedroza would be doing decades later. (Pedroza really did perfect it though, using it as both a strength sapping body punch and knockout blow. While flashy, Gavilan's bolo punch wasn't quite as deadly as Pedroza's.)

Gavilan was a very worthy charter enshrinee of the IBHOF.

 

Yes and he often lead with it.

 

Thanks for fielding that one, acb. I thought that was how I remembered it.

 

He looks great on film

 

He's too inconsistent, thats what prevented him from being a top 10 p4per. His wins resume however is vastly superior to that of Willie Pep or Pernell Whitaker.