And by extension what kind of beast was Armstrong (and Ross)? Late in his career the guy gives up height and weight to Apostoli (he had already taken a young Lloyd Marshall to the woodshed twice) who looked like a beast against Steele, and brutalized Conn in losing those fights, and went on to wage two brutal fights with Bettina (a LHW) and knocks the guy silly. He then fights the underrated Allen Matthews (who a young Archie Moore idolized) and knocks him out. Then turned in an uncharacteristic lazy performance in losing to Krieger and dropped a decision to the extremely hard punching Belloise before being held to a controversial technical draw against Billy Soose in a fight most thought was stopped to protect Soose from getting stopped. Not a bad late career run for such a naturally small guy. His stoppage of Apostoli is especially interesting because Apostoli looked so big and strong against Steele. It was really the exact opposite result I would expect in such a matchup given their respective sizes, styles, and ages.
Ya him and YC3 had excellent runs at MW for guys who weren't natural MW's and Garcia was a truly great puncher. The Ross and Armstrong fights is all there is for footage or was more filmed? I hope Apostoli/Thil from the Carnival of Champions card turns up at some point. Steele's two KO wins over him at WW when he was only 19 and Garcia 26 tends to get overlooked since it wasn't at MW but it's some of his finest work.
"He could take a baseball bat and push it through a keyhole and make the keyhole thank him for it." ~Mae West
I never really worked out exactly how good I think he was. armstrong is the worst possible opponent for judging garcia's game, but he was handling himself ok i thought, although he was tiring and that was 10 rnds. He was a big, and accurate, puncher with a good chin so obviously he's going to be dangerous but without seeing how he fought at range It is just an estimate that he was very good at picking his punches(when given a bit of time and space), and finishing a hurt man off.
I think Ive pretty much settled on the idea that he needed the right guy or style in front of him to really look great. Some of his wins make him look like a monster but then some of his other fights are a bit troubling or underwhelming.
