Dude I've looked and I can't find one. The last time there was an undefeated middleweight champion before Taylor was Roy Jones Jr. He beat Hopkins (who already had a loss) for the belt and only defended it once against Thomas Tate (who I think had two losses) before moving up to super middle to fight Toney. I can't find a middleweight title fight between two undefeated American fighters or a middleweight title fight between two undefeated fighters of any nationality. If anyone knows if there was one, let me know. :think
As soon as I submitted my thread, I thought I was an adiot, because I immediately recalled the great ones...Ray..Hearns..HAgler..And Duran...was he ever a middle?????:conf
I doubt there ever was one. It's not like fighters becoming a champion without a loss was particularly common before there were 3 or 4 alphabets out there, and the WBA and WBC have been stuck together seemingly forever in middleweight.
Yea they all fought at middle at least at some point in their career and all won belts at some point I believe. The problem is that they all had losses and never fought for a belt or against one another as undefeated fighters. Duran had a few losses when he fought Hagler (Hagler had two losses at the time himself.) When Hearns fought Hagler he had one loss and when Ray fought Hagler he had one loss. You can look back to Monzon too, but he had three losses early in his career before he ever fought for the middleweight title. Fullmer, Valdez, Griffith, and Tiger all had losses when they fought for the middleweight title. Hell even Sugar Ray Robinson had his early loss from La Motta before he fought for the middleweight title. And if I'm not mistaken, Ketchel had a loss or two before he fought for the middleweight title. It wouldn't surprise me at all if this was the first middleweight title fight between two undefeated fighters of any nationality ever, much less between two undefeated Americans.
Michael Nunn vs James Toney, I believe it was in 1991... Toney had a draw in his record and was losing the fight against the rangy, skillful lefty Nunn ( trained by A. Dundee) but caught him with a monster left hook on the fast counter trasition and almost had his "lights out" with a barrage of rights in the corner.
Your absolutely right! Unless you count having a draw as not being perfectly undefeated...but if that's the case then Taylor-Pavlik wouldn't work because Taylor had the draw with Wright. That's good though I'm glad you thought of that...I guess I overlooked it because when I think of Toney I certainly don't think middleweight anymore :good :good
After Toney-Nunn, the same James Toney was knockdown early by Reggie Johnson ( who would win over Steve Collins) but won a split decision, had a very controversial win also by split decision against Dave Tiberi, and in between fights in Europe against Francesco D'Aquilla, he would have that classic MW title fight against Mike McCallum who was stripped of the WBA version ( after TKOing Michael Watson and avenging only loss up until then against Sumbu Kalambay with a rematch split decision win in Monte Carlo) and "The Body Snatcher" would face undefeated Toney for the IBF title - it was Toney's 2nd draw and Mike's first - they fought again at 160 pounds ( majority decision for Toney) and at crusierweight much later... Both Toney and McCallum would have beaten easily either Taylor or Pavlik I'm afraid:good
Myself either...I know everyone says we get nostalgic and build these guys up as legends, but look around. The skill level overall seems to have eroded throughout the world. Fighters are not as complete as they once were. Just my opinion.
July 28th 1988....Frank Tate(23-0) of Houston Texas vs. Michael Nunn(30-0) of Davenport Iowa, for the IBF middleweight title. I don't know if it's the last time, but it was two undefeated Americans fighting for a middleweight title.
May 10th 1991....Michael Nunn(36-0) of Davenport Iowa vs. James Toney(25-0) of Sherman Oaks California, for the IBF middleweight title.
James Toney and Mike McCallum were in 1991 the best middleweights out there and they proved just that with one of the most well boxed middleweight fights ever - even Marvin Hagler at ringside and commenting for ESPN acknowledged that - if you look back to that tape, LogDog69, you can understand how come I came to that conclusion... Happens that even myself don't like to turn upside down the sands of time and make those virtual comparisions, prime this vs prime that, but if you are a carefull observer, you may notice that either Taylor or Pavlik have no counter-moves for McCallum's continuous box activity and variety and for Toney's control of distance and blistering right counters ( no wonder James carried those same weapons to be successful at 160, 168, 190 pounds and winning a WBA Title and coming close, drawing in a WBC Title shot)... I assume that you believe that Taylor's and Pavlik's size/power may influence in the judgement, remember what Cory Spinks movement did to Jermain and think again, best regards.