Who is the greatest middleweight you'd take Sumbu Kalambay to beat?

Dick Tiger.

 

Knowing the mentality of many posters here they wouldnt hesitate to claim Nunn if Mike hadnt already proved his superiority. so i dont find it surprsing some would actually claim Hagler.

I fins it rather insulting to sell Hagler so cheap

he had his chance to make a move up in the ratings when Marvin was top dog in the sport.

Personally I find his closest match would be someone like Hopkins, a fighter with not too much speed and not much to fear on offense. This goes 12 rounds I believe

 

Fleaman, that is the worst excuse you will see-getting caught cold. Fact is, Sumbu would have fared no better in later rounds the way he was caught flush with his head making an audible thud as it struck the canvas.

 

Kalambay was always somewhat vulnerable in the early rounds. I believe he hit the canvas more than a few times against lesser opposition in the early rounds, Nunn was simply able to take advantage of this.

I do think that had the fight gone to the later rounds, Kalambay would've given Nunn something to think about.

 

All of those early knockdowns in his career came after the Nunn fight though.Unless you are referring to earlier junior middle fights that i haven't seen that is.

Flash knockdown in the first agaisnt Ashton and down twice in the second against Graham, but he looked a shell of himself in general in those fights and seemed to very much past his prime, with not much in the way of reflexes left.he was always a bit of a slow starter and i think after he lost a couple of steps it did make him vulnerable early, starting slowly cost him the rematch with McCallum as well.

the other two were in the first round against Dell'aquilla, which definitely seemed a direct mental consequence of the Nunn KO, as he seemed to completely freeze up and went down twice, but battled back to dismantle the ordinary Italian in a sort of archie Moore vs Durelle repeat.

I don't know if he was down in any of his early fights, but from the fights i've seen the Nunn knockdown was a first,.Just one of those things, say what you want about Nunn(and i'm no big fan of him at all) but he was extremely fast and threw an uncharacteristic punch of a lifetime.A shame as maybe fi he had let those kind of striaght lefts go consistently instead of the lazy stuff we got in most of his other fights, then he might have been the great fighter he was hyped as.

 

You could be right but Kalambay did describe himself as a very slow starter.

 

I agree he was a slow starter, which definitely became a bit of a liability near the end of his career.

Just that any problems due to it seemed to only arise post Nunn.Before that he was always sharp defensively from the off, but took a round or two to settle into a counterpunching groove.

 

Wow, all I've got to say is Sumbu gets massively overated by you guys. A tricky customer, no doubt, but beating some of the names mentioned here?? NO way.

 

And how is someone who throughly schools Mike McCallum overrated, do tell?

 

He might get lucky and catch Emile Griffith on an off night and win a narrow decision, but as sure as God made little green apples..Griffith would beat him in the return match. He'd never catch Hagler or Monzon, of course, on an off night and actually BEAT them, but he make the distance with both, and lose.

 

I don't think Kalambay would have beaten McCallum in a rematch.

 

He arguably did.

I think Mike just had a bit more left physically at that stage. Plus Sumbu was probably suffering mentally still from the Nunn loss.

 

Besides agreeing with you on your first point, I confess to completely forgetting that they DID fight a rematch...maybe I'm just tired, but that may have slipped my mind anyway! I think that Kalambay against either Archer or Dupas would not have been a very fan friendly fight, and they could very well have just cancelled each other out..against either man.