Why Is Your Favorite Fighter Your Favorite?

my hero is randy turpin, an englishman who beat sugar ray robinson on the 10th july 1951 at earls court in london.it was and probably still is the biggest sporting event in british sport.
it was only 6 years after the second world war ended, rationing was still on and the british people were behind the briton to a man.the colour bar had been lifted and randy's oldest brother had been the first black british champion.randy was the third of the fighting turpin brothers.jackie behing the middle and a rough tough featherweight journeyman. randy is a british icon

 

I have many but Bad Benny Briscoe was one of my favorites, he always came to fight,always exciting and win,lose or draw gave his best. And he brought back the bald head to the 60-70's

 

roy jones, he became my favorite fighter after the second griffin fight. what a performance and post-fight interview. i had always admired his career and how good he was before this. it was hard not to root for him after the incredible robbery at the olympics. another big reason i like jones is because of how unfairly the media and other boxing "experts" treated jones throughout his career. jones was arrogant and maybe this is part of the reason the media didn't care for him. jones, at his best, was one of the best fighters i've ever seen and i think others here that don't lie to themselves would have to agree.

 

I often think Lewis is over looked as an intimidating character or bully , people seem to remember his as a big posh man.

 

Definitely. He was icy cool, nothing fazed him and he had unbreakable self confidence. On top of that he was a skilled giant.
A cold calculated bully inside the ring. A respectful, reserved guy out of it.

 

Floyd Patterson bar none!
I was born in 53 and my dad was a huge sports fan including boxing.
By the time I was 5 or 6 in the late 50's dad had me clipping articles out of the paper for my "sports scrapbook". Baseball/Basketball/Football/Boxing...
He and my uncle went out to the Coliseum here in Indy to watch the Patterson/London bout in May 59.
He always told me what a great athlete and gentleman Floyd was and it had a tremendous effect on me.
When Sonny dusted him in the 1st fight in 62, dad went downtown to watch it closed circuit and, against mom's wishes woke me up to tell me the result. I cried myself to sleep that night.
I followed his post-Liston career with great excitement.
After the Ali loss in 65' Patterson basically fell off the radar for the better part of a year and I wasn't sure what was happening with him (sans internet, etc...)
Imagine my surprise picking up the morning paper in Sept 66 and finding, on page three, a picture of Henry Cooper face down and out like a light with Floyd hovering over him! That rekindled my 'romance'! Should have beaten Quarry both times, should have beaten Ellis. He showed himself greatly in his last bout with Ali (damn that eye that Charlie 'the ***** devil' Green ruined in
September 70)
Boxing, at least until the early 90's, and baseball have always been my favorite sports.
I have many boxing heroes: Griffith, Ezz, Young, Valdez, Monzon, Duran, Benitez, Herrera, Holmes, DeJesus, Robinson, etc..etc..etc..but Floyd will always be my favorite. (I'm actually tearing up thinking about sports in general and boxing in particular in the early sixties) The Gillette Friday nite fights? WOW! Emile and Benny's third scrap was on that night, tho none of the viewers knew the extent of the damage until later.
It was always the Flintstones/Twilight Zone early and then? Beer for the adults and pizza/popcorn/cokes for us youngsters that were able to stay up for the bouts. Great action....We'll never see such magic again....

 

Eusebio Pedroza:

Classic villain who glided around the ring who projected an aura of cool confidence- almost arrogance, while casually fouling opponents into a state of befuddlement. But when so inclined, he could simply box from the outside, work off a beautiful left jab, and bring multiple hooks behind it that could be thrown to the body and head. He always seemed to give away the first few rounds, and always seemed to come on at the end...And even if you hated him (and a lot of people did) you had to be impressed with what he was bringing to the table by the end of the fight.

Lupe Pintor:

Lupe had the sinister image (the slicked back hair, the slight mustache, the barrel chest), and the style (aggressive, hard hooking fighter who always seemed to manage to drag an opponent into his kind of fight) to make himself a memorable figure to fight fans in the early 80's. Had the misfortune of following Zarate, but established himself as force at 118 simply by facing quality opponents and having great fights with them.

 

Things that are iconic fascinate me. Obviously different things capture the imaginations of different peopke, we are not robots with a generic program across the board. Roberto Duran fascinates me because I find him to be iconic. I said on here a few weeks ago about how Bernard Hopkins has mastered boxing (well I say that very often) but Roberto Duran has mastered fighting. There is a difference. Roberto Duran mastered fighting. His style is the perfect one, I do not think he is the perfect fighter though, but the style.....

His style is to fight, to hit you anywhere and everywhere, to maul and batter, to hit with authority and spite, with venom. Now get this, the thing that makes it amazing is the level of skill involved. His defense was ****ing sublime. The way he cuts down the ring is not orthodox, it's not even something he really did that much. His method was to stand off at distance, feint, then catch you with the most accurate right hand from distance that ever was thrown in a ring, with all that venom and spite, and then cut off your passages of escape with uppercuts and hooks that came underneath and over the top, it's savage but so beautiful and attractive to the eye. Iconic man, iconic to watch in the ring. Real talk. Best three to ever do it, Robinson, Duran, Pep (not greatest, best), and Duran gets the vicious fibres going the most out of all them, and I am a man with a set of balls and a streak of rage inside me, so that's what I react to most.

Roberto Duran is not of this planet.

Peace

 

Hagler and Tony Ayala. At their best they were invincible steamrollers. Shame we got to see one at their best but not the other. Nevertheless, whoever was in the ring with them was certain to go down. As redrooster once said, they were like mad dogs after steak.

 

Willie "The Worm" Monroe (and to a lesser degree Bobby Watts) when I was a kid my Pop-Pop loved Briscoe & Hart.....one of my favorite memories is watching Hart vs Monroe, and just to be different I picked Monroe....he was so silky smooth, and not that I don't love sluggers but he was not the same mold as the other Philly MW's of that day. From that day on he became my favorite, and as a kid I swore he was the best MW ever....Now I know legacy/resume wise he is not even in the ballpark....but I will always remember the night he beat Hagler, proving (in my mind if no one elses) thst on his best night he could hang and bang with the greatest MW's ever....and beyond!!!!!

Philly Rules!!!!

 

I loved Barney Ross, willing to face any one there was, his classic wins, stand against Armstrong in a amazing defeat, war hero, beat drugs, and he had a amazing iron will.

 

I love speed of hand and foot, the more blinding the better. I hate slow plodding fighters. and even better than a blindingly fast guy is an overwhelming whirlwind of activity who can punch and carry death in his hands. for that reason you can certainly see why I would gravitate to guys like Pac, Leonard, Hearns, light duran, (camacho, whitaker, jones and floyd all had speed but lacked either busyness or devastation, so they are my second tier of favorites).

Just for speed married to power, the beautiful destruction of those larger and supposedly stronger, the smile he has when he gets in a good exchange, I love Pac.

Duran's sneer makes him my second favorite, though at times the unmotivated Duran was a little plodding. Just wish he didn't get so fat.

speed kills.:good

 

Well, there was a cool, sort of dignified aspect to Lewis's persona..he was well spoken, with that Brit accent helping out some..he wasn't vulgar, never sounded stupid or punchy, and was a welcome contrast to Mike Tyson, Holyfield and definitely Riddick Bowe..

 

I always found myself rooting for Pedroza...he was the bossman in the rin g every time, and he went about his job with such indomitable proficiency...using whatever he had to use in that well worn bag of tricks that he had. One defense after another...and he was well past it when McGuigan topped him...and that wouldn't have happened just a few years earlier..EP was a great workman/artisan in the school of Fritzie Zivic...a proud, strong champion!

 

Jowcol, I'm your age, and my dad, along with my uncle, aunt and grandmother, were dedicated boxing fans of the 40's and 50's..and in the 50's, they had the trusty Philco tuned in to the Friday night fights..well, as the 60's progressed, my dad's interest in boxing waned, what with Ali and his persona, etc., but he always retained the highest admiration for Floyd Patterson..his fighting abilities of course, but above all, the dignity and wellspoken sportsmanship that Floyd displayed..it seemed to my dad that qualities such as those became more important than anything else, and he passed on to me just how class an act Floyd Patterson was...and that he was such a contrast to most other athletes..especially those since his time.