Why isn't Freddie Steele ever mentioned as one of the great middleweights?

Because He was stopped at the end of his GREAT career by Fred Apostoli, because of a broken breatbone. He beat Apostoli years before. I rate him in the top 10. Time,and lack of info, make boxing fans sometimes overlook grea fighters right under their nose...

 

I routinely rate him among the great champions, and I think the Middleweight era he fought in was one of the strongest, most competitive of all time.

 

Steele was great for sure, but he was not alone in those demanding days when the top men fought one another.

Here he is fighting a young Lesnevich who would later become a great L-HW himself.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0wQwA5xyN4&feature=related[/ame]


and for those of you who question past greats, again 90% of the time it's the film thats ****, not the fighters.

I'm happy to report that this film is great... and when the film is right so are the fighters!

 

Great performance by Steele.

 

A multitude of reasons. He fought at a time when the MW division was unusually strong and stacked from stem to stern with top shelf talent. Add that Steele was one of several titlists(did his claim outstrip that of Marcel Thil?). It was hard to stand out as the dominant fighter of that era.

 

Thistle,i am pleasantry shocked. I have watched film of the Steele ko of Lesnevich many times and the film was dark and unclear. Your version of this film is modern in it's clarity, and it confirms my opinion that aside from Ray Robinson,this prime Freddie Steele who kod Ceferino Garcia twice, Ken Overlin [the "poor man's Harry Greb "] ,Vince Dundee and other's from that rich era,would have beaten any middleweight since than, not excluding Monzon and Hagler,IMO. Thank's and yes Doubting Thomase's, it is the old
out of sync camera's that make the oldtimers seem awkward. I should know because I saw many, many of the great fighters,[not Steele],from the 1940s up. Kudos to U...

 

Here are a couple of guesses as to why he's not generally considered among the top 10 middleweights of all time.

* There are a couple of top flight middleweights that are missing from the resume. Wins over Teddy Yarosz and Marcel Thil. Plus, one could make the case that some of this best wins were against fighters who were against guys who hadn't completely hit their prime (Apostoli, Garcia, and Lesnevich could be used as examples).

* He was stopped in the rematch by a better and more polished version of Apostoli, and blasted out in one by Al Hostak. We know the cracked breastbone comes into play for one of those fights (likely Hostak, as opposed to Apostoli), but these results- and the lack of a couple of key names- prevented him from truly separating himself from the pack of high quality middleweights in the 30's.

* His run at or near the top was somewhat abbreviated- at least compared to other middleweight greats. To be fair, this might be due to the fact that he was constantly becoming ill, or getting injured. As far as hard-luck careers go, Freddie's right up there.

That being said, he looks scary against Dundee and Lesnevich (during a period when he was healthy). Ho obviously could hit like hell, and seemed to be a solid boxer at the very least. A guy like that is holding his own with any middleweight- if not beating them outright.

There have been a lot of great middleweights over the years, so it's not a crime to exclude Steele from the Top 10. But he's worthy of consideration for the rating, at the very least.

 

as bb said, it's cause we have short memories

 

I got him very high and in recent times many do. He starts getting the recognition he deserves. May end up getting very overated though. Top5 is too high, Top15 too low IMO.

 

Lesnevich was pre- prime,but he did have 32 fights under his belt.
Steele looks terrific imo, great use of his footwork to glide in and out of range , fast, two handed heavy punches,he looks a bit open to right hands but was very mobile .
Highly impressive, thanks for putting up the clip, it should help educate those who are relatively unaware of this great fighter .:good

 

Watching Steele was a revelation to me. His era of middleweights gets undersold (unjustly so in my opinion the more I dig in to it), but he really was an exceptional fighter and is perhaps the best archetype of the "boxer/puncher" I've come across in any middleweight since him.

He deserves his revival in popularity, and I have no qualms about putting him in a top 10 MW list. Head to head he's a nightmare for alot of damn good fighters.

 

I'm glad you've seen this revelation about this period of middleweights, I discovered this in 2000, about Boxing History in general.

1) It was also the "single" greatest period in Boxing full stop

2) and likewise THEE greatest period for middleweights - which is also said by many too be the greatest division in the sport...

these men are set in stone forever - they don't need to prove no more - others need too be measured against them!!!

lastly forget your Top 10 lists - they are always wrong based mostly on achievements - and then suddenly the equally great contemporaries are suddenly forgotten or beaten by much lesser men from later periods who make these silly lists. Wrong!!!

i.e that period of middleweights alone produced...

U.S
Steele
Apostili
Garcia
Krieger
Hostak
Overlin
Soose
Zale
Williams
Burley
Chase
Graziano
SRR
LaMotta

UK
McAvoy
Gilroy
Turpin

France
Thil
Cerdan
Villimain

and others that made noise like Ben Brown, Glen Lee, Edouard Tennant, Luc Van Damm another murders row who's name is escaping me, was it Booker, Ginger Sadd, Vic Delicorti and more yet...

so number them and not sole on acheivements but by cross record checking and you get a nice Top 25 with a handful of Elite and the rest no much one over the other.

and then you've got 20s & 30s middles, then you've got the fab 4, then you've got Benn, Watson & Eubank and over the history of the sport a few more.

maybe 10-20 Elite, half the rest Great and the remainder TOP MEN with little between those ahead of them. that's more realistic!