willie pastrano v nino valdes circa 1955-59'

All that moving didn't do much for him, he lost several times in his prime to average smallish limited fighters.

 

I meant the other batch of fighters I listed were unathletic. Ok so willie doesn't fit that category but he fits short and overprotected .

As a heavyweight is management through him in with small limited unimpressive fringe contenders and he didn't do that well. His management did not throw him in with any higher rated big punchers to test his chin like Valdes Liston Williams Satterfield Baker A Moore Patterson de john johannson. ...he fought 1 unrated puncher john Holman at the end of Holmans career. He never fought other highly rated heavyweights like machen folley hurricane summerlin h carter

Harris erskine London Johnson were not even close to the division's best and he went 2-4 against these men

 

Pastrano also lost to chic calderwood Jessie bowdry and Wayne Thornton. Or do these losses not count?

Name heavyweights? All of those guys pastrano beat were not top 10 heavyweights. Valdes beat a lot more top 10 contenders ranked by ring magazine than Pastrano did. Isn't that important to you?

How do you explain pastrano losing to joe Erskine but getting knocked out in 1 round by nino Valdes?


Bottom line: The Nino Valdes who fought charles in 53 and moore in 55 beats any version of pastrano



Name all the top 10 heavyweights Valdes beat and then name all the top 10 heavyweights pastrano beat. Go ahead. You will see Valdes wins by a landslide. Valdes suffered losses to but guys like liston moore Machen Folley would have toyed with pastrano.

 

Nino knocked out joe Erskine in 1 round. The same Erskine who beat Willie

 

Let's take a look from 1954-1959 How many top 10 heavyweights Valdes and Pastrano beat. The names Valdes beat are in the Red, the names Pastrano beat are Green. Blue means both beat them.

1954

Rocky Marciano, Champion

Nino Valdes

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Bob Baker
Earl Walls

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Charley Norkus
Jimmy Slade


1955

Rocky Marciano, Champion

Archie Moore
Bob Baker

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Willie Pastrano
Nino Valdes

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Bob Satterfield
Young Jack Johnson

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1956
Floyd Patterson, Champion

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Archie Moore

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Willie Pastrano
Eddie Machen
Bob Satterfield
Ingemar Johansson
Bob Baker
Zora Folley

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1957

Floyd Patterson, Champion

Eddie Machen
Zora Folley
Willie Pastrano

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Nino Valdes

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Alex Miteff
Ingemar Johansson

1958

Floyd Patterson, Champion

Ingemar Johansson
Nino Valdes
Zora Folley
Henry Cooper
Willie Pastrano
Archie Moore
Eddie Machen

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Sonny Liston

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1959

Ingemar Johansson, Champion

Zora Folley
Floyd Patterson
Sonny Liston
Henry Cooper
Eddie Machen
Billy Hunter

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Alex Miteff




For total Victories over Ring Magazine top 10 during this period

Nino Valdes: 18 Willie Pastrano: 5


Looks like Nino Valdes was far more accomplished during this period, and fought much better competition and much bigger punchers.

The bigger question is what did Willie Pastrano do to earn a top 5 ranking from 1955-1958? :? He hardly accomplished anything in the heavyweight division, and was kept away from the big punchers of the division. Willie's management clearly steered him away from fighters with size, height, and a punch. Beating a washed up Rex Layne in 1955 somehow moved him into the top 5?

 

I can't wait to see your rebuttal to that one

 

One thing I noticed about Pastrano is that he was erratic,

tending to lose to guys and then beat them in a rematch,

while Valdes was consistent. A guy who beat him the first fight beat him the second also. If he beat a guy the first fight, he generally beat him the second. The exception for Valdes was Archie McBride whom he lost to in 1948, but edged in a controversial decision in 1954.

Why was Pastrano erratic?

I did some research on the internet and found that Willie was a skirt-chaser and playboy type who tended to coast on his talent--

Angelo Dundee:

"Willie was a great athlete, but keeping the guy in shape was a pain in the butt."

That explains how he can look so good against Harold Johnson and yet lose or draw to lesser fighters.

*I watched the Johnson-Pastrano fight for the first time since watching it live on TV and it jumped to the top of my best filmed fight list. These two put on quite a skill show.

And I scored it for Pastrano 8-6-1.

Johnson was a great fighter. Hard to tell how far back he had gone but he was still winning and looked good against everybody else. He had easily outpointed Doug Jones in a one-sided fight the previous year. Pastrano was better this night.

 

to the best of my count, Valdes was 14-10 against the rated heavyweights on Suzie's list. Pastrano was 4-3. Valdes also had two losses to fighters not on the list (Alonzo Johnson & Charlie Powell) and Pastrano one loss (Alonzo Johnson).

"Powell, Satterfield, Baker, and Miteff"

Pastrano was only 19 in 1955--kind of unfair to expect him to fight Satterfield or Baker at that age.

By 1957, I think he handles Satterfield and Baker (who were aging)

and I agree he beats Miteff in 1957 and Powell in 1959.

*By the way, Pastrano was matched with Miteff in 1959 but Miteff withdrew from the fight and Alonzo Johnson subbed.

**also, a European who was never on The Ring's yearly list but looks better on film than some of the Euros who were is Franco Cavicchi. He was much better than Neuhaus in their 1956 bout. Hard to tell how good he was by the time Pastrano beat him in 1958. He was beginning to lose fights. Cavicchi never fought many top Americans so he is hard to gauge, but he was a well-built 205 lbs. with good boxing skills and a punch.

 

"what did Pastrano do to earn a top five rating from 1955 to 1958"

If I were rating him, I would have put him in the light-heavyweight division in 1955 and 1956. With wins over Maxim, Spieser, plus Layne, he certainly deserved a position at light-heavy by 1955.

As for 1957 and 1958, Pastrano beat a bunch of European heavies just like Valdes did over the years.

He was probably rated so high because his record was good. He lost only to Harris from late 1953 (when he had just turned eighteen to the London fight in September of 1958. He was far more consistent than most of the other top heavyweights.

 

True enough.

Let's look at all the common opponents.

Pat McMurtry--(Pastrano outpoints. Valdes KO's in one)
D-ck Richardson--(Pastrano outpoints. Valdes KO's)
John Holman--(Pastrano outpoints. Valdes outpoints)
Joe Erskine--(Pastrano losses decision. Valdes KO'd one)
Brian London--(Pastrano outpoints, then is stopped on cuts. Valdes stops on cuts)
Archie Moore--(Pastrano draws. Valdes loses two decisions)
Harold Johnson--(Pastrano outpoints. Valdes loses decision)
Alonzo Johnson--(Pastrano splits two decisions. Valdes loses decision)

Tally

Pastrano-----6 wins, 3 losses, 1 draw

Valdes----5 wins, 4 losses

*it is a fair point that Moore and Johnson were much older when they fought Pastrano. But Johnson defeated Machen in 1961 and Machen easily handled Valdes twice back in 1956, and Johnson also beat Jones in 1962. It is certainly arbitrary to write off the Johnson win. As for Moore, age whatever, he actually did better against Pastrano than Johnson did.

 

I think it depends on which Pastrano showed up that night but Valdes lost almost a shutout to the 5"10 Harold Johnson in his prime and the 5'10 Bob Satterfield in 1955 in a dominating loss to Bob so could Pastrano also pull it off, I think the answer would be YES

 

Actually, after 1953 and Italo Scortichini, when he was just turning 18, I don't think Pastrano lost or drew to anyone who was not rated at one point or another in The Ring's top ten yearly or monthly ratings.

"smallish, limited"

Well, Bob Satterfield lost over the years to Al Hunter, Henry Hall, Wes Bascom, Doc Williams, Marty Marshall, Joe Lindsey, and Archie McBride,

But went 4-0 against Nino Valdes, Bob Baker, and Cleveland Williams.

Brings up the question of how Pastrano did against big men and how Valdes did against little men.

Here are Valdes' five lightest fighters he fought after coming to America--

Harold Johnson (176 lbs.)----lost 10
Archie Moore (1953-180 lbs.)----lost 10
Bob Satterfield (183 lbs.)----lost 10
Archie McBride (1954-184 lbs.)----won split decision 10
Alonzo Johnson (186 lbs.)----lost 10

So Valdes is an unsensational 1-4 against his five lightest opponents during his rated years.

Here are Pastrano's over 200 lb. opponents-

Rex Layne (209 lbs.)----W 10
Johnny Arthur (228 lbs.)----W 10
John Holman (201 lbs.)----W 10
Neal Welch (206 lbs.)----W 10
Brian London (1957-205 lbs.)----W 10
Joe Bygraves (206 lbs.)----W 10
Franco Cavicchi (203 lbs.)----W 10
Brian London (1958-207 lbs.)----TKO by 5 (on cuts)
Tom McNeeley (203 lbs.)----W 10
Archie Moore (202 lbs.)----Draw 10

So Pastrano is 8-1-1 against his ten heaviest opponents.

*a fair point for Valdes would be that he lost to some very good little men in Moore, Johnson, and Satterfield. But he did also lose to a fairly ordinary little man in Alonzo Johnson and struggled with McBride.

*Valdes also lost to better big men than Pastrano fought--Liston and Baker

but he also lost to big men who really weren't necessarily beyond Pastrano's opponents--Miteff and Powell.

***Bottom line for me is that speed and skill could and did negate Valdes' size advantages in real world fights.

As for Pastrano losing to little guys, every fighter, even the best like Moore, Johnson, and Conn, who fought at light-heavy lost at light heavy to top light-heavies.