Willie Pep - would his fans please justify his placement in their top all time lists

Everytime I see that record I am amazed. And he did it against excellent opposition.

 

I have a question for all the Pep fans out their, do you mark him down for the bouts he quit in (ala liston) or the ones he took a dive in?

Seems to be far too much double standards going on here

 

Some of the champions that Willie Pep defeated during his 135-1-1 run:

Joey Archibald (former featherweight champion)
Chalky Wright x4
Sal Bartolo x3
Phil Terranova
Paddy Demarco
Manuel Ortiz
Harold Dade
Sandy Saddler
Jackie Wilson

And, a short list of some of the rated contenders that he defeated...

Willie Joyce
Charley Riley
Humberto Sierra
Lefty Lachance
Carlos Chavez
Teddy "Red Top" Davis x3
Ray Famechon
Eddie Compo
Jackie Graves
Jock Leslie
Armand Savoie

Look at it this way...out of his eleven losses, one came to a HOF caliber lightweight (Angott), three came to Saddler (who is most certainly a Top 3 featherweight), two of the losses may well have been dives (Perez and Collins), and the rest occurred when he was well past his prime.

That's why he was an ATG.

 

Absolutely. You have to take all of that into consideration. And, taking that into consideration, he still makes my #1 slot at 126lbs.

 

You've just gone down in my estimation :-(

you even admitted to marking Duran down for what he did in Montreal, yet when Pep does it, it is different???????

 

I think China Hand Joe actually has a real solid point IF most of the opposition can be assessed as being of very low quality.

Buck Smith was something like 164-6 at one point.
Jerry "Wimpy" Halstead and Eric "Butterbean" Esch boasted some impressive numbers too.
Lamar Clark scored 44 straight KOs.
These guys were clubfighters or tank town sideshow attractions. Smith is good enough to be called a "journeyman" but really not much else.

This reality shows us we must approach plain numerical records with caution, and that they mean very little in themselves.

Of course, Pep was a lot better than those guys whichever way you look at it, but if his going 131-1-1 is being used as a major cornerstone to his greatness then it needs re-examining.

No one really cares too much that Jack Dempsey might have KO'd about 100, 200 (or 300?) additional "opponents" in "meaningless" exhibitions, and if Pep's official record was padded with a load of utter tomato cans I dont see why it should mean so much more.

 

Drew, as Ive said H2H and what I've seen on film, he looks and appears to be great, and I too have in my top 3 at Featherweight, but he doesnt crack my top 10 p4p

 

Duran was Mexican, so he deserves to be put down for quitting. Well, he wasn't Mexican, but close enough to be given harsh criticism.