Jerry Quarry

[Robinson]

One thing for certain is even if it is short lived Quarry will make it a fight.

I agree frazier-Quarry 1 is one of the best FIGHTs one can see.

[I Feel Fine]

One last point about Chuvalo coming off two losses in his last three fights going into his first Ali fight... most of Joe Louis' title challengers were coming off losses when he fought them, nine had lost at least one of their last three fights (not including fighters who were coming off losses to Louis) compared to five for Ali, and four were coming off losses in their very last fight (again, not including guys who were coming off losses to Louis) compared to three for Ali. So it evens out, considering Louis had more challengers, though many more of Louis' opponents were coming off a loss in their last six than was the case for Ali. Three of Marciano's seven title opponents were coming off at least one loss in their last three fights (not including those who were coming off a loss to Marciano.) And, again, Chuvalo was a last minute sub for Terrell... and hardly a bad one, and the fight was in Chuvalo's home country, which gave him the advantage in terms of the crowd and more especially the Canadian referee who let him low blow as much as he wanted.

Anyway, robinson, yeah, I agree. It was the fight of the year in '69, and was maybe Frazier's most exciting fight outside of Ali, though his first fight with Bonavena and his fight with Chuvalo were also great matches. I do think that part of it, though, was that Frazier was a slow starter, and I think that helped Quarry. And by the time Frazier started to warm up Quarry was already starting to slow down.

One fight that would have been interesting would have been Quarry-Bonavena. I wonder why they never met. Obviously if Bonavena had beaten Ellis they would have, but even after the tournament you would think they could have gotten together. That said, I'm sure Quarry would have won.

[Robinson]

Some of Joe Louis challengers to me seemed pretty well, un-qualified. But like the man himself said he was going to try and fight a 'bum' each and every month.

Good for him for being so honest./

I think that the Frazier of the late 60s was a different animal to the one he became after his fight vs Ali.

He would do two things slug with every fist and jab well..
like a battleship opening up with all its guns. Coming from
every angle.
Or
he would stand and just go toe to toe with the other guy like
a pre dreadnought limiting himself to just broadsides.

sometimes Quarry would fight to proud for his own good, he
showed in several of his fights that AT TIMES he had alot more
talent and depth than what his over all record would lead you
to believe.

Quarry vs Bonavena in the late 1960s would have been awesome. Was it ever proposed ? aside from in the WBA eliminators..as a potential..

[DaveV17]

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[I Feel Fine]

A) Liston was better than either Tubbs or Golota... you're... insane... to say otherwise... I'm not sure I would put it past another Ali opponent in the 60's to beat Tubbs at least
B) More than a few of Ali's 70's opponents were far better than Tubbs or Golota
C) They are not particularly impressive opponents
D) You're overrating Bowe's abilities almost as badly as you are his opposition... Zora Folley could have beaten a lot of Bowe's opponents
E) Post this shit in another thread, not in a Quarry thread... you seem to like talking about Ali more than I do

[DaveV17]

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[I Feel Fine]

Whenever questions of opposition come up in regards to Louis or Marciano or Holmes or Tyson, the response is usually "they fought the guys around." This doesn't apply to 60's Ali? If that's the case, I never again want to hear that Marciano, Holmes or Tyson's title reigns are impressive, and outside of a couple of wins I don't ever again want to hear about Louis' record title reign being particularly great or important. The 60's that Ali fought in was not a great era for Heavyweights, but not a bad one either. None of those other guys beat anyone better than Liston. Patterson, Terrell, and Chuvalo were not weak opponents.

Liston in '64 wasn't at his best, but he was still a dangerous fighter and could have beaten a lot of all time greats. Plus Clay was only 22 and 19-0, so he wasn't exactly at his peak either. Certainly, though Liston was better than anyone Bowe fought, perhaps including Holyfield. You're simply misinformed if you think that Golota, and especially Tubbs, were great opponents. You talk about conditioning, I don't think you know much about Tubbs, he wasn't very big on conditioning, came in overweight a lot, and he was also past his prime against Bowe. Golota was better, but hardly someone who Ali couldn't have handled.

Ali was at his best in the 60's. That hardly makes his career in the 70's irrelevent, the 70's was where he faced his best opponents. He did have some off nights, but most fighters do, and he was finished by '76, as most fighters are by that age.

I do love hearing some of you talk about "Ali fanatics" and yet some of you simply can't stop talking about Ali. And while I do enjoy your admiration for Tony Tubbs and Scott Frank, I'm just not going to respond to any more Ali posts in here, unless they relate to Quarry. I will respond if you post a reply in an Ali related thread.

[DaveV17]

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[I Feel Fine]

I have never criticized Ali for who he fought in the 60s. The opposition was what it was. He didn't duck anyone. Ali did everything asked of him. He fought often and against anyone available in the 60s and 70s. He promoted his fights and he did a lot for boxing.

I consider Ali one of the elite heavyweights, just not unbeatable like some of you.

Fine. And I don't think Ali was unbeatable, I just don't think Bowe would beat him.

[dempseyfire]

The likes of Chuvalo, Terrell, old Folley, and Liston would've beaten Golota, the guy who quit against a shot Tyson, Glass-jawed Michael Grant, nearly KO'd by morbidly obese Samson Po'hua, and demolished in seconds by the average Lamon Brewster. Although I guess in your world Brewster beats the 60s HWs "with ease" . . .haha.

Tony Tubbs?? WTF?? Mathis was another tubby 6'3 fighter who had all of the natural talent of Tubbs but was more consistant. Do you even watch fights or just browse boxrec? Have you sat through Tubbs-Page?? The likes of a Quarry or Liston would've gone through those lazy wastes like hot knives through butter. Period. But for comedic reasons, please explain how Axel Shultz beats a prime Foreman. Answer that for the board.

[The Great John L]

DF, you and some others live in a world where Foreman, Ali, Frazier, and Norton would only struggle with each other - and maybe Jess Willard? That is the absurd way that some of you dinosaurs see boxing.

Foreman, even a prime Foreman not the dawdling archaic one who had some success against the bigger, stronger guys in the late 80’s and 90’s, would have struggled with a lot of HWs throughout history, just not ordinary defenseless targets like Stewart, Schultz, Briggs, Morrison, etc. Perhaps you didn’t notice how Foreman avoided other journeymen of the time like Norris and Hunter who were actually hard to hit? Or maybe the concept of styles is too difficult to understand.

The simple fact that slower, fat versions of Foreman and Holmes had a decent amount of success against some of the top HWs of a generation later clearly indicates to any reasonable person that there was a decline in talent. Of course in your fantasy world athletes improve once they are over 40 years old, and talent levels increase when almost all of the gyms close and the amateur programs die. But I guess it's no fun to let logic interfere with simplicity. After all, bigger is better...

[DaveV17]

asdf

[Ezzard]

As for people that think that fighters from long ago were so much better than more modern fighters and vice vera- I have never bought into either idea. There are great, good, average, below average, and bad fighters in every era. Some eras happened to have better heavyweights, but worse featherweights, and so on. It all pretty much balances out.

An interesting argument and I pick this part out for discussion. I basically agree BUT I'd say that the more participants you have the more likely you are to have a better talent pool. So it's more likely that there are less great fighters around now than in the past as there are simply fewer pro fighters.

[The Great John L]

john and DF,
…Of course when I point that out usually people like you dispute and point to him fighting Holyfiled to show that he would fight anyone.

Oi Vey… I’m the one that mentioned he avoided the slicker fighters during his comeback. Are you even paying attention?

BTW, he took the Holyfield fight for several reasons. It paid well, Holy wasn’t the most difficult guy in the world to hit and he wasn’t a very big hitter. He was being selective. It had nothing to do with showing that he would fight anyone.

Did you also know that prime Foreman picked his opposition too?

Greate deduction Sherlock. Being selective of opposition has been prevalent throughout boxing history, or maybe you didn’t know that. Of course it’s much easier to do with each passing year as the number of gyms, trainers and boxers keep shrinking.

Golota of the Bowe fights was a force. Of course Golota was a mental case and of course Tubbs was too fat. But anyone who doesn't see the difficulty of fighting men of their size, with their amateur backgrounds just sees the sport from a non athletes perspective. Golota especially of the Bowe fights would be a nighmare for any fighter.

This is not a well informed comment. Golota had good skills and a questionable heart and would have been a W for almost any world class HW throughout history, just as he actually was during his career. He always looked good right until he gave up.

And Mathis had an even better amateur career than Tubbs and was rougly the same size. And I think Quarry beat him pretty handily. Don’t you see the difficulty of what Quarry accomplished?

Is this the same Quarry who couldn't beat old Machen? The same Quarry who got knocked out by Chuvalo? Get out of your dream world.

Quarry was 21yo when he lost to the veteran Machen. So what? Most HWs today don’t fight anyone of note until they’re over 30. Quarry learned a lot in that fight and went on a very impressive run despite his youth.

The Chuvalo fight is bit harder to understand, so you can interpret it in a number of ways.

[The Great John L]

As for people that think that fighters from long ago were so much better than more modern fighters and vice vera- I have never bought into either idea. There are great, good, average, below average, and bad fighters in every era. Some eras happened to have better heavyweights, but worse featherweights, and so on. It all pretty much balances out.

An interesting argument and I pick this part out for discussion. I basically agree BUT I'd say that the more participants you have the more likely you are to have a better talent pool. So it's more likely that there are less great fighters around now than in the past as there are simply fewer pro fighters.

I dunno Ezz, that sounds too logical...

[Ambling Alp]

I agree that mathematically this makes sense. However there are other factors that favor more modern eras. For example, the amatuer programs were almost non existent 100 years ago. They were great in the 1930's through the 1980's, though they seemed to have declined since then.
We also know more about diet and nutrition than we did years ago. Of course it's up to individual fighter to take advantage of this and some clearly don't.

I agree that people that support today fighters and relativley recent fighters point out advantages that really aren't advantages. For example, people will say look how big heavyweights are now, they must be better. Obviously that is foolish.

You can point out examples why it should be better in one era, but you can counter that with something else from another era.

From time to time, people say something like "Look at all of the great fighters in the 1920's". Or the 1990's, or whenever". However you can say that for any era.

It seems to me that people that claim that a certain era was better than others (throughout the weight classes) usually don't know as much about the eras that they are putting down as the as they they support. That's not always the case, but it usually is.

Having said all of this, I will say that this is a terrible time to be a fight fan. There are some talented fighters, (in certain weight classes) but they so seldom fight each other. Even then, it's usually on Pay Per View. The undefeated record seems to be the end all be all.

How often do two fighters in the Top 10 fight each other?
I don't think the talent level across the board is bad now, but Boxing politics have never been so bad.

[The Great John L]

I agree that mathematically this makes sense. However there are other factors that favor more modern eras. For example, the amatuer programs were almost non existent 100 years ago. They were great in the 1930's through the 1980's, though they seemed to have declined since then.

Actually, they have declined significantly. However, in general I agree with your comments and would add that the growth of the sport and the much greater participation in the 30’s-60’s indicate that these decades contained a much greater number of quality fighters. You could probably look at it as a bell curve, with these decades near the peak of the bell and the talent sloping off in earlier and later decades. Unfortunately, lately there has been a pretty steep decline in the sport, but as you noted there are still great fighters. I would think that PBF would have been very difficult for just about anybody throughout history. On the other hand, Andrew Golota would not have been.

[Ezzard]

I agree that mathematically this makes sense. However there are other factors that favor more modern eras. For example, the amatuer programs were almost non existent 100 years ago. They were great in the 1930's through the 1980's, though they seemed to have declined since then.
We also know more about diet and nutrition than we did years ago. Of course it's up to individual fighter to take advantage of this and some clearly don't.

I agree that people that support today fighters and relativley recent fighters point out advantages that really aren't advantages. For example, people will say look how big heavyweights are now, they must be better. Obviously that is foolish.

You can point out examples why it should be better in one era, but you can counter that with something else from another era.

From time to time, people say something like "Look at all of the great fighters in the 1920's". Or the 1990's, or whenever". However you can say that for any era.

It seems to me that people that claim that a certain era was better than others (throughout the weight classes) usually don't know as much about the eras that they are putting down as the as they they support. That's not always the case, but it usually is.

Having said all of this, I will say that this is a terrible time to be a fight fan. There are some talented fighters, (in certain weight classes) but they so seldom fight each other. Even then, it's usually on Pay Per View. The undefeated record seems to be the end all be all.

How often do two fighters in the Top 10 fight each other?
I don't think the talent level across the board is bad now, but Boxing politics have never been so bad.

IMO nutrition is something that could be picked up by anyone. If Greb was boxing today he'd have a nutritonist. If Floyd mayweather was boxing in the 30s he wouldn't...

What you say about top 10 fighters not fighting one another is absolutely what is killing the sport. And the undefeated record is a pointless statistic.

In the UK though people really do feel that we are having something of a renaissance in the sport.

[dempseyfire]

It's not just the Heavys, look at the Middleweight and Light HW divisions in the 60s/70s and then in the 90s-present. STEEP decline in depth there.

The smaller weight divisions (up to welter) have retained strength since boxing has retained sizable popularity among Latinos (who are increasing their size at a rapid rate in the US) and people from other Third World nations (South-East Asia, West Africa). And even with that, you'll have a pretty hard time arguing the Lightweights of today over the Lightweights of the early 80s, let alone the 40s and 50s.

[The Great John L]

It's not just the Heavys, look at the Middleweight and Light HW divisions in the 60s/70s and then in the 90s-present. STEEP decline in depth there.

The smaller weight divisions (up to welter) have retained strength since boxing has retained sizable popularity among Latinos (who are increasing their size at a rapid rate in the US) and people from other Third World nations (South-East Asia, West Africa). And even with that, you'll have a pretty hard time arguing the Lightweights of today over the Lightweights of the early 80s, let alone the 40s and 50s.

Excellent point.

[dempseyfire]

I agree that mathematically this makes sense. However there are other factors that favor more modern eras. For example, the amatuer programs were almost non existent 100 years ago. They were great in the 1930's through the 1980's, though they seemed to have declined since then.
We also know more about diet and nutrition than we did years ago. Of course it's up to individual fighter to take advantage of this and some clearly don't.

I agree that people that support today fighters and relativley recent fighters point out advantages that really aren't advantages. For example, people will say look how big heavyweights are now, they must be better. Obviously that is foolish.

You can point out examples why it should be better in one era, but you can counter that with something else from another era.

From time to time, people say something like "Look at all of the great fighters in the 1920's". Or the 1990's, or whenever". However you can say that for any era.

It seems to me that people that claim that a certain era was better than others (throughout the weight classes) usually don't know as much about the eras that they are putting down as the as they they support. That's not always the case, but it usually is.

Having said all of this, I will say that this is a terrible time to be a fight fan. There are some talented fighters, (in certain weight classes) but they so seldom fight each other. Even then, it's usually on Pay Per View. The undefeated record seems to be the end all be all.

How often do two fighters in the Top 10 fight each other?
I don't think the talent level across the board is bad now, but Boxing politics have never been so bad.

IMO nutrition is something that could be picked up by anyone. If Greb was boxing today he'd have a nutritonist. If Floyd mayweather was boxing in the 30s he wouldn't...

What you say about top 10 fighters not fighting one another is absolutely what is killing the sport. And the undefeated record is a pointless statistic.

In the UK though people really do feel that we are having something of a renaissance in the sport.

Actually, if you wern't dirt poor, I'd say the average person ate much healthier in the 1920s than today. There was even a recent study that came out citing the nutrional health of the average farmer in the MIDDLE AGES was better than today. FRESH produce, dairy and meats not laced with chemicals, steroids, and God knows what else. Junk food as we know it today didn't exist. Nutritional studies counter each other all the time . . dairy is bad, dairy is good, carbs are bad, carbs are good etc. Basic common sense knowledge . . .lean meats, lots of fruit and vegatables, low intake of lots of starches and fats etc. has been known for ages. Fighters back then didn't baloon 50 lbs and then drop that in training camp, which we all know is extremely healthy

[Ezzard]

I agree that mathematically this makes sense. However there are other factors that favor more modern eras. For example, the amatuer programs were almost non existent 100 years ago. They were great in the 1930's through the 1980's, though they seemed to have declined since then.
We also know more about diet and nutrition than we did years ago. Of course it's up to individual fighter to take advantage of this and some clearly don't.

I agree that people that support today fighters and relativley recent fighters point out advantages that really aren't advantages. For example, people will say look how big heavyweights are now, they must be better. Obviously that is foolish.

You can point out examples why it should be better in one era, but you can counter that with something else from another era.

From time to time, people say something like "Look at all of the great fighters in the 1920's". Or the 1990's, or whenever". However you can say that for any era.

It seems to me that people that claim that a certain era was better than others (throughout the weight classes) usually don't know as much about the eras that they are putting down as the as they they support. That's not always the case, but it usually is.

Having said all of this, I will say that this is a terrible time to be a fight fan. There are some talented fighters, (in certain weight classes) but they so seldom fight each other. Even then, it's usually on Pay Per View. The undefeated record seems to be the end all be all.

How often do two fighters in the Top 10 fight each other?
I don't think the talent level across the board is bad now, but Boxing politics have never been so bad.

IMO nutrition is something that could be picked up by anyone. If Greb was boxing today he'd have a nutritonist. If Floyd mayweather was boxing in the 30s he wouldn't...

What you say about top 10 fighters not fighting one another is absolutely what is killing the sport. And the undefeated record is a pointless statistic.

In the UK though people really do feel that we are having something of a renaissance in the sport.

Actually, if you wern't dirt poor, I'd say the average person ate much healthier in the 1920s than today. There was even a recent study that came out citing the nutrional health of the average farmer in the MIDDLE AGES was better than today. FRESH produce, dairy and meats not laced with chemicals, steroids, and God knows what else. Junk food as we know it today didn't exist. Nutritional studies counter each other all the time . . dairy is bad, dairy is good, carbs are bad, carbs are good etc. Basic common sense knowledge . . .lean meats, lots of fruit and vegatables, low intake of lots of starches and fats etc. has been known for ages. Fighters back then didn't baloon 50 lbs and then drop that in training camp, which we all know is extremely healthy

Points taken but it is far easier for fighters to move up and down the divisions nowadays than it ever has been before. Boxers can add pounds, take them off, and be successful at the weights much more so in today's sport.

[DaveV17]

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[DaveV17]

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[dempseyfire]

John wrote:"And Mathis had an even better amateur career than Tubbs and was rougly the same size. And I think Quarry beat him pretty handily. Don’t you see the difficulty of what Quarry accomplished?

Mathis turned pro at 300, lost some weight but was always blubblery with a lot of lose skin. Tubbs turned pro at about 220, got fatter at times, but never as sloppy as Buster. Buster moved well on his feet but never had the Tubbs hand speed. Mathis was a decent fighter, he came back off a near 3 year layoff with no tune ups and went 12 with Ali. Mathis was one of Quarry's best wins.

Quarry was just too small, too slow, too inconsistent to compete with a Tubbs or the Golota of the Bowe fights. Of course Quarry might have been able to beat the Golota who showed up later with his mental problems and lack of confidence.

We might agree about Foreman. I have always considered him overrated when he was young and old. One lucky punch against Moorer saved his reputation. A nice guy and a good businessman, but not the boxer that some think.

Conditioning? Show me a Tubbs fight where he fights at the pace Mathis fought Frazier at for 11 rounds. Mathis in the late 60s wasn't any fatter than Tubbs was at Tony's peak, and Mathis was actually the naturally bigger man with the bigger frame.

Great line about Golota . .Quarry loses to the Golota of the Bowe fights but might beat Golota later with his 'mental problems' . . what do you call fouling out by low blows in the two biggest fights of your life? Mal-adjustment??

And please explain how the evolutionary warriors of today's Light HW division beat the Light HWs of 30 years ago.

It's all evolution right? Must be b/c as you said, you can't just look at weight!

You keep dodging my questions. Wonder why . .still want to hear your analysis of a prime Foreman vs Axel Shutlz as well.