Baby Jake Matlala

[Autobarn]

as a fan of the lighter weights, i've been looking at some of matala's fights again.

he seemed nothing special early in his career, with a journeyman type record going into his KO defeat to IBF champ dave boy mccauley in 1991.

but the "smallest boxer in the world" at 4'10 got better with tough experience, winning WBO titles at flyweight and light flyweight and stopping michael carbajal. he was a fixture on the british scene and my memories of the south african are his bruising fight with british champ francis ampofo and his entertainign, lively first fight with mickey cantwell on a big british PPV.

not making any major claims of him. just wondering what happened to him - did he end up skint and ill? also, what are his best, most exciting fights? any fights of his worth tracking down?

[Counter-puncher]

umm, i am ready to stand corrected here but I am sure i saw pictures of him in one of the british threads once. yeh, he and Ampofo were similar in stature but Matlala was much the better fighters IMO

i had forgotten completely that he had a win over carbajal, however

[bennie]

Reading between the lines, Matlala has the HIV virus.

[orbtastic]

I remember watching him and the little Italian dude, Luigi Campaturo (sp?) and thinking..what the hell, both of them are lower than the top rope.

What was the fight where Jake's eye swelled up and his head started to look like ET's?

[Not so] Interesting side note, more people have probably seen Jake on national TV in the UK than any other fighter in history save one.

[Goodnight, Irene]

A fun fighter in his day, that Matlala.

[Autobarn]

I remember watching him and the little Italian dude, Luigi Campaturo (sp?) and thinking..what the hell, both of them are lower than the top rope.

What was the fight where Jake's eye swelled up and his head started to look like ET's?

[Not so] Interesting side note, more people have probably seen Jake on national TV in the UK than any other fighter in history save one.

that was vs former commonwealth and then british champ ampofo. that was a good fight as matlala was controlling and ampofo made several big rallies. it looked like matlala might get stopped but ampofo had been down and was retired in the corner between rds 9 and 10. good fight.

[Counter-puncher]

Ampofo was never shy with his head, i bet he was pleased he finally had someone his own height to butt

[Autobarn]

umm, i am ready to stand corrected here but I am sure i saw pictures of him in one of the british threads once. yeh, he and Ampofo were similar in stature but Matlala was much the better fighters IMO

i had forgotten completely that he had a win over carbajal, however

saw some of it on youtube and he was bobbing, weaving and laying into carbajal really well. looked sort of like dwight muhammad qawi, if qawi had been a full foot shorter, at least that night he did.

obviously carbajal had already lost his title, but the stoppage was an excellent result (IMO) as carbajal had lost his title only on a split decision.

i'm curious why he didn't defend the WBO title after the cantwell fight.

[orbtastic]

Ampofo is forever linked in my mind with Jimmy Mac calling him a "pocket battleship".

As to why Matlala didn't defend after Cantwell, suspect that the WBO had a nice mandatory looming against an unknown for little money and Carbajal's team probably offered about 10 times more.

[Datsue]

I loved him. Remember watching McAuley vs Matlala with my old man one night. I was getting all upset (my sensitive demeanour has since evaporated) at the way the Irishman was bleeding & got so heavily decked & my old man went: "Nah, I've seen him before. Always happens to him".

Sad to hear the poor wee man is in dire straits. As well as the trad 90s Brit WBO roundabout fights he fought some very very good fighters. That Carbajal result is the shining moment, obviously. Lost to Alberto "I once beat up Robbie Regan" Jiminez in the end, didn't he?

[Counter-puncher]

Ampofo is forever linked in my mind with Jimmy Mac calling him a "pocket battleship".
.

[Autobarn]

I loved him. Remember watching McAuley vs Matlala with my old man one night. I was getting all upset (my sensitive demeanour has since evaporated) at the way the Irishman was bleeding & got so heavily decked & my old man went: "Nah, I've seen him before. Always happens to him".

Sad to hear the poor wee man is in dire straits. As well as the trad 90s Brit WBO roundabout fights he fought some very very good fighters. That Carbajal result is the shining moment, obviously. Lost to Alberto "I once beat up Robbie Regan" Jiminez in the end, didn't he?

he did lose his flyweight title to jiminez, then moved down and won the WBO's light flyweight title.

matlala is said to have been ill for the jiminez bout, and was apparently heavily criticised for taking it, in the south african media.

i wished i'd seen this fight - i can't imagine a bout between these 2 being dull.

[Autobarn]

only just realised that after matlala stopped carbajal, carbajal - the "little hands of stone" went on to stop jorge arce. carbajal, taking a beating and way behind, destroyed arce in the 11th, winning a world jr flyweight title for an impressive 4th time.

so matlala is the only guy to stop carbajal, and also i believe the only guy to beat (indeed, stop) 2 scottish world champs? that would be paul weir (WBO strawweight and WBO jr flyweight titles) and pat clinton (WBO flyweight champ).

interesting.

[Roco]

Always loved watching Baby Jake. He was like a little tank.

[Diamond WEAPON]

only just realised that after matlala stopped carbajal, carbajal - the "little hands of stone" went on to stop jorge arce. carbajal, taking a beating and way behind, destroyed arce in the 11th, winning a world jr flyweight title for an impressive 4th time.

so matlala is the only guy to stop carbajal, and also i believe the only guy to beat (indeed, stop) 2 scottish world champs? that would be paul weir (WBO strawweight and WBO jr flyweight titles) and pat clinton (WBO flyweight champ).

interesting.

Yeah, the Matlala-Carbajal fight was actually pretty close but Michael's face was almost all scar tissue by then and Baby Jake had him looking like took a pumpkin carver to his dome, so they stopped the fight. Carbajal's style really shortened the shelf-life on his face.

An interesting note about Matlala is that Nelson Mandela frequently said he's the only guy in South Africa who gets more cheers than him.

[Autobarn]

just watched matlala v dave boy mccauley. one of the smallest ever flyweights vs one of the taller one's i've seen (at 5'7, mccauley). matlala gave it a good go, seemed to outwork mccauley who stayed on the ropes a lot. but when the riishman opened up, he really did outgun baby jake. a good knockdown punch by the irishman.

while matlala went on to win a flyweight title, it was probably a good thing he lost the title and went on to win a light flyweight belt, as he seemed way too small for flyweight.

so, for a bit of a digression, mccauley was down about 16x in his career? what other fights of his are worth checking out, besides the obvious (fidel bassa part 1)?