BoxRec

Who remembers Tillis? He was a decent heavy in his day, challenged for the WBA title. Went into a journeyman type later on in his career.

Anyway i found this on him, he was recently given a Lifetime Achievement award .

Here's an article on it

http://blog.newsok.com/boneman/2010/02/ ... d-respect/

Nice find Ian and good to see a heavyweight from that era who has adjusted well to retirement.

When I initially read the thread title I thought, 'oh, no what has he done? Is he dead?'

His contemporaries have made me very cynical..

i remember watching Weaver v Tillis for the Wba (on a saturday morning !!!!!!) World of Sport. blimey those were the days.
Tillis was ok.

i saw him at the tailend of his career, fighting and getting stopped by Gary Mason at the Elephant and Castle Leisure Centre

when tillis took his training seriously he was quite a competitor,he always seemed to have his mind elsewhere and i would have strongly expected him to end up in a bad way after boxing but its good to hear hes doing well.

he did really well against tyson and probably set the blueprint on how to go about beating him

He was skilled and flamboyant. He wore the same trunks as Ali and tried to move and box like him. Very good amateur, started his career well , gave Tyson a very tough fight but he lost clearly. the next 5 years of his career he just became a journeyman who was in it for the payday and some very good HW's like Bruno, Holyfield, Morrison and even old man Bugner beat on him.
But make no mistake, the 80's was full of talented black american HW's and Tillis was one of them. He would have wiped the floor at his peak with some of the big lumbering giants around today.Tillis at his peak with his style would have outboxed Valuev better than Holy or Haye.

Fast Eddie Chambers is a poor man's Tillis.

I always had a soft spot for James Tillis...I'm not sure why. I was young and maybe I just really like his nickname.

reggaereggae wrote:I always had a soft spot for James Tillis...I'm not sure why. I was young and maybe I just really like his nickname.

Tony Tubbs was another of that Ilk, lovely smooth boxer with incredibly fast hands, and great footwork for a portly chap.

Counter-puncher wrote:Fast Eddie Chambers is a poor man's Tillis.

you think so?

i see chambers as a very good, slick boxer who would have done better as a cruiserweight. good fighter, with a style somewhere between toney and winky wright, and was brilliant in the win over dimitrenko and showed flashes of brilliance in erratic displays vs peter, guinn, brock.

i am saying Tillis would be fighting at a Chambers' type level if he were around now mate, IE fringe contender with decent-good skills

Tillis actually wrote a book as well.

Counter-puncher wrote:i am saying Tillis would be fighting at a Chambers' type level if he were around now mate, IE fringe contender with decent-good skills

i was well impressed by chambers' win over the big lump, dimitrenko. granted, the russia is just a big lump, but it was a great display from fast eddie.

not seen mch of tillis, aaprt from the loss to holyfield. did he have solid defense and accurate (if little power) punch like chambers?

Autobarn wrote:

Counter-puncher wrote:i am saying Tillis would be fighting at a Chambers' type level if he were around now mate, IE fringe contender with decent-good skills

i was well impressed by chambers' win over the big lump, dimitrenko. granted, the russia is just a big lump, but it was a great display from fast eddie.

not seen mch of tillis, aaprt from the loss to holyfield. did he have solid defense and accurate (if little power) punch like chambers?

about the strength of it mate from what i remember of him. J said on another thread Razor Ruddock was better than most/any of Vitali's contenders and I kindof feel that way about Tillis.

Tillis had skills but not much of a punch and he had a very bad engine. In several of his fights he ran out of gas, or in the case of the Weaver fight, couldn't or wouldn't put in the extra effort required to win the title.

He may have beaten a few of the really bad recent era paper champions (Peter, Ibragimov etc) on his best day but he was a level below Tubbs, Witherspoon and the other 80's boys, as evidenced by his results against them.

His book is quite an entertaining read but blames a lot of his losses on some sort of allergy that affected his stamina.

One of Bruno's best wins was against Tillis...... I actually tipped Tillis to upset Bruno. But Bruno smashed him.

Flump wrote:Tillis had skills but not much of a punch and he had a very bad engine.

I disagree with this because plenty of top class fighters were very impressed by Tillis's punching power, including Pinklon Thomas, Greg Page and Mike Tyson - three pretty strong references!

He showed character to come off the floor & beat Earnie Shavers, and who in todays division are we confident beats the Tillis who came to fight against Tyson? I think that's a tricky one.

His fight with Greg Page is spectacular, decking the steel chinned Page in the second, seek it out anyone who hasn't seen it, he also decked Carl Williams twice, Marvis Frazier, Mike Williams, busted up Gerrie Coetzee but seemed to let fights slip away.

Quick Tillis from 1978 to 1986 was a very good fighter.

overhand_right wrote:

Flump wrote:Tillis had skills but not much of a punch and he had a very bad engine.

I disagree with this because plenty of top class fighters were very impressed by Tillis's punching power, including Pinklon Thomas, Greg Page and Mike Tyson - three pretty strong references!

He showed character to come off the floor & beat Earnie Shavers, and who in todays division are we confident beats the Tillis who came to fight against Tyson? I think that's a tricky one.

His fight with Greg Page is spectacular, decking the steel chinned Page in the second, seek it out anyone who hasn't seen it, he also decked Carl Williams twice, Marvis Frazier, Mike Williams, busted up Gerrie Coetzee but seemed to let fights slip away.

Quick Tillis from 1978 to 1986 was a very good fighter.

Excellent post.

obviously i wasnt around when he fought but from what i've seen he was a good boxer but someone who was unlucky when it came to title fights i think if he was around in the 90s or now he would of won a title of some sort possibly the WBO of the 90s as the competition wasnt great and i see him better than tommy morrison or axel schulz