BoxRec

This thread is a homage to all the skinny bean-pole fighters good and great.

Sandy Saddler
Thomas Hearns
Bob Foster
Panama Al Brown
Paul Williams

Feel free to add, rank and assess

Yep i agree with the Hearns

2 current fighters spring to mind (other than williams)
Celistino Caballero
Ali Funeka

Couple welters 6 feet or over.
Mark Breland
Bobby Dykes

Jeff Chandler.
Guillermo Jones (when at light middle)

Expug wrote:Couple welters 6 feet or over.
Mark Breland
Bobby Dykes

Good shout, mate...

Olympic Ali

Ernie Terrell
Erik Morales at 122

Considering their nicknames we have to have

Maurice Blocker (underrated fighter)
Alexis Arguello

I'd rank Saddler as the best of them all...

Ezzard wrote:I'd rank Saddler as the best of them all...

Yes,followed by Foster I'd say.
Arguellos a good shout too as his nickname "The Explosive Thin Man" indicates.

I think the three best that fit this discription are:

1.Panama Al Brown at bantam
2.Hearns at welter
3.Foster

Anyone got any pictures of Hearns as a bantam?

Hearns
Saddler
Arguello

I used to love Junior Jones. He is worth a mention.

Arguello was by far the best of all of them at in-fighting IMO

I'll add Kid Chocolate

orbtastic wrote:Anyone got any pictures of Hearns as a bantam?

Goodnight, Irene wrote:

orbtastic wrote:Anyone got any pictures of Hearns as a bantam?

What?

He was a bantam as an ama, I don't know how old he was but given he was tall as a child he had to look pretty ridiculous.

his ama championships were won at 135 and 140 i thought.... but then i seem to remember Bunce squawking on about a 'skinny 17 year old bantam named Hearns' boxing over in Britain.....

Yeah, you're right. He won titles at light welter but can't remember off the top of my head what age he first boxed properly but Manny is on record as saying he was a "skinny bantam" and couldn't punch to save his life.

He fought Pryor at 132 when he was 17.

Manny:

"Tommy must have been 10, and didn't weigh more than 80lbs when he first walked into the gym"

"he was always a skinny little kid, all through his ama career"

"at first out of ten kids [who we used to take to tournaments] tommy might have been the sixth most talented"

At 14 he didn't go with Steward to the 73 gloves or AAU but by 75 he earned his first berth in the National Golden Gloves.

"he weighed about 110lbs but he surprised me. he lost to mike ayala, who went on to win the bantamweight championship that year. ayala had 238 ama bouts. i don't think tommy even had 20"

"he lost to ayala, who won everything in 1975. then in the AAU that year I let him go up to 126 and he lost to ronnie shields who won everything at that weight. the next year he lost in the gloves 132lb final to aaron pryor and in the AAU final he lost to howard davis"

The 5'-11" featherweight Percy Cove: the so-called "Human Slat." This Canadian patriot, who main residence during his boxing days is where I went to school from 4th grade thru high school (Everett, Washington, USA), was machine-gunned down in the First World War, "with forty-six bullets in his riddled frame."

Panama Al Brown was skinny and could (apparently) box like hell; Rudy Zavala, Raul Perez and Sugar Baby Rojas were all very good fighters who were far too tall and slim for their weight class.

Breland was one helluva fighter but he was already worn out by the time he seriously got into the pro game.

I also think he was complacent. He did a 1987 interview with KO magazine where he ran through beating Curry and Hagler and eventually meeting Sugar Ray Leonard.