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It seems the general consensus has been that Pep's narrow pts loss to rugged Lightweight Sammy Angott (a fight he believed he won) was what kept Pep from ever pursuing the LW crown, and while I don't know the actual reason he never challenged for the LW title, the truth is that Pep was in fact a World class Lightweight. In 1943 he beat ranked contender Allie Stolz at LW. In 1944 he practically shutout Willie Joyce, who deserves to be in the IBHOF, and who was coming off a win over Henry Armstrong ! at LW. Later that year he beat Lulu Constantino, another ranked fighter at LW. The following month he took a one sided decision from Hall of Famer Chalky Wright, now fighting at LW, where he still managed a few more impressive wins, and in 1948 he won a clear decision over Paddy DeMarco, another fighter who has at least a case for being in the IBHOF, at Lightweight. Willie Pep actually has a better resume at 135 then a couple Hall of Famers, who got in for there accomplishments at that weight.

To me him not going up to lightweight is what hurts his case when compared to a handful of other elite fighters. It might seem unfair, but if you are going to say someone is right at the top they have to have a better victims list than Pep had. Robinson, Armstrong, Leonard, Greb etc. all moved up to beat great fighters at bigger weight classes. Had there been several other great featherweights at the time (which there never is) he wouldn't have had to do this. However, there wasn't so he needed to do this.

Seamus wrote:It seems the general consensus has been that Pep's narrow pts loss to rugged Lightweight Sammy Angott (a fight he believed he won) was what kept Pep from ever pursuing the LW crown, and while I don't know the actual reason he never challenged for the LW title, the truth is that Pep was in fact a World class Lightweight. In 1943 he beat ranked contender Allie Stolz at LW. In 1944 he practically shutout Willie Joyce, who deserves to be in the IBHOF, and who was coming off a win over Henry Armstrong ! at LW. Later that year he beat Lulu Constantino, another ranked fighter at LW. The following month he took a one sided decision from Hall of Famer Chalky Wright, now fighting at LW, where he still managed a few more impressive wins, and in 1948 he won a clear decision over Paddy DeMarco, another fighter who has at least a case for being in the IBHOF, at Lightweight. Willie Pep actually has a better resume at 135 then a couple Hall of Famers, who got in for there accomplishments at that weight.

You're right... Pep was one of those few guys at any weight who just didn't put on weight. For his last fight in 1966, at age 43 -- his 241st fight -- he weighed 125, same as he did in 1940 when he started his professional career at age 17.. Pep just trained down a little less fine for Lightweights than for Featherweights. He easily beat lightweight Willie Joyce and other good lightweights.. What is usually not considered, is the fact that 10 of his 11 losses---and ALL of his KO losses---came after his ability to absorb punches was lost in a catastrophic plane crash that put him in a full body cast for 5 months after his 110th fight.. Pep was never the same.. Pep's 229 victories is a record number of wins for any great fighter.

That really wasn't my point Alp. What I'm trying to point out is that while we can speculate forever regarding how say Monzon or Hagler would have performed at 175, in Pep's case we don't have to speculate how he would have handled 135, because we have actual fights he won at that weight against pretty solid opposition as evidence.

He has some nice wins at lightweight. That is more impressive than Monzon and Hagler who never moved up at all. He doesn't have a monster win that a handful of others did when they moved up.

Some monster wins aren't that monstrous... Hagler fought once a year in 1985, '86, and '87... Leonard was his last fight... SRL never defended the 160 title

Mayweather fought De La Hoya at 154, a SD.. De La Hoya had 1 more win... Then he got slaughtered and stopped.

Michael Spinks moved up to beat Larry Holmes.. Holmes reign as the top Heavyweight came to an end.

Those were great wins, but timing played a major role... Pep had a great comeback from and airplane crash that nearly took his life. That's bigger. Plus Pep went 134-1-1 or something like that and had the most wins ever achieved by a great fighter, 229-11-1.

Timing can be very important when it comes to when wins were notched. And one should be consistent when factoring these dynamics.

I liked those examples.

Prime Pep would have taken those guys before the near fatal plane crash... Not after... No KO losses before the crash in 110 fights (1 loss)... 6 KO losses after.

Light Heavy Ray Elson was a very rugged guy before he almost died in an auto crash... Afterwards he tried to continue and was knocked out by feather hits.

Nile4000 wrote:Willie Pep was a great fighter, but how would he have done against the likes of Bob Montgomery, Ike Williams, and Beau Jack? I don't think it would be a positive outcome. And we all know both Monzon and Hagler would've faced disaster if they had fought the likes of Foster, Spinks, and Saad Muhammad.

The great Willie Pep beat Willie Joyce at lightweight. Joyce beat the great Ike Williams two out of three. So, I don't think that Pep would have had much trouble if he would have fought his fight against the Beau Jacks, Bob Montgomerys and Williamses of the world. I am not saying he would have win easily, but, to beat Pep wasn't easy either. Those guys would've had the weight advantages over Pep, that's all.

Now, you're right about the greats like Marvelous and Carlos Monzon moving up 15lbs to challenge the great monsters like Bob Foster, Michael Spinks or Matthew Saad Muhammad. Fifteen pounds might be too much for a middleweight to handle a light-heavyweight.

elmersalsa wrote:Fifteen pounds might be too much for a middleweight to handle a light-heavyweight

Depends. It wasn't too much for Dick Tiger and Bernard Hopkins -- and I would say Harry Greb, Mickey Walker, and Billy Conn... Conn started as a Lightweight and Walker as a Welterweight... If you get bigger you have no choice but to fight in higher weight divisions... Of course Walker fought Heavyweights at 170.

Beau Jack was an absolute beast on the inside. He thrived in toe to toe slugfests, but a good mover could beat him. Pre-crash Pep would be a bad matchup for him.

Sammy Angott was much too strong for Pep.

It was a stupid fight for Pep to take.

Angott gave welterweights Fritzie Zivic and Ray Robinson hard fights, with Angott was the aggressor against these championship welterweights most of the way.

JMO but I think that Willie could have fought as a bantamweight, but could beat anyone at featherweight anyway (at least until Saddler came along) and not struggle to make weight. Most of his opponents seemed to be bigger than Pep.