BoxRec

Ambling Alp II wrote: ↑28 Aug 2019, 16:00 I thought he was pretty good. There didn't seem to be one great thing about him, but he was pretty solid. Had some power, some boxing ability. He had some decent wins.

bennie wrote: ↑02 Sep 2019, 06:21 Kates was a world class operator just shy of the ability to topple the very best but in my opinion Victor Galindez essentially bailed out against him when he picked up a bad cut from a clash of heads in the third round of their world title encounter in South Africa in 1976. Galindez, the defending WBA light-heavyweight champion and the WBA's blue-eyed boy, turned away and walked to his corner, where he was allowed to remain for several chaotic minutes before everybody was satisfied that he could continue. What a joke! Referee Stanley Christodoulou, another blue-eyed boy with the WBA, should have waved it off immediately, much like referee Carlos Padilla waved it off when John Mugabi turned his back on Duane Thomas many moons later, but Christodoulou totally indulged the Argentine fighter and his camp. Galindez came back to finish a dispirited Kates with one second remaining of their 15-rounder but boxing was the bigger loser, even though Galindez did give Kates a rematch a year later in Italy and won again, this time on a unanimous decision.
Kates never brought anything too subtle to a boxing ring but he worked hard behind the jab and dropped in plenty of right hands, the occasional sneaky left hook or body attack. I'm not sure abut any "feints". Richie set a good tempo and was working too consistently to kid an opponent with feints. Moreover, he had enough power to keep his opponents thinking so he didn't need the Willie Pep approach to his fights. He climbed up from a heavy knockdown at the hands of Matthew Saad Muhammad in a Philadelphia thriller in 1978 to drop him heavily in return with a beautiful right but the bell came to Saad's aid and he recovered and subsequently poured it on to force a six-round stoppage, although Richie's durability usually held out.
Richie was linked to John Conteh over here a couple of times, after Conteh had lost his world title outside the ring, but obviously the 10-rounders never materialised and Conteh would probably have outjabbed Kates on the way to a decision, much like James Scott took away Kates' jab on the way to a 10-round stoppage in Rahway in 1979, when Scott was on fire. Kates certainly mixed it with the some serious names in a career that kicked off in 1969 and continued to 1983 and he licked the likes of Pierre Fourie, Jerry Martin, Len Hutchins, Don Fullmer, Jimmy Dupree, Murray Sutherland and Jeff Lampkin, which speaks for itself. The man had talent and hopefully made himself a few quid because ultimately he suffered from a trait that affects so many quality fighters and their earning potential: he was unfashionable.