BoxRec

Paul Pender was a middleweight champion in the early 1960's but you don't hear much about him. Looking at his record, he beat Basilio and Robinson (both were past their primes). He lost to Fullmer and won 2 out of 3 from Downes.
I have never seen him on tape. Has anyone seen him fight?
If so,
How good do you think he was?
What style of fighter was he?
Does anyone have any idea why he is so unknown?

He was a boxer, strictly, with little punching power due to chronic hand problems. These troubles led to him taking lengthy breaks from boxing, so he was 31 or 32 himself when he fought Robinson. Also he is very outspoken in his commewnts about other fighters, which probably doesn't help his popularity.

Ambling Alp wrote:Paul Pender was a middleweight champion in the early 1960's but you don't hear much about him. Looking at his record, he beat Basilio and Robinson (both were past their primes). He lost to Fullmer and won 2 out of 3 from Downes.
I have never seen him on tape. Has anyone seen him fight?
If so,
How good do you think he was?
What style of fighter was he?
Does anyone have any idea why he is so unknown?

I have his fight with Robinson. He was a very good boxer with a fair punch. I suppose you could call him a cutie. Not amazingly fast or skillful but a bit of everything and very clever in the ring and tougher than he was credited for. I think he's generally underrated as he seemed quite a self effacing guy also he retired after regaining the title from Downes.
He seems to have had some dispute with the boxing commissions after regaining the title from Downes and he was stripped by every commission except the Masschsettes comission. He retired about 6 months later without fighting again.

I've never been able to find a lot of info on him but I have suspected that his story is pretty rich if you could uncover what all that was about. It just seemed very strange how he faded away amidst the controversy.

I just never got the details but I have always wanted to find out more.

I have lots of Ring magazines from that time and will read up and see what I can find out. Basically I think he was stripped because of inactivity caused perhaps by bad hands.... but maybe there was something more to it. I don't think Pender got on with the establishment of the time and seemed to be quite independant and have his own views on things.

As I recall in the book In This Corner Pender was less than kind to Robinson,Basilio,and Fullmer,he denigrated their talents although he did say Robinson was a great puncher,just not a great boxer(stylistically he meant,he didn't mean Robinson wasn't a great fighter)and Basilio didn't have a high opinion of Pender,saying that Pender caught them all at the right time.I think Pender was a guy who rubbed people the wrong way.

That was the same book that I read- I've been sitting here trying to recall where I'd read what little I had on Pender.