BoxRec

To me its Sandy Saddler. Im not sure why we dont hear as much about him as we should. He beat willie Pep 3 out of 4 times,yet we hear alot more about Pep. Im not sure why it is but it seems Saddler does not get the credit he deserves. Anyone have an opinion on this? Also who are some others?

Gene Tunney

Eder Jofre.

>>>What had more to do with Saddler's three wins over Pep? Saddler himself or the airplane crash?<<<

Saddler himself, without question!

Saddler was able to make Willie fight Saddlers fight. He roughed him up.

Kid Gavilan

He was always in the shadow of Sugar Ray Robinson.

iceman21287 wrote:Kid Gavilan

He was always in the shadow of Sugar Ray Robinson.

Definetely doesn't get the respect he deserves.

I'd say Kid Chocolate and Panama Al Brown don't get much mention as great champions, nor Barney Ross or Lou Ambers.

Matthew Saad Muhammad - my favourite fighter.

Good example of a great champion, if not necessarily a great fighter.

underated


john henry lewis

iceman21287 wrote:Kid Gavilan

He was always in the shadow of Sugar Ray Robinson.

Good choice.

What a chin Gavilan had. He may have the most underated beard of all time.

Nicolino Locche- Had an awesome record. Lost only 4 fights out of 117. Beat Hall of Famers Antonio Cervantes and Joe Brown. Drew with Hall of Famers Carlos Ortiz and Ismael Laguna. Also beat champions like Eddie Perkins, Paul Fujii and Sandro Lopopolo and topped excellent challengers like Carlos Hernandez and Adolph Pruitt.

Antonio Cervantes was another underrated great. Others: Nino Benvenuti, John Henry Lewis, Marcel Cerdan

Overrated: Gene Tunney.

I always thought that Lewis didnt get enough credit for a great career because of his loss to louis. Its really not fair .Lewis was overmatched in that fight in my opinion.

Nero3000 wrote:Nicolino Locche- Had an awesome record. Lost only 4 fights out of 117. Beat Hall of Famers Antonio Cervantes and Joe Brown. Drew with Hall of Famers Carlos Ortiz and Ismael Laguna. Also beat champions like Eddie Perkins, Paul Fujii and Sandro Lopopolo and topped excellent challengers like Carlos Hernandez and Adolph Pruitt.

Antonio Cervantes was another underrated great. Others: Nino Benvenuti, John Henry Lewis, Marcel Cerdan

Overrated: Gene Tunney.

nero i agree with u that gene tunney is overated as a heavyweight. i dont think hes underated as a light-H but as a heavyweight i think so.

expug wrote:I always thought that Lewis didnt get enough credit for a great career because of his loss to louis. Its really not fair .Lewis was overmatched in that fight in my opinion.

i agree, lewis was a great all time light-H who could do it all. he could punch, he could box, he had good defense, he had a great chin, etc. lewis beat some great light-Heavyweights as well.

i also think

joe gans gets underated today. i see many people not putting him in there top 10 p4p lists anymore and people not including him in there top 5 let alone top 2 lightweights of all time.

Jimmy Barry...undefeated and unbeatable, rarely ever gets mentioned any more!

Joe Brown..."Old Bones" had a lot of quality wins in high profile matches. Some people will look at the 44 losses and "assume" that he wasn't that good, but those of us that study the sport know different. Not to mention that he often went into the opponents hometown to win.

Manuel Ortiz---One of the best bantamweights ever, but mention the name and a lot of people will have to look up his name in the database!

"Fighting" Harada--Two division champion who is the only fighter to ever beat the great Eder Jofre...and he did it twice!

There are sadly too many fighters who are underrated and forgotten today. Sadly it seems that people are getting more and more lazy about trying to learn things, especially here in the US...I guess that is why our country is at the bottom of the list when it comes to the education that kids are getting in the states, but that's another topic for another forum!

BrocktonBlockbuster49 wrote:

Nero3000 wrote:Nicolino Locche- Had an awesome record. Lost only 4 fights out of 117. Beat Hall of Famers Antonio Cervantes and Joe Brown. Drew with Hall of Famers Carlos Ortiz and Ismael Laguna. Also beat champions like Eddie Perkins, Paul Fujii and Sandro Lopopolo and topped excellent challengers like Carlos Hernandez and Adolph Pruitt.

Antonio Cervantes was another underrated great. Others: Nino Benvenuti, John Henry Lewis, Marcel Cerdan

Overrated: Gene Tunney.

nero i agree with u that gene tunney is overated as a heavyweight. i dont think hes underated as a light-H but as a heavyweight i think so.

I'm with you on that. Tunney was a first-rate LH.

Another couple underrated greats: Young Griffo and Ike Weir, "The Belfast Spider"

barry wrote:"Fighting" Harada--Two division champion who is the only fighter to ever beat the great Eder Jofre...and he did it twice!

Harada was indeed a fine fighter, but what about the talk that Jofre was dead at the weight in their fights?

Decagon wrote:I think that's why Harada is overrated. People keep saying, "Jofre wanted to retire, he couldn't make 118 as easily as he used to, 30 is ancient for a bantamweight, Jofre got robbed both times in Japan..." People make excuses for Jofre losing, and forget that they were spectacular wins, and spectacular efforts by Harada.

Did you mean to say underated?

Jimmy Barry...undefeated and unbeatable, rarely ever gets mentioned any more!

Joe Brown..."Old Bones" had a lot of quality wins in high profile matches. Some people will look at the 44 losses and "assume" that he wasn't that good, but those of us that study the sport know different. Not to mention that he often went into the opponents hometown to win.

Manuel Ortiz---One of the best bantamweights ever, but mention the name and a lot of people will have to look up his name in the database!

"Fighting" Harada--Two division champion who is the only fighter to ever beat the great Eder Jofre...and he did it twice!

with Brown and especially Ortiz I totally agree. I think Harada usually gets ranked right where he belongs. Barry was indeed a fantastic little fighter in his time, but I believe he is more an unknown than underrated. Not much easily accessible info is out there on the man so most fans wouldnt rate him in anyway.

Nicolay Valuev, I think people are underrating him already. Hopefully he defeats Beck?, and then unifies the title like he says he will. I wouldn't mind seeing him unify the heavyweight titles by defeating the top competition in the division.

AndreWardFan2006 wrote:Nicolay Valuev, I think people are underrating him already. Hopefully he defeats Beck?, and then unifies the title like he says he will. I wouldn't mind seeing him unify the heavyweight titles by defeating the top competition in the division.

I think it's far too early to rate Valuev as a 'great' Champion.

..i think it depends on who is doing the rating. the older writers...nat fleischer and others who saw the greats of the earliest eras tended to under rate the fitghters of the 40s and 50s.....later writers were very high on the fighters of the 20s..especially dempsey....and current writers and fans under rate the fighters that the fleischers and others were so high on....they ignore or denigrate the fine talents of corbett, fitzsimmons, joe gans..etc. then they hyper modernists don't think as highly of the "smaller" heavyweights.....even joe louis...at least in terms of their ability to compete with the giants that have come along in the past decade.

when you get to the level of good champions...and non-champions who never got their due....it's hard to rate such quality fighters against each other....especially from different time periods.

boxing is not really a statisical sport....so there's always going to be so much subjectivity in who was greater than whom. with film and tape being so prevalent...and so clearluy reproduced, starting after the jack johnson era, we really don't have the visual record of the great pioneers to make viable comparisons.

Jaclem wrote:..i think it depends on who is doing the rating. the older writers...nat fleischer and others who saw the greats of the earliest eras tended to under rate the fitghters of the 40s and 50s.....later writers were very high on the fighters of the 20s..especially dempsey....and current writers and fans under rate the fighters that the fleischers and others were so high on....they ignore or denigrate the fine talents of corbett, fitzsimmons, joe gans..etc. then they hyper modernists don't think as highly of the "smaller" heavyweights.....even joe louis...at least in terms of their ability to compete with the giants that have come along in the past decade.

when you get to the level of good champions...and non-champions who never got their due....it's hard to rate such quality fighters against each other....especially from different time periods.

boxing is not really a statisical sport....so there's always going to be so much subjectivity in who was greater than whom. with film and tape being so prevalent...and so clearluy reproduced, starting after the jack johnson era, we really don't have the visual record of the great pioneers to make viable comparisons.

i agree jaclem, good post.