BoxRec

On the World scene the Cruiserweight has always been accused of lacking glamour and seen by some as a boring division filled with fat Light-Heavyweights and skinny Heavyweights, which I feel is a little unfair.

Here in the UK we have produced a few good fighters at this weight so who do you think is our best ever Cruiserweight?

Jonny Nelson, Glen McCrory, Carl Thompson, Derek Angol, Terry Dunstan, Tee Jay, Sammy Reeson, Mar Hobson, Enzo Maccarinelli, David Haye, Dave Garside, Bruce Scott & Andy Straughn.

How would you rate the above fighters and what do you remember about our Cruiserweights of the past?

In terms of raw talent it has too be Nelson some way... shame he doesn't get stuck in a bit more often.

Glenn McCory was decent, but overachieved. He was a strong man, but fairly slow and won his title on heart more than anything else. Prime Nelson would have outboxed him.

If your going to include the likes of Hobson and Bruce Scott then you should also consider Eubank.

They all have different qualities that mark them out as top fighters. In terms of raw talent I think that Nelson and Haye are the best, but both have obvious flaws in their make-up. Thompson and Hobson have a lot of heart, but are a little bit short of genuine world class quality. Maccarinelli has decent skills and a lot of heart also, but will need to improve his defense if he's to hang with the very best.

Overall I'd say Nelson has been the best, but Haye and Maccarinelli both have the potential to achieve a lot in the next few years, and could easily surpass all the rest.

stujones wrote:If your going to include the likes of Hobson and Bruce Scott then you should also consider Eubank.

Hobson & Scott both won genuine Titles at Cruiserweight.

Eubank never won a fight at this weight.

KOJOE90 wrote:

stujones wrote:If your going to include the likes of Hobson and Bruce Scott then you should also consider Eubank.

Hobson & Scott both won genuine Titles at Cruiserweight.

Eubank never won a fight at this weight.

British titles don't mean much in the grand scheme of things these days.

I have no doubt had Eubank fought Hobson or Scott he would have dealt with them no problems,even when he was past his best.

Eubank....he is one of Britains best modern fighters,but that was at super mid.
Forget his cruiserweight fights.He was past it then.In fact Eubank was past it before the first Collins fight.

Nelson is the best of Britains modern cruisers.
Could change in the next couple of years though.

My mate Horace Notice was the most talented. He could have easily dominated the British Cruiserweight scene at the time. He was a natural cruiserweight fighting against heavies.

After all he did beat Anaclet Wamba, who was a Cruiserweight world champ for numerous years. Anaclet beat everyone he ever faced, other than Horace Notice 8)

Horace had it all in the palm of his hands :(

yiddo14 wrote:I have no doubt had Eubank fought Hobson or Scott he would have dealt with them no problems,even when he was past his best.

You may well be right but those fights never happened so that's why I rate Eubank at Super-Middleweight and not at Cruiserweight, a division he is 0- 2 in.

lawllb wrote:My mate Horace Notice was the most talented. He could have easily dominated the British Cruiserweight scene at the time. He was a natural cruiserweight fighting against heavies.

After all he did beat Anaclet Wamba, who was a Cruiserweight world champ for numerous years. Anaclet beat everyone he ever faced, other than Horace Notice 8)

Horace had it all in the palm of his hands :(

At the time that Notice was boxing the Cruiserweight division was pretty bad, i'm guessing he went to heavy because it was more lucrative.
I've no doubt that he would have been a force in the world scene if he was around nowadays, and seeing as the Cruiser limit is now 200lbs then that would have suited him more.

conteh beats the lot of them

Well if your going to rate Conteh, How about Henry Cooper he never wieghed over 200lbs during his career!

David Haye would be my pick, he's obviously not at the top in terms of achievement (yet), but his speed and power are exceptional and I'd pick him to beat any other of the listed cruisers (even though there are still question marks over his stamina and possibly his chin)

Johnny Nelson - obviously

Herbie Hide - could have been.

i pick conteh because he chose to fight below the heavyweight division (he did consider moving up and challenging bugner at an early stage). henry chose to fight at heavy despite his being a comparitively light competitor.

topper123 wrote:Well if your going to rate Conteh, How about Henry Cooper he never wieghed over 200lbs during his career!

True.But the problem is,whenever Cooper stepped up to face world class opposition,he got himself ko'd every time.......

The man was FAR,FAR off the world beater that the general British public beleive him to have been

Would have loved to have seen Cooper vs Ellis which was proposed by the WBC (or was it WBA) when Ellis was champ. However, in all their wisdom the BBBoC refuse to acknowledge the sanctioning body that Ellis was the champion of (not quite sure, but think it was WBC)... so therefore Cooper would not have been recongised as a world champion in Britain. So they (team Cooper) thought it was a bit pointless.

Despite his advancing years, I thought Cooper was fighting better in the late 1960's early 1970's than he was vs Patterson and Ali, and that would have been in his best chance.

Bit like Nigel Benn in the early days of the WBO - now look at the BBBoC.

Darren Corbett deserves a mention.

He would have done more at cruiser if he took his training more seriously.

to be honest, i dont think the public ever thought henry was a world beater. the left hook was, whether you like it or not, a formidable weapon.
cooper ruled the british and euro scene for years and therefore deserved a tilt at whoever was world champ at the time.
sensible management kept him out of a one sided hammering from liston and i thoroughly commend that decision.

harrygreb wrote:sensible management kept him out of a one sided hammering from liston and i thoroughly commend that decision.

Yes Liston would have destroyed Cooper, and fast.

harrygreb wrote:to be honest, i dont think the public ever thought henry was a world beater. the left hook was, whether you like it or not, a formidable weapon.
cooper ruled the british and euro scene for years and therefore deserved a tilt at whoever was world champ at the time.
sensible management kept him out of a one sided hammering from liston and i thoroughly commend that decision.

Oh come on! The genral British public are dumb as shit when it comes to boxing!!!
People who have any sort of interest in the sport would know that 'Enry were'nt anything like true world class.Unfortunately,this is a very small minority in Britain.
Hell,I had someone say to me the other day that Holyfield was still heavyweight champ!!(fair do's it was a bird tho!)

I like the old fella,but i have always wondered how on earth he is regarded as some kind of sporting legend in Britain,let alone the knighthood!!!
Just goes to show how far one punch can take you!!!!

Just how good was Derek Angol? Could someone describe him as a fighter please?

http://www.britishboxing.net/img/record ... _11066.jpg

Angol was a good boxer/puncher, who beat some decent opposition on his way up, a 1 punch stoppage of Tee Jay being one of the highlights.
When he fought Tyrone Booze, Angol was heavily favoured to win, Booze had a record of 15-10-2 at the time, but the one thing that Booze had was durability, he had gone the distance with Holyfield, Bert Cooper, Qawi and quite a few other rated boxers.
In the Angol v Booze fight, Angol came out throwing loads of punches, he continued this for round after round, seemingly intent on knocking out Booze, this didn't happen and Angol fell apart in the 7th.
Really it was a fight that Angol if he stuck to his boxing should have won, but he just wore himself out.

The same happened in his other losses, when he ran out of gas late on.
In the end Angol was a good domestic fighter, who just couldn't quite make it when he stepped up to take on the higher level.

Terence wrote:His bios always say he was desperate for a world-title chance and so was his team (thus he was avoided in some eyes) but didn't he get offered a fight with Liston only for it to be turned down for fear of the tanking he'd get.

He seems a nice guy but I have to leave the room when the left hook whimsy starts.

Coopers manager point blank refused to put Henry in the ring with Liston, and rightly so. Cooper did well against Ali (relatively speaking), because Ali struggled against smaller, lighter, quick opponents, like Doug Jones, and preferred come forward brutes like Foreman and Liston who he could outmanouever.

Liston would have given Cooper an almighty battering. He had good power for someone his size, but terrifically fragile skin, and wasn't the hardest to hit either. Punched above his weight, but he gets way too much credit for that one shot landed on Ali.

At Cruiser, Cooper would have been much more of a force, didn't he only weigh about 13 stone 10?

let me put all this in perspective. yes yes yes, youre all correct about coopers ability and his chances against sonny liston. BUT try thinking what the heavyweight boxing scene in this country would have been like without him from about 1962 - 1971. dull as shite. only brightened up by the magazine darling billy walker. your looking at brian london, bodell, erskine, johnny prescott and dick richardson - nice fellas most of em but there was an extra bit of excitement watching cooper and i cant fully explain why. possibly because of he often fought through a mask of blood and there was always a risk of a bad cut happening. you only have to do what he did in that 1st clay fight to have a nation on your side for the rest of your career and boxers like bugner and his like all the way up to audley harrison should remember this simple fact.

topper123 wrote:Angol was a good boxer/puncher, who beat some decent opposition on his way up, a 1 punch stoppage of Tee Jay being one of the highlights.
When he fought Tyrone Booze, Angol was heavily favoured to win, Booze had a record of 15-10-2 at the time, but the one thing that Booze had was durability, he had gone the distance with Holyfield, Bert Cooper, Qawi and quite a few other rated boxers.
In the Angol v Booze fight, Angol came out throwing loads of punches, he continued this for round after round, seemingly intent on knocking out Booze, this didn't happen and Angol fell apart in the 7th.
Really it was a fight that Angol if he stuck to his boxing should have won, but he just wore himself out.

The same happened in his other losses, when he ran out of gas late on.
In the end Angol was a good domestic fighter, who just couldn't quite make it when he stepped up to take on the higher level.

Thank you for that. Sounds/looks like a tough guy.

Did you see his EBU fight with champ Akim tafer? Was he up on points before being KOed?

I dare say if Glenn McCory could have fought at the present crusier weight limit he would have been a far better fighter, at 190 he was weight drained and it was a real struggle for him to get down to it and on the other hand he was nowhere near big enough to fight at Heavyweight, it was a catch 22 situation for him.