BoxRec

Bit sketchy on John's best fights, it was a while ago! Could you please recommend some for me to get.

Thanks

The Finnegan fights are essential, and Ahumada. The first Saad Muhammad fight is well worth seeing too.

...he was so brilliant in his fight against saad muhammed i thought that one performance rated with any light heavyweight rated with the best of anyone in that division, and that division includes some of the greatest fighters ever. alas it was perhaps a one-shot one.

even though muhammed came from behind,as he usually did, and if i recall scored a knockdown, i agreed with the tv commentator that conteh had won.

Jaclem wrote:...he was so brilliant in his fight against saad muhammed i thought that one performance rated with any light heavyweight rated with the best of anyone in that division, and that division includes some of the greatest fighters ever. alas it was perhaps a one-shot one.

even though muhammed came from behind,as he usually did, and if i recall scored a knockdown, i agreed with the tv commentator that conteh had won.

Its nice to see that you appreciate Conteh, I agree, he was a wonderful boxer, could box and slug it out also when he needed to... I'm a huge Conteh fan and think hes our best post war fighter... its worth remembering that when Conteh fought Saad he was basically a one armed boxer by that time... look at how seldom he used the right... this is because he injured it in a car crash and then reinjured it in a fight in America (in 78/79 I think) after which the right hand was basically null and void... earlier in his career the right was a spiteful punch.... you should try and see Contehs bouts with Ahmunda, Bennett and Len Hutchins when he was really at his peak.... the problem with conteh aside from the injury to his hand is that after he won the world title he found the highlife and took bad advise and this led to him losing his title and then his fitness and eventually his career at an age where he should really have been around his peak....

cant add to silkovs nice post. i loved conteh too and rate him as high.

Conteh was already past his best when he fought Matthew Saad Muhammad the first time. MSM came up big in the late rounds and I'm pretty sure he dropped Conteh twice. Might well have gone the other way if it was the 74 version of Conteh.

john was the best light heavy in the world at the time of the chris finnegan fight. very destructive campaigner. prime conteh beats msm in my book

Agreed. Conteh was a brilliant talent in the mid-70s, and quite likely would have defeated Foster at that time.

Bob got out at the right timeafter the gift against Ahumada.he was never the same after the Ali fight.

Pity he had to make the obligatory comeback.

Foster dissipated and it caught up to him gradually.

It showed in his face later in his career.

I know a guy whose liquor store Foster stopped in regularly while he was fighting. He bought hard liquor.

Foster's fights with Frazier and Ali are a good indicator of the difference in punching power between Frazier and Ali.

Frazier almost decapitated Foster with two left hooks and knocked Foster cold in 2 rounds.

Ali was over forty pounds heavier than Foster and leaned his weight on Foster (same thing Terrell did) until Foster got exhausted in a fight that went four times as long as Frazier-Foster..

..wow..if conteh was past his prime in the muhammed fight, i'm awfull sorry i never saw him at his peak. that was a brilliant performance!!

He was an extraordinary fighter. Back in the early to mid-70s. I somehow got on the mailing list of some of the British boxing tabloids. (How I got those great tabloids on a complimentary basis remains a mystery to me.)

I remember reading these stories about up-and-coming fighter named John Conteh, and how they described him in such glowing terms.

When I finally saw him fight on TV - I forget the opponent - I was sure surprised: He was even better than I expected! This guy could box, punch, had good defense - the complete package. A marvelous fighter.

I agree with silkov that he was the UK's best post-war fighter p4p.