[JAB5239]

Originally Posted by McGrain

Toweel's initial run gets overlooked in my opinion.

He fought a few stiffs before meeting Tony Lombard. Lombard was tough featherweight, a division north of Toweel's best, more a fighter than a boxer perhaps? But he had 25 plus contests to Toweel's 8. Toweel beat him back to back then straight away added the Commonwealth title against 50 fight veteran Stan Rowan. Two more veterans were added. ATG Jackie Patterson (63-22-3) was certainly well past his best but still...what a fighter to go 12-0 with!

The naturally bigger Fernando Gagnon followed although Toweel had to overcome an unpleasant injury to get there.

Then, the title. Was Manuel Ortiz the greatest bantam of all time? Stacked division, but what a fighter to grab the title from. Toweel was 13-0 going in. ATG Ortiz was 94-21-3!

Most of all, Toweel squeezed all of this into 16 months, not the four years Jeffries was allowed.



Jeffries generally receives more credit for the early run and he was matched tougher earlier, Ruhlin and Choynski early doors, famously, but he sagged a bit in the middle and late on he was meeting a lot of over-matched aged warriors. And there can be no question at all that Toweel had the tougher title assignment.


Thoughts?

I'm not familiar with Towlee, but that is an impressive run indeed. The Ortiz win itself seems enough to push him past Jeff depending on how Manuel was fighting at that point in his career.