By Brent Matteo Alderson
On May 19 at the FedEx Forum in Memphis, Tennessee, Jermain Taylor is going to defend the his middleweight titles current IBF 154-pound Cory Spinks, who is also a former undisputed welterweight champion. This marks the 13th time in the past thirty years that a former or current welterweight champion will challenge for a middleweight title. I only recognize the WBC, IBF, and WBA titles in my historical review.
1. Oscar De La Hoya 37-3 vs. Bernard Hopkins 44-2-1, September 18, 2004
After losing his junior middleweight titles to Shane Mosley by controversial decision in the fall of 2003, Oscar moves up to 160 and wins the WBO middleweight title with a razor thin controversial decision over Felix Sturm, which in the process sets up his super bout with Bernard Hopkins.
The Executioner is the first middleweight since Marvin Hagler to have unified the division to become it's one and only champion. Early on it became evident that De La Hoya’s punches would have no affect on Hopkins. Just when Bernard starts to turn up the heat, Oscar realizes he has no chance of winning and goes down from a 9th round body punch that Hopkins threw while he was completely off balance. It’s the first time in Oscar’s career that he wasn’t in the fight.
2. Felix Trinidad 40-0 vs. Bernard Hopkins 39-2-1, September 29, 2001
Surprisingly going in, Trinidad is viewed as the favorite primarily due to his dominating performances against the world’s best fighters. But, by utilizing a tight guard and an underrated defense, Hopkins completely nullifies Trinidad’s left hook and dissects him round by round until he stops the Puerto Rican great in the twelfth.
3. Felix Trinidad 39-0 vs. William Joppy 32-1-1, May 12, 2001
A number of experts felt that Joppy might knock Tito out since he was a decent sized middleweight with good speed and solid skills, but Trinidad quickly puts that notion to rest and easily blitzkriegs the WBA titlist in five rounds to set up his showdown with Hopkins.
4. Roberto Duran 101-13 vs. William Joppy 25-1-1 August 28, 1998
It was crazy to think that a 47-year-old man was challenging for one of the three major middleweight titles. And even though hardly anyone gives Hands of Stone a chance, Duran fans hoped for a miracle. The story follows script and the younger, bigger Joppy pummels Duran from the outset, forcing referee Joe Cortez to put a stop to the bout in the third as Joppy unleashes barrage after barrage as Roberto’s back is up against the ropes. Just as the referee stops it, Duran is still motioning Joppy to come in with his hands signaling that he’s ready for more, “Come on, come on.” Folks with the exception of George Foreman, this is usually the outcome of bouts when pugs in their late forties are matched against world class fighters.
5. Simon Brown 47-6 vs. Bernard Hopkins 33-2-1, January 31, 1998
This fight was a complete farce. Simon Brown was completely shot and before hand he lost decisions to Shawn Bradley and Aaron Davis. In his previous try for a major world title only three years earlier, he was viciously knocked out by a single left hook courtesy of IBF 154-pound champ Vincent Pettway. Brown was rocked so bad by the shot that he went down in a semi-conscious state and throwing punches from the floor.
As expected, the fight with Hopkins was a one sided massacre. Hopkins finally stopped Simon in the sixth. In the late 1980’s, Brown was an excellent fighter and a solid champion, but he was way too small and way too ring-worn to be effective in this bout.
6. Donald Curry 33-3 vs. Michael Nunn 35-0, October 18, 1990
Curry came into this one on a two bout win streak since being upset by Rene Jacquot in a bout for the WBC 154 title, but never really seemed to recapture the awesome skills he exhibited as welterweight champion. The bout took place in Paris because after his unimpressive win over Starling, major American promoters didn’t want to financially back Nunn. Curry showed up in shape, but it wasn’t enough to beat Nunn as he was stopped in the 10th.
7. Marlon Starling 45-4-1 vs. Michael Nunn 34-0, April 14, 1990
The fight isn’t very entertaining and Michael Nunn wins a majority decision. Afterwards Nunn is heavily criticized for showing Starling too much respect, especially after viewers noticed the size discrepancy between the 6’2 Nunn and the 5’8 Starling.
8. Roberto Duran 84-7 vs. Iran Barkley 25-4, February 24, 1989
Duran came in shape for this one, scaling a svelte 156 ¾ pounds and the fight is a great one with the champion Barkley doing everything he needed to in order to win. He went to Duran’s body, forced the tempo of the fight, and threw combinations, but it wasn’t enough as Duran turned back the clock for one night and fought back gamely
Duran made the fight close enough with his performance that by scoring a knockdown in 11th, along with a screaming pro-Duran crowd, Hands of Stone won a decision and a piece of the middleweight title. The bout was chosen as Ring magazine’s 1989 Fight of The Year.
9. Tommy Hearns 44-2 vs. Juan Roldan 65-3-2, October 28, 1987
After Leonard’s victory over Hagler, he immediately re-retires and Hearns is pitted against strongman Juan Roldan for the vacant WBC 160 pound title. With a win, Hearns would become the first fighter to have won titles in four different weight classes. Hearns doesn’t disappoint his fans dropping the Argentinean twice in the first and pummeling him until he knocks him out in the fourth. Still, Roldan went out with out a near bang as he momentarily had Tommy buzzed and holding on for dear life moments before he was knocked out.
10. Sugar Ray Leonard 33-1 vs. Marvin Halger 62-2-2, April 7, 1987
Leonard had only fought once in the previous five years and Hagler was viewed as the best fighter in the world and was in the process of chasing Carlos Monzon’s then division record of 14 consecutive title defenses. Leonard defies logic and history and uses his speed, guile, and experience to build up an early points lead that eventually takes him to victory.
For more on this legendary bout, please click on this link, https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=3756 , to an article that I previously wrote about the bout.
11. Tommy Hearns 40-1 vs. Marvin Hagler 60-2-2, April 15, 1985
“The War.” What else can you say about a fight that was described as “Eight Great Minutes.” In reality, the war lasts about a round. Hagler comes out full throttle against the Hit-Man and Hearns bounces a right hand off Hagler’s jaw, causing Marvin to take a step back, but that was the only step he would take back the entire night as the two trade bombs the rest of the round.
Even though the fight was still action packed, Tommy was finished after the first. Still we should thank Hearns for coming out and making it a war. He went in to take out the steel chinned Hagler similar to the fashion in which he almost decapitated Duran the year before. It’s just that Hagler refused to go down, and he never did through out his entire career unless you count that slip against Juan Roldan.
12. Roberto Duran 77-4 vs. Marvin Hagler 57-2-2, November 10, 1983
Duran is coming off of his resurrecting 154-pound-title winning dissection of the previously undefeated Davey Moore and Hagler is finally getting a huge pay day and a chance to go up against a living legend. The fight is close all the way with Duran’s experience and underrated defense allowing him to be competitive through out the contest. Hagler’s youth and strength prevails and he comes on strong in the final rounds to secure a unanimous decision by scores of 144-142, 144-143, and 146-145
Analysis:
Only four of the twelve welterweight champs were successful in their tries for a middleweight title and that number is a bit misleading. Of the four who were successful, three of those were against fighters who were not universally recognized as the best middleweights in the world. Tommy Hearns won the vacant WBC middleweight title with his stoppage of Juan Roldan, but Roldan wasn’t the best fighter in the division, he was just a rugged strong top ten type of guy.
And even though Duran’s performance against Iran Barkley was an incredible feat, the Blade wasn’t the best middleweight in the world at the time. The previous year he had already lost in a title try to WBA champ Sambu Kalambay and the IBF champ was the ultra-talented Michael Nunn. Still the fact that Duran, a 37-year-old former light-weight champion of the world could even beat one of the world’s top middleweights is still impressive and is tantamount to his greatness. The third guy to be successful was Felix Trinidad and even though Joppy was world class, after witnessing his fights against Hopkins and Trinidad, it’s obvious that he was just a title holder and not the best middleweight in the world.
So that leaves us with Sugar Ray Leonard and there is nothing more I can say about his title winning effort against Hagler except that he really is the only fighter during the course of the past 30 years that after winning a welterweight title was successful in winning the middleweight title from the world's best middleweight. In May, Cory Spinks is going to challenge the talented, undefeated and universally recognized middleweight champion of the world.
Do you think he can do what Leonard did? I don’t.
In fact, I view the match as another gimme title defense for Taylor and don’t believe that Spinks has any chance of winning. The fight was made for all the wrong reasons. Spinks is one of the few guys in the sport with any type of name recognition and he doesn’t have any power which makes him a safe opponent for Taylor. Secondly, Spinks is currently the IBF Junior Middleweight champ so if he loses, he can just go back down and get right back into the mix at 154 pounds. If the little 5’7 Zab Judah can knock Spinks silly, what’s Jermain Taylor, who is a huge middleweight, going to do? At the end of the day, I’m not going to be too critical of Jermain because before fighting Ouma, he had fought Hopkins twice and Winky Wright in consecutive bouts so I’ll give him this one, but next time I hope he fights a contender - and I don't mean Sergio Mora.
Notes:
Tommy Hearns was such a freak of nature that he possessed a longer reach than Virgil Hill when he challenged for the WBA light heavyweight title. Imagine how Duran and Cuevas felt.
Brent Matteo Alderson, a graduate of UCLA, has been part of the staff at BoxingScene.com since 2004. Alderson's published work has appeared in publications such as Ring Magazine, KO, World Boxing, Boxing 2006, and Latin Boxing Magazine. Alderson has also been featured on the ESPN Classic television program “Who’s Number One?” Please e-mail any comments to BoxingAficionado@aol.com