By Cliff Rold
Recently, fellow BoxingScene scribe Lyle Fitzsimmons offered an excellent look at this year’s International Boxing Hall of Fame ballot, listing all of the fighters, some of their key accomplishments, and his own choices.
In doing so, Senor Fitzsimmons showed off some of the elements that make this ballot so much fun. The class of 2009 won’t be stacked like the class of 2007. There’s isn’t a triumvirate of talent like Roberto Duran, Pernell Whitaker and Ricardo Lopez. This year, the obvious inductees can be counted on a finger, leaving room for some of the men who have long been on the ballot without full honors. There will be wildly different choices amongst voters with wildly different perspectives, and that’s not a bad thing.
Ballots are due this Friday and mine will finally go in the mail tomorrow morning. Under current rules, voters are asked to select ten men with the top three overall vote getters achieving induction. My top ten are listed with the top three in the order I’d prefer to see them go in, the rest laid out alphabetically.
1-Lennox Lewis
The former two-time lineal World Heavyweight champion had a third reign if one counts his first WBC belt. No matter how his titles are added up, the sum of Lewis’s career was surely Hall-worthy. He may have been the best Heavyweight his size, some 6’5 and over 230 lbs. at his peak, ever and will go down as one of the ten-fifteen best in the history of the division. Much was written in his time about the fights he didn’t get, or the two ugly knockout losses, but by the end he’d avenged those losses and had plenty of the right fights. He dealt with the depth of the early 1990s, defeating rugged guys like Razor Ruddock, Tommy Morrison, and Ray Mercer before capturing the lineal crown from Shannon Briggs in 1998 and becoming undisputed king with a scandalous draw and finally win over Evander Holyfield in 1999. In 2002, he got to add Tyson to his resume as well but his lasting legacy may be the ruin he left behind. Michael Grant, David Tua and Vitali Klitschko all, at one time or another, wore the mantle of heirs apparent and all were defeated by Lewis. The disarray Heavyweight finds itself in today says much about the shadow Lewis still cast when he left five years ago.
2-Lloyd Marshall
Marshall has been the first name I’ve checked on my ballot every year I’ve had the chance and was first again this year on principle. The former Middleweight and Light Heavyweight contender of the 1930s and 40s is long overdue for induction and this should be his year. If it’s not, when will that year come? Fitzsimmons noted his win over Jake LaMotta, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg in terms of Hall of Famers he faced or defeated. Ken Overlin is on the ballot this year with Marshall as are Freddie Mills and Tommy Farr; Marshall beat them all. Of those already inducted, there was Teddy Yarosz (split two fights); Lou Brouillard (win), Charley Burley (win with a knockdown), Holman Williams (won one of three bouts), and Joey Maxim (win and a knockdown). None of those are his crowning achievement. That came in 1943 when he stopped Ezzard Charles in eight. He lost both return bouts in 1946 and 47, but came close to stopping Charles again in the first of those, dropping Charles in the opening frame only to see a man many now view as one of the ten greatest ever rise at nine and find revenge. He couldn’t get past Jimmy Bivins or Archie Moore in his career, but they’re both in the Hall as well and had to get off the floor to beat Marshall. If Lloyd Marshall had been white, with his power and action style, he’s a champion. Instead, the best Boxing can do is honor him years later and it’s time to do so.
3-Jung-Koo Chang
This is a spot usually reserved for Jung-Koo Chang or his fellow Korean Myung-Woo Yuh.
This year I lean to Chang. Ultimately, his competition was just a wee bit better. He reigned as WBC titlist at 108 lbs. from 1983-89 and crept his way onto U.S. Pound-for-Pound lists almost solely on a resume few had seen built. Hilario Zapata is on the ballot with Chang this year, winning their first fight and being stopped in the third of a rematch to begin the Chang reign. That resume was respected enough to vault eventual Hall of Famer Humberto Gonzalez into grand esteem when he ended Chang’s run. In between were solid foes like Sot Chitalada and Isidro Perez not to mention a lost classic with Muangchai Kittikasem at Flyweight in his final 1991 bout. Aging, he dropped Kittikasem thrice only to be stopped himself in the final round. There have been dozens and dozens of Asian fighters and champions in the lowest weight classes and they are sorely under-represented in Canastota. Chang was amongst their very best.
The Other Worthies…
Tiger Jack Fox: Yet another great Black fighter in the wrong time and place, Fix had an even split of three fights with Hall of Famer Maxie Rosenbloom (win, loss, draw) and beat Jersey Joe Walcott twice, once by stoppage. He also added the scalps of Brouillard, the excellent Bob Olin, and Lou Scozza. Then-future Light Heavyweight king John Henry Lewis drilled him, but Lewis was a great in his own right.
Peter Kane: One of the U.K.’s best ever, the Flyweight battler could never quite get past the greater Benny Lynch, stopped once and drawing in a return, but he did eventually snare the crown by defeating the excellent Jackie Jurich and also defeated excellent Bantamweight Baltzar Sangchili. He didn’t reign long but his name remains storied amongst the tiny titans.
Cocoa Kid: One of the great Puerto Rican’s in history, the Cocoa Kid lit up the Welterweight class from the late 20’s on into the 40s. He defeated serious talents like Eddie Booker and Johnny Jaddick and, remarkably, won four of five from Holman Williams, all while scoring only 46 stoppages in 176 wins.
Pone Kingpetch: Kingpetch may well have been, at his best, one of the great Flyweights of all time and has wins to prove it over three reigns in the 1960s. He ended the marvelous reign of the great Pascual Perez, lost and regained the title to the greater Fighting Harada, and split two with another name on this year’s ballot in Hioryuki Ebihara. He was chinny at times, and didn’t have a ton of fights, but there are fighters with much less than Harada and Perez on their records already with plaques.
Miguel Lora: His reign wasn’t as lengthy as some other men on the ballot in smaller weight classes, but his quality of opposition overcomes the objection. Lora was a thriller who could win via the route and at his best, future Hall of Famer Daniel Zaragoza couldn’t keep up and fellow 2009 ballot hopeful Wilfredo Vasquez couldn’t either. He didn’t have the longevity of either of those men but, when they were all still young and full speed, he was better.
Brian Mitchell: A victim of Apartheid politics that had nothing to do with him, the South African Mitchell was a Jr. Lightweight titlist from 1986-1991, unifying on his way out with Tony Lopez in a pair of fantastic battles. He traveled the span of the globe to do it, suffering only a single loss in his sixth bout.
Myung Wuh-Yuh: Double digit defenses and two reigns as WBA 108 lb. titlist from 1985-92 and a career with only one avenged loss in 29 fights only tell a little of the story. Like Chang, he won respect as one of the world’s best regardless of weight. He was a fluid combination puncher whose two best wins may have been the first losses in the excellent career of Leo Gamez.
Notably absent were two names I struggled with, one of them unexpectedly. The first, long reigning Bantamweight titlist Orlando Canizales is worthy and will likely get in one day if not now. His stats and wins are about equal to Chang and Yuh and he was longer reigning than Lora at the same weight. What pushed those men ahead? In the case of the Koreans, they’ve both been eligible and on the ballot longer. In the case of Lora, it’s a case of quality wins. Canizales narrowly lost to Vasquez and lost wide to a younger Junior Jones. His best win, in retrospect, may well have been Bones Adams. It’s a good resume and Canizales was a credit to the game but there is no urgency in seeing him inducted now.
The other name was Naseem Hamed. The gut instinct has long been “No” and a move along. Yet, when Hamed’s record is examined closely, there is a lot there. He defeated every reigning Featherweight titlist at one time or another (then-WBA titlist Wilfredo Vasquez was stripped just prior to the bout but signed with belt in tow) and captured clear right to the lineal crown. Tom Johnson and Kevin Kelly are solid wins. He was also a rainmaker who set the stage for a generation of greater fighters…but that’s the rub. He never fought Erik Morales or Juan Manuel Marquez (who he mercilessly ducked) and was gone when Manny Pacquiao mattered. He left wealthy with one loss to Marco Antonio Barrera, but the loss was so bad it brought his accomplishments into question. Hamed left the impression of a front-runner, able to ply his trade when it all went his way but hitting the exits when the quality of competition caught up to him. He had a chance to fight great fighters and prove himself great in the process. Instead, he left with question marks aplenty. That didn’t get a vote in his first year of eligibility and doesn’t get one in year two either.
That’s one take for this year with anticipation for similar debates in 2009.
For another look at Lyle Fitzsimmons’ selections, click: https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=16639
Cliff Rold is a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel and the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com
