By Cliff Rold
Last week, fellow BoxingScene scribe Lyle Fitzsimmons offered a full run down of this year’s International Boxing Hall of Fame (IBHOF) ballot, naming all of the fighters along with his own choices.
This year’s voting was different experience for this scribe due to involvement in a Boxing Writers Association of America committee, along with the excellent Lee Groves (MaxBoxing) and Jack Obermayer (Boxing Digest), which compiled biographical data and ‘stats’ if you will about each of this year’s nominees. This research, in part, caused reconsideration of some previously voted for fighters and new appreciation for others.
For readers interested in the work, it can be found at http://bwaa.org/ibhof.htm
Ballots are due this Saturday and, as always, mine goes through drafts. It is sometimes amusing to read that there are not ten men on the ballot worthy of induction to the Hall of Fame. It’s quite the opposite actually, somewhat due to time. The IBHOF has been around only a couple of decades and so, sometimes, fighters who at one time were considered of Hall caliber in the old Ring Magazine Hall of Fame are still on the outside. It’s something one can expect to be corrected over time.
For instance, Ceferino Garcia, Harry Jeffra, and Yoshio Shirai were all Ring-enshrined but have yet to be elected to the IBHOF. All are on the ballot this year.
There is also an arguable weighing of the scale, pun intended, against smaller, more modern greats whose fights were not largely featured on American stages. With a slate of all-stars eligible in the coming years like Mike Tyson, Julio Cesar Chavez, and Tommy Hearns, those smaller men were given even stronger consideration than usual.
With that, one man’s choices for the year at hand. My top ten are listed with my preferred three up top I’d prefer to see them go in, the rest laid out alphabetically. Where choices remain the same as a year ago, much of the text will also be the same.
1 - 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. 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 and had to get off the floor to beat Marshall. If Lloyd Marshall had been white, or had not come in such close proximity to World War II, 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.
2 - Jung-Koo Chang
Arguably the greatest South Korean fighter ever, Chang 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 of 15 defenses. He defeated nine major titlists over the years, including future two-time lineal Flyweight champion Sot Chitalada, and retired as champion. A comeback loss to Chiquita Gonzalez passed the torch to a new generation in the still young Jr. Flyweight class. Chang wasn’t done, warring in 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.
3 – Harry Jeffra
This is a fighter who should have had check marks in the past. Jeffra won two world titles when it actually meant something, at Bantamweight and Featherweight, though he wasn’t much for long reigns, losing the Bantamweight title in his first defense, the Featherweight in his second. However, the men he beat for and around those titles speak volumes. The Bantamweight crown was lifted from Puerto Rican great Sixto Escobar and Jeffra won four of their five fights in total. He lifted the Featherweight crown from the excellent Joey Archibald and should have won three, instead of two, of their four. Add in wins against Bantamweight great Lou Salica and Featherweight titlists Jackie Wilson and Phil Terranova and one gets the picture of what sort of quality Jeffra provided in his 100-plus bouts.
The Other Worthies…
Yoko Gushiken: Japan’s ‘Fierce Eagle” had a short career, both in terms of years and fights, but he packed a tremendous amount of quality into his stretch. Over 24 fights, he held at least one win over every man he faced while reeling off 13 consecutive defenses of the WBA 108 lb. crown.
Naseem Hamed: In his first two years of eligibility, particularly the first, Hamed didn’t strike me as Hall-worthy or at least Hall-ready. He’s been a subject of reconsideration. While he missed some tough challenges in his prime, most notably Juan Manuel Marquez, he accomplished plenty. From 1995-99, he toppled the reigning titlists of the WBO (Steve Robinson), IBF (Tom Johnson), and Cesar Soto (WBC), along with a stoppage of lineal champion Wilfredo Vasquez whom the WBA had stripped just prior to the contest. Throw in wins over serious world class guys like Kevin Kelley and Vuyani Bungu, and factor in the economic affect he had on the division, and Hamed gets his first check mark from this corner.
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 as the first World champion in what has become a strong Thai tradition. 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.
Danny Lopez: One of history’s most exciting Featherweights, Lopez won the WBC title when there were only two belts to go around and compiled an impressive eight title defenses. Before his title win, in a marvelous war, he traded knockdowns with Hall of Famer Ruben Olivares before scoring a seventh round stoppage and followed by tabbing the first loss to the career of Sean O’Grady. He won the title on hostile turf, traveling to Accra to unseat David Kotey and won the 1979 Fight of the Year honors in a defense against Mike Ayala. Lopez was ultimately unseated by a legend, Mexico’s Salvador Sanchez, who stopped him twice but those losses do nothing to take away from an action fighter legacy on par with Matthew Saad Muhammad in his time.
Masao Ohba: A strong contender for the mantle of Japan’s greatest fighter, and the top ten to twenty all-time at Flyweight, Ohba’s career was cut short before the world could see how much greater he could have become. That he was great can be little in doubt. In his 38 bouts, he reigned over two years as WBA Flyweight titlist and made five defenses, including wins over future champion Betulio Gonzalez and former (and future) champ Chartchai Chinoi. Like Salvador Sanchez, an auto accident ended Ohba’s life at the peak of his powers while Ohba was just 23 years old.
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 39 fights only tell a little of the story. Like Chang, he won respect as one of the world’s best regardless of weight in his time. He was a fluid combination puncher whose two best wins may have been the first losses in the excellent career of four-division titlist Leo Gamez.
Hilario Zapata: To have a case as the best of them all in a division (108 lbs.) which saw the primes of Michael Carbajal and Humberto Gonzalez, along with Yuh, Chang, and Gushiken, says volumes about this defensive gem. Zapata had two runs as the WBC champ in the early 80s, posting ten defenses over those reigns while splitting fights with Chang. He’d later add a solid run as the WBA champ at Flyweight, notching five more defenses in a career where he defeated ten of the fifteen world champions he faced.
Closing Thoughts
As noted, the ballot goes through drafts and consideration was given to checking off next to all the fighters noted earlier who didn’t get a check this year along with Wilfredo Vasquez, Ken Overlin, and Betulio Gonzalez. All of these men have cases for the Hall but there are only so many checks to go around…ten to be specific.
New to the ballot this year were Santos Laciar and Sven Ottke, the former of whom was strongly considered but ultimately missed the cut. The latter? Groves made an argument a couple of weeks ago about factoring in Ottke’s excellent amateur career in ultimately voting for him. It’s a compelling argument but, even with that considered, Ottke didn’t garner much consideration here.
It is no matter that the viewing of many of his fights was excruciatingly dull. Great does not always men exciting. Of more concern was a series of highly debatable hometown decisions and officiating abnormalities. While 21 title defenses of any major belt, in any class, is an accomplishment, there is a feeling he came by the numbers somewhat cheaply. It is also head scratching that Ottke would be added to the ballot in his first year of eligibility while Chris Eubank and Nigel Benn, thrilling Super Middleweights with superior quality of competition and their own impressive title reigns, remain off the ballot.
As noted up top, time takes care of many things. Perhaps one day they will be eligible for a vote. In the meantime, we can only wish good luck to all those on the ballot who wait for their call and quietly root for the men we feel deserve to get their most in 2010.
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
