A good article as usual from this writer. Very interesting for the minority of us who enjoy boxing history or/and records. A point very interesting to some, and should be to all, is that Henry Armstrong didn't need to pack on the very last ounce of muscle or weight to face an elite opponent, a la Cotto. he was always either below or just above the lower division weight.
Barney Ross was another. Known mainly as the Lightweight and welterweight champion, he was also the light-welterweight champion, and, in fact had only 2 lightweight title fights, both of them at the same time for the 140 lb title. He had 5 welterweight title fights never weighing more than 143, but also had 12 light-welter title fights never weighing more than about 137=38. All in a 9 year career.
Both fighters true phenomenons, although Armstrong is the better known.
Boxing history is full of phenomenal fighters, whom today we know nothing about, unless they are picked out by writers who do their homework, like Cliff Rold today.
Two teeny-weeny corrections, if I may. It's not "lay down the gauntlet" It's "throw down the gauntlet" (and "pick up the gauntlet") to issue and accept a challenge, which the long-ago knights during the Age of Chivalry did..literally.
And Ray Leonard certainly didn't do anything "famously" with Donny Lalonde. It was "infamously". No doubt about it. Lalonde was the 175 lb champion and had bee a Lt-heavy for the whole 8 years of his career. Leonard, the money man, MADE him come down to 168 (actually 167) and it'almost killed him. (nearly as bad as the other infamous weight drain-Corrales against Mayweather) Lalonde was actually going up in weight to cruiser, and in fact, fought the rest of his long career never less than 15-20 lbs heavier than the Leonard fight.
I don't think the fight will be boring, but I will say that Andre Ward's fights have been less than exciting recently. He fights too smart, and throws 1 or 2 punches at a time, and of course there's the head butts.
Fighters make the mistake of eating food that digests fast, and then rehydrate eating food that digests a lil slower than what they ate while training. I hope Dawson is rehydrated properly.
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