Willie Pep considered greater than Sandy Saddler...

[bonafuwa]

...., why? Considering Saddler knocked him out twice. Is it just a case of styles making fights? Did Saddler just have Pep's number, or is there more to it. I see Pep's name on a lot of all time p4p lists, but Saddler never shows up.

[J !]

yeah interesting point made there, I think a lot of it has to with the pre and post crash willie pep. Dont forge the guy wasnt supposed to even walk again let alone box after the air crash! He actually had one leg substantially shorter than the other and you can imagine for a defensive master this was some obstacle to over come this was in 1947 he still managed to beat fellow all time great saddler with his handicap in 1950.

And many other fighters.

Saddler for what its worth was a murderous puncher but had no where near the skills of pep, he was however peps nemisis to an extent. (bit like frazier was Ali's)

The other reason that Saddler often is overlooked is that he had half the fights Pep did, still a mightily impressive 145-16-2 (103 kos!!!!) vs peps record of 230-11-1 (63 by ko).
So the records and ko percentage themselves tell a story its brawler vs boxer!

Pep is still alive well into his 80s now, suffering a little forom alzheimers a believe but generrally still fairly sharp, I love this quote by the great man on his life

"My two great weaknesses were slow horses and fast women".

Legend.

For my money probaly the best two featherweights ever to draw breath.
1. Pep
2. Saddler
3. Salvador Sanchez
4. Henry Armstrong
5. Azumah Nelson.

hope this is of interest to you and helps answer the question posed .

[realtim]

Saddler was a bit of a dirty fighter aswell, they both were, them guys were in wars. Yeah the crash wouldnt have helped Pep much but he was a tough SOB. So was Saddler but Saddler needed Peps name on his record in a way.

[J !]

yeah mate thats when they used to really fight, reading that pep was fighting every eleven days at some points of his career.

[realtim]

And yet these modern day monsters of boxers would eat them alive with there modern training techniques and super nutrition. Yeah right.
130pounds today was the same as it was in the 50's. They fought hard and often against the best opposition out there.
There 2 great fighters and deserved to be talked about in the same breath.

[J !]

thats why its so difficult to compare, however what i can say is that if they had the benefits of todays training techniqes they would make most of our modern day guys look rather silly.

[realtim]

What modern day training is there that wasnt around back then. You have got it the wrong way around take some of these modern day fighters and put them in the past and they would have got found out b4 they got to the top ten rankings. There are a few exceptions today, Hopkins trains like they used to, he is never out of shape or baloons up between fights. But they kept in remarkable shape by fighting often every 2 weeks fighting 30 times a year or watever.

[J !]

i dunno the nutritional side of modern day fighters but point taken, its all far more managed now than it used to be, more mechanical, Johnny Nelson is another one who does it old school.
The other thing that was common in those days was the fact they used to train up in weight if anything not down. So making the weight was never an issue.

[jayrichardse]

hell no he was not

[lmnorw]

actually they fought 4 times i believe and saddler knocked him out 3 times.just look at their records.sure pep had alot more wins he fought alot more.but to be great you have to do more than one thing well.pep couldnt punch and i believe his chin wasnt that great either.you may say look at how many times he won he must of had a great chin.no his deffense was so great he was rarely hit hard to the chin.pep was great.but saddler was better and like i said beat him 3 out of the 4 times they fought