Henry Armstrong- Top 5 P4P or overrated due to romanticism?

[RJJ-94-02=GOAT]

You mean Ceferino Garcia, not Rodriguez.



Anyways, you can't compare fighters of that era today in a fantasy match to today's, boxing/the world has evolved a lot and it's not a fair comparison. Throw Floyd Mayweather in the 1930's and he would fight like guys from that era. Picture a Henry Armstrong today with the evolved form of boxing, training methods, gyms, diets, ect. It's a rather silly discussion, Henry Armstrong was great for the era that he lived and certainly accomplished feats that have yet to be topped.

You make a lot of valid points about how boxing has changed over the last century, but I strongly disagree that comparing fighters from past and present era's is silly. You mention how Floyd would've boxed siimiliar to Henry had he fought in the 30's, I don't believe that would be the case. Not all pre war fighters were front foot pressure fighters like Armstrong. Take for example Gene Tunney or Benny Leonard, both of whom boxed in the 1910's and 20's. They both utilised judgement of distance, timing, lateral movement, precise footwork etc. All of which are pivotal elements of the "hit and not get hit" backfoot style we see more commonly today.

[soul_survivor]

Great technique isnt the only requirement to be a great fighter. I certainly believe he is top 5 one of the greatest ever based on the guys he beat, his championships and his accomplishments.

You have to understand, in the span of less than 3 years (october of 1937 to march of 1940), he fought for almost half of the available world titles in boxing. Although it does bring up some interesting discussion points and unlike OP states, I don't think Garcia's MW belt was lineal. There were divisions between California state, Mexico, NY/MSG and the NBA on who the champions were from feather to middle. Armstrong did eventually fight for what we now recognise as THE championships at feather, light and welter. I think the "championship" at mw is disputed.

[Tom Cruise]

To say he just walked forward is a blatant misrepresentation of his style tbh. He was a bob and weave fighter in the mold of a Joe Frazier, but far better P4P. He got caught from time to time as anyone would fighting that way, but you can be sure he hit his opponents more times than they were hitting him.

For a quick modern day equivalent to what Henry Armstrong achieved in his career:

Imagine, say, Vasyl Lomachenko when he was at 126, won the lineal championship at that weight. Then jumped straight to 147 and fought and the version of Mayweather who fought Berto (closest comparison to the old Barney Ross HA fought), battered him from pillar to post, then went back down to LW and beat Mikey Garcia. Then back back up to WW setting a record number of title defences (19 iirc) against all maner of contenders. During that run he would go back down to LW and lose to Garcia in a close fight in which he was perhaps unlucky to be deducted 6 points for lowblows. Also moving up to MW for a fight with Miguel Cotto when he was lineal (he would have already beaten Cotto when he was a WW) and getting a disputed and hard fought draw.

All in the space of 3 years

After that he would still have some success but never recreate that level again. Who could?

Technically he was one of, a long with Duran, the GOAT in fighters in boxing history. Watch his figbt with Baby Arizmendi if you want to be amazed at his positioning, his punch selection and his movement up close. His stamina was preposterous. His heart and chin were unrelenting. This isnt romanticism you can watch all this on YT.

[Tom Cruise]

Great technique isnt the only requirement to be a great fighter. I certainly believe he is top 5 one of the greatest ever based on the guys he beat, his championships and his accomplishments.

You have to understand, in the span of less than 3 years (october of 1937 to march of 1940), he fought for almost half of the available world titles in boxing. Although it does bring up some interesting discussion points and unlike OP states, I don't think Garcia's MW belt was lineal. There were divisions between California state, Mexico, NY/MSG and the NBA on who the champions were from feather to middle. Armstrong did eventually fight for what we now recognise as THE championships at feather, light and welter. I think the "championship" at mw is disputed.

Yeah the championship situation was a bit ****ed around that time, but not much more than today with the four belts plus WBA reg, IBO, WBF etc.

Ceferino Garcia was NYSAC champ, which is as legit as it gets, after ko'ing Fred Apostoli which is a very good win. Only thing was his NYSAC title was not on the line vs HA because it was a scheduled 10 round fight.

So yeah. He was the champ. But HA would not have been champ if he had won the fight. No doubt if HA had won then they would have scheduled a 15 round championship bout.

[Goldie]

Of course he's overrated. The majority of ppl you see including him on their all time lists have never seen one full fight. People just judge him on his stats and go with the flow. It's the same with with srr to a certain extent too.

[Tom Cruise]

Of course he's overrated. The majority of ppl you see including him on their all time lists have never seen one full fight. People just judge him on his stats and go with the flow. It's the same with with srr to a certain extent too.

Both Armstrong and SRR have fights available to watch on youtube.

[Tom Cruise]

This is a really good breakdown of HA's career from Mcgrain's top 100 fighters list. This list is excellent if anyone wants to read it, the man has a serious depth of knowledge about all era's and all weights and clearly put a hell of a lot of thought and research into all his picks. Very well written as well.

#4 Henry Armstrong (150-21-10)

Henry Armstrong is boxing’s bogeyman. Yes, he was skilled, so skilled in fact that he remains, seventy years after his retirement, the definitive exponent of the swarming pressure style, but it was not skill that defined him. What made Armstrong perhaps the most dangerous fighter in all of boxing history was more elemental—violent pressure, a blackout punch, an inexhaustible engine, an iron-chin, an iron-will; these were the tools Armstrong used to drive himself to triple-crown immorality. At the sharp end of this list there are only speedsters, technical geniuses, the most advanced of trapping counterpunchers, and Armstrong, and it was Armstrong who can be named the ultimate executioner of champions.

The bloody slaughter of boxing royalty began in 1935 with a ten-round decision over the obese but brilliant former flyweight champion Midget Wolgast who he outworked in the back stretch to outpoint despite a terrifying left-handed rally from the canvas by an inspired Wolgast through the third and fourth. Next up, Baby Arizmendi, who not only enjoyed recognition in some corners as the featherweight champion of the world, but also held not just one but two wins over Hammerin’ Hank. Armstrong would claim that those losses were caused not Arizmendi’s ability but certain business arrangements combined with suspect officiating. True or not, Armstrong leant those accusations weight by way of his 1936 trouncing of the Mexican. The LA Times had it 10-0 to Armstrong and described the champion as “mercilessly outclassed,” and stated that Arizmendi’s “cheekbones, eyes and lips were badly swollen and dripping blood.” Henry had just Armstronged his first world-class opponent, pinned him to the ropes, beat him like a dog. A terrible force was set in motion that night. Just two weeks later, Armstrong buzz-sawed his way through Juan Zurita, a fighter who would snatch up a piece of the lightweight title in Armstrong’s wake but could not last four rounds in the ring with him. Two months later, he crowded, bullied and decisioned NYSAC featherweight champion Mike Belloise in a non-title fight. In early 1937 he rematched the native New Yorker, still recognized as champion is his hometown and left him insensible and unable to continue after four; four rounds, too, was the limit for former light-welterweight champion and Kid Chocolate conqueror Frankie Klick who did well even to survive the first after swallowing a right hand that sent him clattering around the ring like a frightened pony—nobody can have been surprised when the ultra-durable former junior-lightweight champion Benny Bass also managed just four before hearing the first count of his career in the summer of ’37; a terrible and deafening scream of power-punching pressure was hurtling down the corridors of fistic history and it’s champions were being thrown before it like leaves before a hurricane.

Spilling journeymen and contenders about him as he rocketed to the unified title, Armstrong did not establish universally recognized lineage until his six-round destruction of Petey Sarron, who actually befuddled Armstrong in the first as he “jumped about rigidly upright or scrambled about in a low crouch,” (The Pittsburgh Press) but once he found his range Armstrong set Sarron adrift amidst a “blizzard of red leather.” Armstrong forced him to stand and fight in a war he couldn’t hope to win in his wildest dreams, and a withering body attack opened the way for a right hand shot that bundled him to the canvas like a bag of laundry for the only stoppage loss of his fierce life.

Armstrong stopped future featherweight champion Chalky Wright in just three rounds at the beginning of 1938 before pouncing upon world welterweight king Barney Ross and utterly crushing him in fifteen whilst weighing no more than a lightweight, so he remained a lightweight, and demonstrating an unbreakable heart, swallowing the bellyful of blood that poured from his cut mouth to out-tough the sheetrock 135-pound champion Lou Ambers to become undisputed feather, light and welterweight champion of the world. It was the welterweight championship that would make him. He made nearly twenty defenses, defeating future lightweight champion Lew Jenkins, future middleweight champion Ceferino Garcia, who he was unlucky not to get more than the draw against in their 1940 rematch for the middleweight title. When he finally dropped the welterweight title in a bad-tempered fight with back-alley wizard Fritzie Zivic seven months later he had knockout wins over former strap-holders Juan Zurita and Leo Rodak ahead of him still, and not least a revenge win over Zivic; sheet-lightning; a ghost-wave at night; a solar flare, the rarest of natural disasters he cut the flesh of great champions and broken-down journeymen into the same useless shambles of non-resistance.

http://www.boxing.com/the_100_greate..._ten_10_1.html

[Gillie]

he could hang with anyone 140 under .cant claim to have seen all his fights but as many as there is. look at 1937 I think he fought like 36 times wiothout loss stort carear but great imho

36 times in one year! Nowadays if a guy fights 4 times, he is considered really active. It's insane how often the fighters of the 40's and 50's would fight. 15 rounders as well.

[Gillie]

Of course he's overrated. The majority of ppl you see including him on their all time lists have never seen one full fight. People just judge him on his stats and go with the flow. It's the same with with srr to a certain extent too.

There is quite an bit of footage of SRR and his technical brilliance is apparent. I think a lot of modern day fighters and trainers would peg him as the best in history. After all, the term "pound for pound" was coined for him.

[soul_survivor]

Yeah the championship situation was a bit ****ed around that time, but not much more than today with the four belts plus WBA reg, IBO, WBF etc.

Ceferino Garcia was NYSAC champ, which is as legit as it gets, after ko'ing Fred Apostoli which is a very good win. Only thing was his NYSAC title was not on the line vs HA because it was a scheduled 10 round fight.

So yeah. He was the champ. But HA would not have been champ if he had won the fight. No doubt if HA had won then they would have scheduled a 15 round championship bout.

See, I was just going off of memory from what I had read so I looked up boxrec and they said he was only recognised champ in california. Is that because only the california title was on the line that night?