The Scariest Division in Boxing
By Teodoro Medina Reynoso
PhilBoxing.com
Fri, 01 Nov 2024
Know the scariest division in boxing?
Nope its not the heavyweights where Jack Dempsey, the "Mannasah Mauler," Sonny Liston, "the Bear", James Smith, the "Bonecrusher," Mike Tyson, the "Baddest Man on the Planet," once reigned and put fear in many of their opponents and inspired dread in many boxing fans.
Not the super bantamweights where a "Japanese Monster "currently roams and preying on all title pretenders ala Godzilla.
It is the middleweights. If only for the number of fighters with scary alias names, many of them justified by how they lived up to them in their primes as they plied their trade of mayhem and destruction over the years.
Before the establishment of the light heavyweight division and eventually accepted and became legitimate in the eyes of boxing aficionados, the middleweight was the gateway to the heavyweight. Hence it was where exceptional middleweights as Stanley Ketchel, Harry Grebs and Mickey Walker made their fearful reputation and acquired their well earned dreaded respective alias names as the Michigan Assasin (this was probably inspired too by the infamous mobsters of the time), the "Pittsburg Whirlwind" and the "Toy Bulldog" in the 1920s, the 30s up to the prewar years.
The tradition of assuming and acquiring well deserved horrific alias names in the division was continued during the era of Sugar Ray Robinson, arguably the greatest fighter in history who pioneered the transformation of boxing into the sweet science while retaining its violence and brutality.
Among Robinson's most noted nemeses during his time were Jake LaMotta and Gene Fullmer.
La Motta was the first fighter to beat Robinson although he lost to him in their five succeeding bouts, including the so called St. Valentine's Massacre. The Italian born slugger was known as "The Raging Bull" or the "Bronx Bull" for his strength, endurance and also, single mindedness in trying to destroy whoever was facing him across the ring.
Incidentally, La Motta won the middleweight championship by stopping France's Marcel Cerdan, the so called "Le Bombardier Morocain" (Morocan Bomber) who got the title from Tony Zale, the feared "Man of Steel". Zale in turn became world middleweight champion in a victorious title series versus Rocky Graziano, the original "The Rock". La Motta lost the crown to Robinson.
Lawrence Gene Fullmer was known as "The Utah Cyclone," the "Mormon Mauler" and as "Cyclone" Gene Fullmer. It was Fullmer that effectively ended the Robinson era with two decision wins in his title defenses in 1960 and 1961 after the two exchanging wins and loses in 1957.
Fullmer, after defending against the likes of Carmine Basilio, Spider Webb and Ralph "Tiger" Jones, lost his crown to Nigerian named Richard Ihetu better known as Dick Tiger.
The tradition took a leave in the 60s with the sweet punching Emile Griffith and Nino Benvenuti reigning as world champions for majority part of the decade.
Then came Carlos Monzon of Argentina, aka "Escopeta" or Shotgun whose iron reign for most of the 70s was challenged only by Benny Briscoe aka "Bad Bennie" and Rodrigo Valdez aka the "Colombian Rocky".
When Monzon retired, the championship went to Valdez who then lost the universal recognition to another Argentine Hugo Coro. Coro then lost the crown to Italy's Vito Antoufermo preluding the arrival of Marvin Hagler later to be known as Marvelous Marvin Hagler.
Though the ascension of Hagler to the throne did not come easy having been earlier held to highly questionable draw by Antoufermo, Marvin made sure that once becoming the champion, the crown would be very hard to take off his head.
Though Hagler did not adopt a scary nom de guerre, he proved to be a fearsome champion by the way he brutally disposed off his challengers. One by one, the likes of Alan Minter aka "Boom Boom", Mustafa Hamsho aka "Rocky Esfire", William "Caveman" Lee (who has previously tamed Frank "The Animal" Flercher) Tony Sibson aka "Sibo", Juan Domingo Roldan aka El Martillo or "The Hammer", themselves budding division terrors, fell by the wayside.
By the second half of the 80s, certified terrors from the lower weights namely Roberto Duran aka "Hands of Stone", Thomas "The Hitman" Hearns and John "The Beast" Mugabi tried their hands against Hagler but only Duran heard the final bell.
Like in the case of the Raging Bull La Motta, it took another practitioner of the sweet science, Sugar Ray Leonard to finally dethrone Hagler via controversial points decision.
But Leonard opted to vacate the titles after winning the WBC light heavyweight title by stopping Donnie Lalonde. A mad scramble ensued with Roldan inheriting the WBC crown losing it later to Hearns who was upset by "The Blade" Iran Barkley. Barkley in turn was upset by Duran.
It was at this point that the middleweights entered its tumultuous period with Sumbu Kalambay, Julian Jackson aka "The Hawk", Mike McCallum aka "The Bodysnatcher", Gerard McClellan aka "The G-Man" Michael "Second to" Nunn, James "Lights Out" Toney and Nigel Benn aka "The Dark Destroyer" reigning as titlists of the WBA, WBC and IBF as well as the newly formed WBO at time or another.
It took a generational fighters as Bernard Hopkins aka The Executioner, Gennady Golovkin aka "Triple G" and later Saul Alvarez aka Canelo to put order and sanity back to a division that have seen more than its lion share of beasts over decades.
No other division has had so many.
The author Teodoro Medina Reynoso is a veteran boxing radio talk show host living in the Philippines. He can be reached at teddyreynoso@yahoo.com and by phone 09215309477.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Teodoro Medina Reynoso.
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