I'm expecting a lot of debate for this new poll question. As I said in the previous post, the success of Sugar Ray Leonard spawned and continues to spawn great boxers along the Beltway. So the question is: Who is/was the best Beltway Boxer of the post-Sugar Ray Leonard era?
The post-Leonard era, in my opinion, goes from 1985 to the present. Even though Leonard did win two world titles after 1985 (against Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Don Lalonde), fought Thomas Hearns to a draw in their rematch in 1989 and continue to battle off and on until 1997, he was somewhat inactive at many times during his career and some of the great Beltway Boxers that would follow him started to emerge in 1985. Leonard himself should not be considered for this poll.
I am really interested in reading your opinions on this one. You can either place them here or on the comments section on the poll itself. If you vote "Other" in the poll, please tell us your choice and why. I have only 10 fields to post names and I always want to put an "other" category in to represent those names I couldn't put on the list.
Here are the results of the last poll:
What was the most important Beltway Boxing victory of the summer?
Tony Thompson winning NABO and WBC Continental Americas Heavyweight titles (21) 34%
Emmanuel Nwodo captures USBA Cruiserweight title (15) 24%
Henry Buchanan Advances to semifinals of ShoBox Super Middleweight Tournament (14) 23%
Anthony Peterson wins NABO Lightweight title (7) 11%
Franchon Crews wins Pan American Gold Medal and Golden Gloves championship (1) 2%
Dominic Wade wins Junior Olympic Gold Medal (1) 2%
Other (3) 5%
Total Votes: 62 Thank you for participating.
without question, i would have to go with mark "too sharp" johnson. even though he didn't win his first title until 1996, he was the most avoided champion this area has ever had. in the 90's, he was avoided by all the champions and was consistently on the pound-for-pound list. i know i will get a lot of arguments about other champions from the area, but mark made history as the first african-american flyweight champion and is a first ballot hall of famer, without a doubt. the only other fighter that may come close to him is simon brown, who was also avoided for a long period of time. both fighters fall into the category of high-risk and low reward...
ReplyDeleteVery close call between those two indeed...
ReplyDeleteGary- (or others) Quick question...Obviously Leonard is tops, but what other pre-1985 greats came from the beltway area?
* Sidenote- I am working on a piece entitled (basically) "The Greatest Fighter In Northwest History". I'm thinking it's gotta be Freddie Steele (Al Hostak probably second, despite his victory.)
In DC, we had a middleweight named Holly Mims that nobody wanted to fight in the 40's and 50's.
ReplyDeleteOf course, probably the most famous out of DC was former light heavyweight champion Bob Foster, who fought out of the Nation's Capital while he was in the military. Despite the fact he was originally from New Mexico, Foster called DC his boxing home.
In Baltimore, they had guys like Joe Gans (that goes to before the turn of the 20th century) and Sonny Boy West.
That's just to name a few.
Interesting. I had forgotten about Gans, and Foster was just SLIGHTLY 'before my time'. I've seen a few of his fights though...(Scary he was!)
ReplyDelete