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MIDDLEWEIGHT HISTORY
Until recent decades, the 160-pound division was home to the most colorful and formidable fighters in the history of the sport. “The Michigan Assassin” Stanley Ketchel, “The Pttsburgh Windmill” Harry Greb, and “The Toy Bulldog” Mickey Walker. These men were the legends that helped attract the public’s attention to the competitive weight class in the early part of the 20th Century, making it second only to the heavyweight division.
In the 1940s, Tony Zale cleared up the confusion that plagued the division in the ‘30s after Walker abdicated his title to campaign at heavier weight classes. “The Man of Steel” did so by beating all of the top contenders of the day, and following his service in World War II, he and Rocky Graziano engaged in one of the sport’s most savage and storied ring trilogies ever. Neither middleweight was the same following their rivalry that lasted from ’46 to ’48, but they helped set the stage for more rivalries and even bigger stars in the 160-pound ranks for decades to come.
In the 1950s, the star was Sugar Ray Robinson. As a welterweight who sometimes moonlighted as middleweight in the ‘40s, Robinson was epitome of “pound for pound”. As a full-blown middleweight in the ‘50s he was awesome but not unbeatable. He lost the middleweight title three times in the ring, and won it five times, but he was the ever-present celebrity of the division during this Golden Age of the sport and he had a hall-of-fame supporting cast: Jake LaMotta, Randy Turpin, Carl “Bobo” Olson, Gene Fullmer and Carmen Basilio.
The 1960s lacked a single super star like Robinson, but the division continued to be a major attraction because of solid and popular champions – Fullmer, Dick Tiger, Joey Giardello, Emile Griffith and Nino Benvenuti – who traded the title in rousing bouts and rematches.
Carlos Monzon was the king in the 1970s. Marvin Hagler was the man in the 1980s. Hagler’s showdown with Sugar Ray Leonard 20 years ago elevated the middleweight division to the center of the sports world at a time when the heavyweight division hosted a shooting star named Mike Tyson.
And then, in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, all the tradition and excitement of the division seemed to sputter out and fade away despite the presence of hardnosed technicians like Mike McCallum and James Toney, fabulous talents like Michael Nunn and Roy Jones Jr., and strong supporting cast of players like Julian Jackson, Reggie Johnson, Gerald McClellan, John David Jackson, and Quincy Taylor.
Toney or Jones could (or should) have been the dominant middleweight of the ‘90s, but both were ultimately too damn big for the 160-pound limit. Bernard Hopkins with his narrow frame, fanatical discipline and obsessive training and dietary habits stuck it out in the middleweight division and turned out to be the best 160 pounder of the ‘90s, though no one would notice until the turn of the Century. Hopkins, a late bloomer, would not develop into a complete package until the late ‘90s by which time the division had lost much of its luster due to a fractured title and mediocre title holders like William Joppy and Keith Holmes.
Although Hopkins would finally unify the major titles in 2001’s landmark middleweight championship tournament, most of his physical prime was spent battling promoters and lobbying the media to force the powers that be to give him a chance to prove his worth. Even in his mid-30s, Hopkins was good enough to restore some attention to the division with significant title defenses, however a lack of name opponents and a lack of activity (he only fought once in ’02 and twice in ’03, all of which were meaningless bouts) due to his usual legal battles and promotional squabbles.
By the time Hopkins got back on track in ’04 with his signature victory over Oscar De La Hoya, he was no longer “The Executioner”. Age had made him a wily old vet who controlled younger, faster or stronger challengers with the kind of ring generalship that only the purists could appreciate.
Jermain Taylor, the big strapping Southern gentleman who spoke softly but carried a big right hand, was supposed to be the savior of the division but… well, we know what happened with him.
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