A few Willie Pep videos that I Like.

[powerpuncher]

some of his fights came against people who werent great but he would fight multiple of them in a months time. records can also be deceiving because unlike now, fighters were thrown to the wolves early in their careers and got a ton of losses because they fought experienced fighters way too early. and remember that floyd said his toughest fight was against augustus who had a record of 22-16-4 when they fought. so you can imagine that pep fought guys with records which werent visually pleasing but were still very good or at least very awkward fighters.

I'm not as easily impressed with guys fighting multiple stiffs in a month. If you look at a top guy like Floyd, Pacquiao, ect, they're fighting EVERY DAY with their sparring. I know a legit fight is much different than sparring, but a lot of these guys that Pep fought could offer little but a mediocre sparring session for him.

I'm not sure why guys get so much credit for fighting so much when the quality wasn't there. George Foreman beat fight bums in one night, and everyone ridiculed him and called it a fiasco and a joke. Do people think Floyd or Pacquiao couldn't fight 4 or 5 bums a month and build up a record like that?

again, i will mention augustus. supposedly floyds toughest fight. an awkward, tough fighter that gave floyd fits. do you not think that there were many of those types of fighters around back in the day? i believe that floyd would have a few losses on his record if he fought as often as old fighters because you just run into problem matchups and bad days. pac is the same way. i think that he could definitely run into fighters that would give him major problems if he fought that frequently.

i just dont think that most of peps fights were against bums. he probably had a few that were against fighters that just werent very good, but i would guess that most of his fights were against solid opponents that gave effort which is tiring after a while.

[Beanflicker]

again, i will mention augustus. supposedly floyds toughest fight. an awkward, tough fighter that gave floyd fits. do you not think that there were many of those types of fighters around back in the day? i believe that floyd would have a few losses on his record if he fought as often as old fighters because you just run into problem matchups and bad days. pac is the same way. i think that he could definitely run into fighters that would give him major problems if he fought that frequently.

i just dont think that most of peps fights were against bums. he probably had a few that were against fighters that just werent very good, but i would guess that most of his fights were against solid opponents that gave effort which is tiring after a while.

I think you're reading way too much into Augustus, who Floyd fought injured and took lightly, but I do agree that some of those guys who had shitty records were probably a lot tougher than their record gave them credit for. I'm sure he ran into the odd Freddie Pendleton or Emmanuel Augustus.

But herein lies the double standard: people will praise Pep for quantity and fighting so many people and different styles with no mention of quality. We are willing to give Pep the benefit of the doubt: we assume that he fought a lot of tough guys, even if their records would indicate that they were bums or club fighters at best. Then when we talk about Floyd Mayweather or another modern great, we'll go through his record with a fine toothed comb and accuse him of not fighting anybody.

Floyd has fought nothing but champions and top 10 opposition since 1998, which included just about every style and body type you can think of. Why aren't we willing to give Floyd and his opposition the benefit of the doubt?

Why is a club fighter from the 1940s better than a club fighter from 2014?

[powerpuncher]

i agree with you. i am an advocate to floyd. i understand that he has fought the best fighters over the years. im not at all saying that he hasnt. my main argument is that from all of the pep fights ive seen and all of the floyd fights ive seen, pep is a better defensive fighter.

[Beanflicker]

my main argument is that from all of the pep fights ive seen and all of the floyd fights ive seen, pep is a better defensive fighter.

Ok but help me see what you see. I'm totally open to changing my opinion on this. What does Pep do better than Floyd or Pernell? Did he have better head movement? Foot movement? Did he keep better range? Was he a better ring general? Did he fight more effectively on the inside? Was he able to switch from offense to defense quicker and more effectively? Did he counter off a defensive move to greater effect?

I'd love to know why he's better. I'd love for someone to point me to a few particular fights and say "look at this, Floyd or Pernell would never be able to do what he just did there".

[Beanflicker]

Don't get me wrong, I know Pep was fast as a mother fucker, had great movement and reflexes.

To me, he was one of the great outside fighters of all time. He was an escapist. He'd move and move so the guy would have trouble getting set, he'd jump in with his attack and jump back out, he'd retreat when he got charged, and he'd tie guys up if he felt uncomfortable. Great, world class stuff.

My point is that guys like Pernell, Floyd, and Locche did that (Locche wasn't as fast of foot as these guys but I'll include him anyway), but they were also much more adept at working defensively on the inside. Not that Pep was a slouch on the inside, he could duck punches and tie guys up, but that's not where he was comfortable and I've never seen him stand in the pocket or against the ropes and be effective. The big problem he had with Saddler is that he couldn't consistently keep the stronger Saddler off of him and was forced to fight on the inside and against the ropes more often than usual, and he was almost entirely uneffective in both working his offense and nullifying Saddler's defense.

Look at Floyd: even when he's pushed up against the ropes (ala Maidana), when do you really see him get hit with anything substantial? Guys like Floyd and Pernell had another dimension to their game where they were comfortable wherever the fight took place, and therefore I find it a little short sighted that Pep would get the defensive nod over either of them.

[powerpuncher]

pep is better defensively than floyd with his head movement, upper body movement, distance, and quick feet. pep and sweet pea have similar defensive styles and floyd and locche have similar defensive styles. floyd is better in the pocket at defense. thats more where he thrives on defense. he has solid outside defense but his pocket defense is where he gets his credit. he isnt as good as locche though because that guy could avoid any and all punches somehow.

floyd actually has trouble when he gets to the ropes. if you watch the fighters over the years that have pushed him to the ropes (castillo, sosa, cotto, and maidana all come to mind), it makes floyd uncomfortable and he gets hit cleanly. he wants to be in the middle of the ring where he can spin out of a bad situation if he gets in trouble. pep also has this same problem which is what saddler exploited. mayweather just never fought a saddler type fighter (paul williams has the same body type so it could have been an alright comparison had they fought).

i feel like they have separate types of defenses but that pep is altogether better.

[Beanflicker]

floyd actually has trouble when he gets to the ropes. if you watch the fighters over the years that have pushed him to the ropes (castillo, sosa, cotto, and maidana all come to mind), it makes floyd uncomfortable and he gets hit cleanly. he wants to be in the middle of the ring where he can spin out of a bad situation if he gets in trouble. pep also has this same problem which is what saddler exploited. mayweather just never fought a saddler type fighter (paul williams has the same body type so it could have been an alright comparison had they fought).

I don't think it's fair to say Floyd is uncomfortable and gets hit clean on the ropes. Maidana had him there for 12 rounds and never landed anything of real substance that hurt Floyd. We're talking about a guy who's never been dropped and we can count the number of times he's been hit with a punch that hurt him on one hand.

I don't know if I agree about Floyd never fighting a Saddler-type fighter. What about Diego Corrales? Corrales was a tall power puncher (33-0 with 27 KOs at the time). Willie Pep was 5'5'' and Saddler was 5'8'' - a 3 inch advantage. Floyd was 5'8'' and Diego was 5'11'' - again, a 3 inch advantage. I think Corrales was very comparable to Saddler in terms of size, style, power, and the height advantage held over Floyd as opposed to the height advantage Saddler had on Pep.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpKHFZ6ixKs

Look at that. Pep is fast but gets absolutely mauled by body shots and dropped in the corner in the first round. Pep is the classic slickster, he's great at avoiding those bad areas but when he got in them he had no idea what to do.

You contrast that with what Floyd did to Corrales, and I think anyone should be able to see the difference. Corrales got Floyd up against the ropes and corner and landed nothing clean.