A few Willie Pep videos that I Like.

[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.

[IamInuit]

Lol anyway,

Pep beat Chalky Wright, Sal Bartolo, Phil Terranova, Willie Roach, Jackie Wilson, Jock Leslie, Eddie Compo, Charley Riley, Ray Famechon, Spider Armstrong, Joey Peralta, and world champions Sandy Saddler, Manuel Ortiz and Paddy DeMarco. w/l records don't tell the whole story. Not sure what part of that fact confuses people? Some guys fought once a week. If they fought once a year they may have an 0 some some of today's tomato cans.

But speaking of win/loss Peps peak record was 135-1-1. The only guy close to that is Robinson at 128-1-2.

Glad Willie fought when he did. If he was fighting today, he wouldn't get a fight.

[Beanflicker]

w/l records don't tell the whole story. Not sure what part of that fact confuses people?

Nobody is confused. If you have a losing record, you don't belong in the ring with a world champion. If you have under 15 fights, you don't belong in there with a world champ that has over 100. That's as true now as it was in 1930.

It's the same issue I've brought up time and time again without answer: the double standard between judging old timers and modern fighters. When it's old timers, we give a 80/20 split in focus/importance to quantity. When it's modern fighters, we give the 80/20 split in focus/importance to quality. Well, which one is it? Is it impressive to fight more often against lesser opposition or less often against greater opposition? I've been asking this for years and nobody has given me an answer. It also exposes and underlying problem in boxing fans: very few people actually watch fights and form original opinions any more. It betrays lazy thinking and often no thinking at all. Why is Willie Pep the greatest? Oh, because I read he was. All this stuff just becomes accepted as part of boxing law and nobody questions it.

[powerpuncher]

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.

Corrales wasn't the same type of fighter as saddler. It's not just about being tall but about being aggressive and even dirty. Just like Floyd mentioned maidana using dirty tactics in their fight. That is why Floyd had trouble. Saddler would have been way worse. Also, Floyd did get hit cleanly by maidana multiple times. He took the punches well though.