20.05.08 – By Ted Sares: Sonny Barch vs. Charles Atlas (1982) – Barch was a heavyweight out of Tennessee who won his first six fights by first round KO and his next four in almost similar fashion. In his eleventh encounter, he met Charles Atlas, 8-26 coming in and with a propensity to take the count. He had dropped 17 in a row, but had had far more rounds under his belt than Barch. After ten rounds in which the lack of rounds fought by Barch gave Atlas his opportunity, Sonny found himself on the short end of an embarrassing upset PTS loss. The win would be Atlas’s only one in his last 28 outings.
Barch managed to avenge this defeat as he scored two first round knockouts of the hapless Atlas the very next year and eventually finished with a 19 (KO 18) – 5 (KO 2) mark. In 1992, he participated in a highly controversial fight with Tex Cobb which was ruled a NC, but that’s another story and one I‘m not about to touch with a ten foot pole..
Gerald McClellan vs. Dennis Milton (1989)
The great bomber, Gerald McClellan, began his career with ten wins all coming by way of KO. Seven were in the first round and the other three did not go beyond 2. In all, he has 13 professional rounds under his belt against horrendous opposition when he met one Dennis “The Magician” Milton at the Convention Center in Atlantic City on June 24, 1989. Milton was 11-2-1 coming in and was the first tough opponent McClellan had been matched against. He had fought a total of 75 rounds.
Well, lo and behold, “The Magician” proved to be a wily slickster and boxed rings around the murderous puncher, taking a PTS win over six magical rounds. Milton won his next fight over the vastly underrated Robbie Sims and also out-duked Michael Olajide. However, he lost his last three by stoppage to Julian Jackson (for the WBC Middleweight title), Bernard Hopkins and Aaron Davis and finished with a 16-5-1 slate.
Gerald McClellan vs. Ralph Ward (1989)
Though he now had the benefit of a six round bout under his belt, he still lost his very next fight to the wily Ward, 12-3 at the time. Ward, like Milton, had far more rounds than The G-Man. The scores were 77-75, 76-75 and 76-75 over 8 stanzas.
After that wake-up call, he won his next 21 in a row before his fateful fight with Nigel Benn in 1995, and along the way, he iced many of his opponents early and cleanly. The one problem (if you can call it that) is that he only fought a total of 47 rounds or an average of 2.29 rounds per fight. In fact, his career average prior to the Benn bout was 2.24 rounds per fight.
For the record, Benn averaged 4.52 rounds per fight leading up to the 1995 encounter and participated in 42 fights compared to 33 for the G-Man.
The plain fact is, Benn had far more rounds and had been in with much better opposition. Leading up to the 1995 bout, he had gone the distance with Juan Carlos Gimenez Ferreyra (12), Henry Wharton (12), Chris Eubank (12), Mauro Galvano (12), Thulangi “Sugar Boy” Malinga (10), Lenzie Moragn (10), Sanderline Williams (10), and Jorge Amparo (10),
McClellan had gone he distance with the aforementioned Milton (6), Ward (8),
Sanderline Williams (8) and the limited Charles Hollis (8).
Do the math.
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