CONTINUING his GOATs of boxing series, Dan Morley looks at a man who stacked up points through artistry rather than aggression.
Willie Pep is the barometer on which masterful boxing is judged. As Floyd Mayweather Jr, an equally miraculous defensive genius, performed a surgical masterclass against the dangerous Diego Corrales, HBO analyst Larry Merchant, enamoured with the performance, stated that Floyd was reminiscent of the great ‘Will-o-the-wisp’.
A compliment of the highest order. Pep was so masterful across every inch of the squared circle that the old tale suggests he even won a round without throwing a punch. Whilst that tale may be more myth than fact, what is undeniably true is the incredible career Pep carved out.
Across 26 years, he partook in 241 professional fights, completing just shy of 2000 rounds. He won 229 times, scoring 65 knockouts to 11 defeats and one draw.
In 1942, at age 20, Pep won the featherweight championship of the world, extending his record to an impressive 54-0, a title he would hold for much of the decade, compiling numbers far beyond modern comprehension.
Between 1940-1950, many of the great fighters of the era across the smaller weight divisions could not lay a glove on his elusive frame. Legendary bantamweight champion Manuel Ortiz, who, like Pep, held the crown in the weight below for much of the decade in reigns spanning from 1942-1950, challenged the defensive wizard at a catchweight.
Before these two all-time greats met at the peak of their careers, Pep had been employed as a sparring partner for the bantamweight. Heading into the bout, both were on impressive runs of form. Despite each man ranking amongst the highest levels of their respective divisions, Pep easily outboxed Ortiz, with the Daily Record reporting, ‘The Hartford Italian, thanks to his accurate left jabbing and fleet footwork, made his one-time employer look like a tyro’.
This was the constant result of Pep’s fights throughout these years. Notable names in Sal Bartolo, Jackie Wilson, Phil Terranova, Joey Archibald, Chalky Wright, and Paddy De Marco were just standouts of hundreds of men who found themselves chasing shadows.
Bert Sugar tells the story of his infamous ‘no-punch round’ against Jackie Graves, ‘before the fight, Pep had told all the ringside writers, watch me in the third round, I’m going to win the round – and not throw a punch and guess what – he’d move in, fake a punch, grab them, spin ‘em, move out, begin a punch and bring it back, he’d block a punch and move under, and on two of the three scorecards without having thrown a punch in the round, he won the round’.
Just six months after a masterful performance against Graves, Pep would face adversity far more severe than any opponent could ever throw at him. In January 1957, he was on board a plane heading into a snowstorm, crashing down and killing multiple people on board, injuring everyone else.
The injuries he had suffered on board were severe and placed him in a body cast, with many suggesting that he would never be able to compete again. Pep, determined to return, passed on a 500,000-dollar settlement and, within a staggering five months, returned to action, outpointing Victor Flores. Those at ringside could not believe it. Boxing’s most elusive master possessed unmatched grit. He competed 131 more times over 19 years.
The tale alone is jaw-dropping, but you get a further sense of his greatness when combined with the figures he was accumulating in the ring, at such a high level of activity against top fighters. At the time of the crash, his record was a staggering 108-1-1 (37 KOs). He had emerged victorious across 62 fights before losing to the all-time great Sammy Angott.
The response to a blip in his career was an immediate 72-fight unbeaten run. The 72-fight run stretched across 1943-1948, meaning that having returned just five months after a devastating aeroplane crash, he won 26 straight fights.
With a record of 134-1-1, the 26-year-old was still yet to face off with his most famous foe, Sandy Saddler. Saddler was an absolute monster of a featherweight, built like a featherweight Tommy Hearns, yet fought like George Foreman – towering over opposition and owning a freakishly long reach.
Yet he never tended to use that height advantage to stay out of danger, instead marauding forward and bulldozing outsized opponents, a style which accumulated 104 knockouts across 145 victories. Saddler’s ferocious power and roughhouse style was bound to give a fighter like Pep trouble and when the pair met for the first time in 1948, the inevitable clash of styles spelled disaster.
Saddler did a number on Pep upon claiming the featherweight title, decking him multiple times en route to a fourth-round knockout. The giant was just far too big and stylistically troublesome for the ‘Will-o-the-Wisp’. A near decade of perfection ended as violently as it was sudden. For Pep to stand a chance of beating him, he would have to produce the perfect performance. But there is a reason he is held in such high esteem amongst boxing perfection and against the odds. Perfection is what he sought in the rematch.
The second fight of an eventual four-fight saga is Pep’s opus. At this time, a dominant and untouchable man proved he could overcome the adversity of an unbeatable adversary. The pair clashed four months after their first fight, the consensus being that Pep’s time at the top was done, having been so viciously dispatched of in October.
To the crowd’s amazement, Pep came out firing, working his aggressive nemesis, landing thirty-seven jabs in the opening round, speedily making Saddler look out of his depth as he was so accustomed to doing. Whilst the lanky champion remained undeterred and continued marching forward, Pep met attacks with constant counter-punching.
Inevitably, the avalanche of pressure began to make dents in the challenger, opening a cut on Pep’s cheek, but he remained firm and stuck to the game plan over a gruelling 15 rounds. The crowd exploded when the scorecards were announced and Pep was once again the featherweight champion of the world, securing the greatest scalp on his resume and becoming the second man to reclaim the title across the division’s illustrious history.
The pair would fight four times, including a fight labelled ‘boxing’s dirtiest ever fight’. Saddler won three. He was just too difficult for Pep. Yet despite losing the rivalry three to one, Saddler had offered him the opportunity to show that beyond his complete dominance, he was able to overcome overwhelming odds and ‘draw upon every ounce of strength in his compact little body’ as James P Dawson described it, to cement himself as a boxing immortal.
Saddler’s menacing presence prevented Pep from ever holding a world title again after their third fight in 1950. Still, before suffering a second defeat to him, he went on a further impressive 20-month run, defeating hall of famer Charley Riley and bantamweight world champion Harold Dade through his final championship reign.
He continued to fight for another 16 years whilst not maintaining the perfection he had accumulated between 1940-1948. He still displayed a consistency that less than a handful of fighters have sustained across such a high quantity of fights.
A testament to Willie’s defensive prowess is his interviews in his older days, which were still as sharp and witty as ever despite having competed across so many fights in such a tough era. Pep was class in and out of the ring.
His eventual record was 229 victories to 11 defeats and one draw with 65 knockouts. He passed away in 2006 at 84 years of age.
