THE JOURNEYMAN'S JOURNEYMAN

Let's begin with the nations this man fought in.

Cuba, USA, Venezuela, Panama, France, Tunisia, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Mexico, Belgium, Germany, Finland, Denmark, The UK and Puerto Rico. That enough journey-ing for everyone?

Was he any good? Let's see who he beat.

Future #3 ranked lightweight Alfredo Urbina. Future #5 ranked lightweight Doug Valiant. Future undisputed 140 champion Carlos Hernandez. #7 ranked Aissa Hashas. Former #5 ranked Raifu King and future #4 middleweight Marcus Geraldo. This man was no stiff. So what was he missing? An iota of discipline. He made men like Wilfredo Benitez and John L. Sullivan seem like monks. This man never met a party he wasn't the life of, never met a drink he couldn't swallow or a drug he couldn't smoke.

Sometimes on can tell something about a fighter by the men he lost to. This guy went the distance with the following:

ATG Jose Napoles twice. Undisputed 140 king Eddie Perkins thrice. HOFer Ismael Laguna. Future 140 strapholder Bruno Acari. Future undisputed 154 champion Carmelo Bossi. HOFer Ken Buchanan. ATG Roberto Duran. Lightweight champion Esteban DeJesus. 140 strapholder Sauol Mamby, HOFer Wilfredo Benitez. Undisputed welter champ Billy Backus.

IN ADDITION to those men already listed he faced at least another 20 ranked contenders.

In fact this man's final record was 134-83-21. Even facing that level of competition he was KO'd only three times.

He was ranked for a period in the early 1960's. He was vain enough to nickname himself after the GOAT because he thought he looked like him.

The Cuban lightweight Angel Robinson Garcia.

good find marble..i never heared of the guy.koed only 3 times in 238 fights tells me he was a tough customer especialy going the distence with napoles twice duran and the rest..he got to see the world in doing so..you have to laugh at the excuses given today like for example fronch and abraham worring about fighting in the other guys country let alone there home town..if your fighter needed a great workout to stay fined tunned this i guess was one of the guys you called...i knew bily backus..good kid.we took a few colledge classes together..did you know he was carmen basilios nephew..canastota a town of what 5000 people maybe had 2 world champs...in another post the word soc.was mentioned and greasers..what does thoses 2 mean.

great read,as usual marbele
so the questions i have are..."if he fought today,how many straps would he have,would he be the man(ever) & most importantly,would he be looked upon more favourably for the hall of fame"?
though in reality,he probably should be in the hall of fame as it is(jmo)

dmar5143 wrote:

good find marble..i never heared of the guy.koed only 3 times in 238 fights tells me he was a tough customer especialy going the distence with napoles twice duran and the rest..he got to see the world in doing so..you have to laugh at the excuses given today like for example fronch and abraham worring about fighting in the other guys country let alone there home town..if your fighter needed a great workout to stay fined tunned this i guess was one of the guys you called...i knew bily backus..good kid.we took a few colledge classes together..did you know he was carmen basilios nephew..canastota a town of what 5000 people maybe had 2 world champs...in another post the word soc.was mentioned and greasers..what does thoses 2 mean.

The terms "soc" (rhymes with gauche) and greaser are terms from a series of novels written by SE Hinton beginning with the Oustsiders. The Soc's are the society kids, from the right side of the tracks. The right clothes and cars. The greasers are the poor, tougher, leather jacket wearing types. All the characters are high school age. The stories took place in the Oklahoma City of the 1960's.

shakefree wrote:

great read,as usual marbele
so the questions i have are..."if he fought today,how many straps would he have,would he be the man(ever) & most importantly,would he be looked upon more favourably for the hall of fame"?
though in reality,he probably should be in the hall of fame as it is(jmo)

Well he probably would have won a strap or two at some point early. But the partying would have caught up with him too and he would still have been exceedingly erratic.

but maybe being more than just a contender,stepping stone,having a strap may have changed his mindset.made him have more self belief,dedication & if that happened with the depth & level of competition these days.....the sky's the limit..... but then again....

shakefree wrote:

but maybe being more than just a contender,stepping stone,having a strap may have changed his mindset.made him have more self belief,dedication & if that happened with the depth & level of competition these days.....the sky's the limit..... but then again....

Angelo Dundee was training him and he said"I made a huge mistake with this guy. I let him take a fight in Paris and he stayed for a decade."

It's more or less true.

haha great anecdote.the only doubt that casts for me,is if he was that crazy a guy,how can we be sure his dfecade only went 10 years

shakefree wrote:

haha great anecdote.the only doubt that casts for me,is if he was that crazy a guy,how can we be sure his dfecade only went 10 years

LOL, TRUTH!

Garcia went to paris to fight ranked contender Raifu King in late 1961. He came back and fought in the US next in June 1972. In that ten year period he somehow fought 103 times and went to probably 5000 parties. The guys was a machine!

so in 10 years & change he averaged(about)a fight every 5 weeks & a party every 7-8 days.i have a new hero!

shakefree wrote:

so in 10 years & change he averaged(about)a fight every 5 weeks & a party every 7-8 days.i have a new hero!

Sounds like I'm light on the parties!

damn thinkl i'd been partying too much.i missed a zero!which means he was going to parties every 0.7-0.8 days!! damn he's not my new hero,he's the new superhero