In his first fight with Gallagher and Cassidy, he outpointed Mustafa Hamsho on 1987-05-07 Felt Forum, New York, New York, USA >>>his next fight was for a world title. On November 27, 198
Other than winning the world title, the Hamsho fight is my all time personal favorite. As you mentioned he had beaten good fighters, world class, and had fought well against Hagler [in the first fight], an all time great so beating him, in the Garden, in a full house, in NYC, his back yard, was a HUGE confidence builder and really helped me with confidence and launched my career. It was a brutally physical fight. I loved every minute of it. I loved the physicality of that fight and getting the decision was so fulfilling.
Funny side note: Just previous to that time I had 6 different injuries that independently the “specialist” said were ‘career ending injuries’ as medicine did not have a solution for them that could allow for me to fight after “fixing” them through surgery. Anyone that knew about these injuries felt I had no chance in the Hamsho fight but they didn’t know I had a guy come from Denmark who helped my injuries heal themselves through a body work he called psycho-nero-myafacial-integration. It is better known now as Active Release Technique from the physical point of view but this guy incorporated the psychological aspects to his healing and helped me deal with the cause of the symptoms as well as the symptoms. Through his work within 6 weeks I was mainly healthy in all those areas, not completely but mainly, enough to box. The winner got a shot at a world title, at the newly created super middleweight [the weight we fought at] or light heavy as Spinks was giving up his belts to fight Holmes. I won and got Eddie Davis as he was #1 and with the Hamsho fight I was #2.
You can see this on the tape, Hamsho was told I had a really bad left shoulder and if he twisted it I wouldn’t be able to use it. You can see at one point in the fight in a clinch him trying. I grabbed him, pulled him closer and said, that’s the wrong shoulder it was the right one actually. You can see him step back and look to see. I laughed, it was funny. Great fight, loved it. Made me. Teddy Atlas thinks in the 11 months he trained me out of 27 years of boxing that he “made me” but that fight more than anything else did for me what no other one person did except maybe Dave Wolf my manager.
Other than winning the world title, the Hamsho fight is my all time personal favorite. As you mentioned he had beaten good fighters, world class, and had fought well against Hagler [in the first fight], an all time great so beating him, in the Garden, in a full house, in NYC, his back yard, was a HUGE confidence builder and really helped me with confidence and launched my career. It was a brutally physical fight. I loved every minute of it. I loved the physicality of that fight and getting the decision was so fulfilling.
Funny side note: Just previous to that time I had 6 different injuries that independently the “specialist” said were ‘career ending injuries’ as medicine did not have a solution for them that could allow for me to fight after “fixing” them through surgery. Anyone that knew about these injuries felt I had no chance in the Hamsho fight but they didn’t know I had a guy come from Denmark who helped my injuries heal themselves through a body work he called psycho-nero-myafacial-integration. It is better known now as Active Release Technique from the physical point of view but this guy incorporated the psychological aspects to his healing and helped me deal with the cause of the symptoms as well as the symptoms. Through his work within 6 weeks I was mainly healthy in all those areas, not completely but mainly, enough to box. The winner got a shot at a world title, at the newly created super middleweight [the weight we fought at] or light heavy as Spinks was giving up his belts to fight Holmes. I won and got Eddie Davis as he was #1 and with the Hamsho fight I was #2.
You can see this on the tape, Hamsho was told I had a really bad left shoulder and if he twisted it I wouldn’t be able to use it. You can see at one point in the fight in a clinch him trying. I grabbed him, pulled him closer and said, that’s the wrong shoulder it was the right one actually. You can see him step back and look to see. I laughed, it was funny. Great fight, loved it. Made me. Teddy Atlas thinks in the 11 months he trained me out of 27 years of boxing that he “made me” but that fight more than anything else did for me what no other one person did except maybe Dave Wolf my manager.
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