Alexis Arguello traveled to England to lift the WBC Lightweight Championship from Jim Watt….when after fighting a chess match for the opening rounds,…the boxing legend Arguello began to find Watt with power shots in the 4th round….then after a devastating left hook put Watt on the seat of his pants in the 7th…. that’s when Arguello began to do real damage and bloodies the champion’s nose in the 9th….after which Arguello dominates down the stretch to win a convincing unanimous decision….thus establishing himself as a future all-time great by winning his 3rd title in 3 weight classes….as his skills and ability were greatly underrated up to this point in his career.
As for Jim Watt….he was a really good fighter who gave Arguello and Kenny Buchanan good, hard fights….as I think I remember correctly that he beat everyone he faced apart from those two. He had an excellent record and faced a lot of great fighters….including wins over Howard Davis Jr, Charlie Nash, Sean O’Grady, Perico Fernandez, Antonio Guinaldo, Andre Holyk….as well as facing but losing good fights to Arguello, Buchanan, and Anthony Morodi….but I have to admit that I just always thought Jim Watt was a relatively one handed fighter….whom once you took away his right hand….he didn’t have much of anything else….as you see in this video herewith that Arguello managed to do that….then proceeded to take Jim Watt apart. Watt was a good solid pro….who won the title fairly late in life….as I think he was waiting for Duran to retire….but met a better fighter in Arguello….and was carried out on his shield so to speak. Not that I’m saying this was one of Arguello’s greatest wins or anything like that….but Watt was a good, solid champion that had his best wins at the end of his career….who was fighting better than ever at the tail end of his career instead of the start and middle of it like most….and the fact that Arguello wasn’t able to KO him showed what a fighter Watt was. He was one of the best out of the UK for those times.
When I think about text-book boxing….Alexis Arguello is one of the first names that come to my mind….as I wonder how far Arguello would have gone today….if there had not been an Aaron Pryor to stop him at 140….for he might have moved through 140 and into 147 winning a title there too. I wonder though if he could have beaten anyone at 154 today? At 5’10” and with his skill and power the he possessed…. it’s quite possible he could have been a title holder at 154 today.
Anyway you cut the pie….our viewers get to watch a really good fight between one of the boxing legends of the Golden Age of Boxing from 1964 – 1999 in Alexis Arguello….and a really good lightweight champion in Jim Watt….which makes this video well worth watching.
