The Best Of The Smallest Boxers

In taking a look at some of the smallest yet best boxers of all time from Willie ‘Will o’ the Wisp’ Pep to Ricardo ‘Finito’ Lopez!

Pep, from Rocky Hill, Connecticut, had more wins than most let alone the smallest of boxers. He twice held the featherweight title. From November of 1942 to October 1948. Again, from February 1949 to September 1950.

Pep’s final record was an outstanding 229-11-1 with 65 stoppages. He once told middleweight champion Rocky Graziano, ‘You couldn’t hit me with a fist full of stones!’

Pep won his first 62 fights before losing a ten-round decision to former lightweight champion Sammy Angott on March 19, 1943. He defeated Chalky Wright by a 15-round unanimous decision at the age of 20 to win the NYSAC World Featherweight championship on November 20, 1942. He defeated NBA World Featherweight champion Sal Bartolo by a 12th-round knockout to become the undisputed World Featherweight champion on June 7, 1946.

Pep had a 134-1-1 record when he lost to sandy Saddler, 86-6-2, by a 4th round knockout on October 29th, 1948. He defeated Saddler in a rematch by a unanimous 15-round decision to regain the title on February 11, 19, 1949.

Pep retired in 1959, only to return in 1965, and fought ten more times before retiring for good at the age of 1943. On April 26, 1965, he defeated Jackie Lennon, and this writer was in attendance, though not yet a writer. He won 9 of 19 losing his final fight to Calvin Woodland.

WBC, WBA, WBO Minimumweight and Light Flyweight champion Ricardo ‘Finito’ Lopez was 51-0-1 with 38 stoppages, from Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico.

Lopez was 47-0 when he was held to a draw by Rosendo Alvarez, 24-0, by D-TD in 7 rounds. He was knocked down in the 2nd round. Alvarez lost one point in the 7th round due to the WBC accidental head butt rule. It was on August 7, 1998. On November 13th, in the rematch, Lopez won a split decision to add the vacant WBA title to his WBC title.

In the next fight Lopez won the IBF World Light Flyweight title defeating Will Grigsby, 14-1-1, on October 2nd, 1999 by split decision. Then won his last two fights by stoppage over Anucha Phothong, 38-5-1, and Zolani Petelo, 17-2-2.

World Flyweight champion Jimmy ‘The Mighty Atom’ Wilde, 121-1-1, won the title by stopping Dick Heasman, 4-0, in London in the second round. He was from Tylorstown, Wales, UK.

Wilde lost his last two fights ending with a 132-4-1 record with 98 stoppages.

Pascual Perez was the 1948 Olympic Gold Medalist in London. At 4:11 nicknamed ‘El Leon Mendocino’ from Ciudad Mendoza, Argentina.

On November 26, 1954, Perez, 23-0-1, won the World Flyweight title defeating Yoshio Shiral, 46-6-4, in Tokyo, Japan. In the rematch he scored a knockout in 5 rounds.

Perez was 51-0-1, when he lost to Sadao Yaoita, 27-6, in Tokyo, Japan, in January of 1959. He won the rematch in November, with a tenth round knockout.  He ended with an 84-7-1 record with 57 stoppages.