[professordp]

Another subgenus I'll be posting here are Florida fighters who enjoyed a successful career in the Sunshine state but also made an occasional foray into national and international venues against name fighters.

It's only fitting that I start with Dennis "Alligator Alley" Riggs who practically owned the Florida and Southern middleweight titles for most of his career.

Taking his nickname from the common reference to Southern Florida's major roadway, Inerstate 75 (aka, Alligator Alley) Riggs started his career in 1962 at the age of seventeen and finally hung up his mitts seventeen years later in 1979.

Riggs began his pro career as a "hot prospect". He enjoyed a highly successful amateur career putting together a 25-0 record winning the state's Golden Gloves three times and earning the AAU middleweight title.

Despite all of this, he just sort of drifted for the first half of his stint as a pro, turning in mediocre performances against mediocre performers. Maybe this was the recult of immaturity, but when he hit his mid-twenties, he began to turn things around.

After winning the state and regional middlweight crowns, he fought Tony Licata to a twelve round draw and defeated Ali wannabe, Marcel Clay, twice. He later went ten rounds with a young Vinnie Curto in a losing effort and was ready to move up.

He was matched against Elisha Obed in late 1973, but was kayoed in four after being decked three times by the future jr. middleweight champ. That pretty much dashed any possible crack at the world title and six months later he travelled to Paris where he was stopped in two by Nassim Max Cohen.

At that point, he pretty much settled back for the remainder of his career picking off the local talent and successfully defending his regional titles. He also branched out by promoting Southern Florida fight cards and running a fairly prosperous sign painting company.

He slowed down by the time he turned thirty, fighting only six times inthe last four years of his career. "Alligator Alley" went out on a high note in his final fight in which he successfully defended his state title with a sixth round kayo of Milton "Black Widow" Owens (soon to be immortalized in this thread).

Riggs is recalled as a slick boxer/puncher who had a decent punch and good ring skills. His record was 43-20-2, but most of those loses were in the early years of his career when he was apparently "finding himself."
Half of those losses were early exits, but he was only counted out three times.