Naturally opponents were caught off-guard when Saddler proved to be one of the meanest, nastiest, hardest-hitting lower-weight fighters there ever was.

Born in Massachusetts on June 23 (or 25, depending on who asked) in 1926, or exactly 100 years ago, Saddler’s name was actually Joseph and he later said he couldn’t remember who’d given him the nickname “Sandy.” According to his first feature in The Ring when he was 19, Saddler moved with his family to Harlem a few years earlier and had been a standout basketball player in high school before taking up boxing.

Punching power is something of an enigma in that nobody quite knows how to acquire it or consistently increase it, nobody knows what a given fighter’s power limit is and so forth. But one thing most boxing people understand, and a thing many non-boxing people who slap on boxing gloves painfully find out, is that heavy muscles aren’t helpful in boxing and don’t equate to greater punching power. Saddler was a perfect example of this.

Late 1800s and early 1900s sensation Bob Fitzsimmons might have been the original spindly puncher. Boxing’s first three-division world champion earned several nicknames, among them “Lanky Bob.” Contemporary accounts of his knockouts read like obituaries, with a hushed crowd silently praying over some flattened body. And Saddler followed in those footsteps as a fighter.

Before even turning professional, Saddler’s atomic punching power caught the attention of Charley Johnston, who would go on to handle the career of another all-time puncher in Archie Moore and was already well-known in boxing circles as a member of a family where nearly everyone was a trainer, promoter or manager. Under Johnston’s watch, Saddler fought first all over the East Coast of the U.S., then from Venezuela, Argentina and Chile to the Philippines, Japan and Aruba.

Johnston helped develop Saddler and guide his career toward winning world titles in two divisions over the course of a decade, and his international associations led to a sort of fighter exchange program between the U.S. and a few countries, notably Argentina. Johnston would send Saddler and Moore to peddle wares in the pampas, and in turn he would give Argentina’s top fighters a shot at the big time in New York City.

From the October 1945 issue of The Ring: “Johnston points out that Sandy is much faster, steadier, hits more often and harder with either hand [than other fighters he handled] and knows how to get away from blows.”

The only thing that couldn’t be taught or developed was Saddler’s in-ring temperament, which was notoriously ruthless.

In his first defense of the junior lightweight title in 1950, Saddler stopped Lauro Salas in nine rounds after several minutes of rough handling. Salas’ manager Roger Leighton later told Los Angeles Times sports editor Paul Zimmerman: “Did you ever hear of the DFC (Distinguished Flying Cross military award)? Well I’m giving Mr. Sandy Saddler the Leighton Award, the DFW. The Dirtiest Fighter in the World. That’s Saddler.”

When asked to qualify his claim, Leighton rattled off a list of Saddler’s favorite tricks: “Saddler heeled Salas several times. You know, hit him with the heel of his glove. A couple of times he got his arm around Lauro's neck and choked him a regular stranglehold. Why, even in rasslin' that's a foul!”

He also accused Saddler of rabbit punching, hitting Salas on his back, thumbing and finally head-butting Salas and causing a cut that ultimately helped end the fight. Of course, that was just one handler of one Saddler opponent. It could easily be dismissed as an outlier, if only it weren’t the experience of numerous others.

Pound-for-pound great Willie Pep is the name most associated with Saddler. They fought four times and the Saddler-Pep rivalry is widely considered one of the best in the sport, or at least one of the best-known. In truth, Saddler was the one fighter to get the better of a prime Pep multiple times, which was no mean feat. Pep’s highly unorthodox defensive style made him a nightmare to face for basically everyone as he danced, jabbed, leaped and wriggled away from opponents. Everyone but Saddler.

Pep went through hell getting his only win over Saddler in their second fight. He was cut around both eyes and on his cheek, and one of his eyes had a mouse the size of a “grade A egg” under it. Decades after their fourth meeting in 1951, it was still considered a rough enough fight to merit being ranked at No. 6 on a 1997 list of “The 10 Dirtiest Fights of All Time” in The Ring. Saddler just had a way of tangling Pep up inside and absolutely brutalizing him that nobody else figured out.

Saddler had a mind for boxing. It’s that simple. Despite all of boxing’s artistry, poetry and bravery, it is a sport of blood and cruelty, and Saddler was an expert in shedding blood and cruelly punishing opponents. Under normal circumstances, that would make Saddler a monster. In boxing, he was a god of violence. Had Saddler been more charismatic, perhaps like his old pal Archie Moore, he could have been seen as a lovable old rascal one shouldn’t cross. But he just smiled. He smiled and knocked people out.

Years after retirement, Saddler and Moore teamed up to work the corner of a young heavyweight champion in George Foreman. Between them, the trio scored more than 300 knockouts as professionals. To add perspective to the numbers, Moore, long thought to be the record-holder for scoring the most knockouts, had 132 over the course of nearly 30 years. Saddler had 104 knockouts in 12 years.

Sadly, fighters having a mind for boxing also usually means an unfortunate end. In the late 1980s, Saddler was found wandering the city in a fugue, like countless ex-fighters before him. He subsequently spent time at a hospital and eventually ended up requiring full-time care as he developed serious dementia. When he died at 75 in 2001, the sport lost one of its greatest pain technicians. Two years later, The Ring rated Saddler No. 5 on its list of “100 Greatest Punchers of All Time.”

Amazingly, Saddler was stopped only one time as a professional and never disqualified despite his many in-ring sins. Later in life, Saddler questioned why the boxing community rated Pep as a better fighter despite losing three times to Saddler during their series, and it’s a question that still rings unanswered.