Fighters who rose to a different level in one fight

I began to think about this as I re-watched De La Hoya vs Vargas today (it was an excellent and somewhat underrated fight btw.)

In the fight, Vargas wasn't necessarily better than before but his strength was astonishing. He was Foreman-esque in there, moving Oscar back with punches that landed on shoulders, hurting him with short hooks and bullying him around easily. Never before nor after did Vargas look like that, later we also found out why.

Buster Douglas in the prime example of this. Can you come up with others, to me it seems more difficult than I thought

 

Since we know the reason WHY Vargas was so strong in the DLH fight, it doesn't count.

A good example I can think of is Sean O'Grady vs Hilmer Kenty.

Granted, Kenty was allegedly sick going into this fight, but it doesn't change the fact that O'Grady fought like a man possessed. He never before or after fought at that level again.

 

Interesting thread. I didn't understand what you meant until I read your opening post.

The answers would all have to be lesser fighters; guys that are not "great" as the great ones are great because of consistency.

 

Kirkland Laing?

 

Mosley vs De La Hoya. Sugar Plain Nosebleed was never better than he was in that fight. He seemed particularly inspired that night. He lost to ever other top level fighter he faced.

 

Now Shane Mosley was a one-hit wonder...

Don't feed the trolls...

 

Mosley destroying Margarito was the most impressive performance/victory of his career

 

Which other top fighter did Shane Mosley beat?

Forrest? Wright? Cotto? Pacquiao? Floyd?

Oh yes.....Rivera, Wise, Diaz, Taylor and Stone......I forgot. ;)

 

It was impressive, I agree. But Margarito was pretty much a face first slugger. He had no boxing acumen.

 

Bowe in the first holyfield fight

 

Victoria Ortiz against Berto.

 

Good one.

 

Good one. Bowe was at his absolute peak in that fight.

 

PEDs

 

Rumour has it that Shane was on PEDs when he "beat" Oscar in 2003

 

Not really. Because Margarito had had loaded gloves before that. And in retrospect, it made all the difference.

 

Nice to see the forum has progressed on it's concerns about performance enhancing drugs, the minority of us who were ostracized and mocked during the Floyd / Pac negotiations can come back out now.

 

talking about Margarito, he's a good example in this thread, since the first cotto fight is pretty mcuh an abberation in his career

 

Indeed...

Motherfucker SUCKED All the While...Punch Resistance was LITERALLY Margarita's ONLY World Class Attribute...

Ever...






REED

 

I really have only seen a small few of Eddie Mustafa Muhammad's fights

Would the Marvin Johnson fight count?

Also, Ray Mercer going even thru 10 (on my card) with a 1996 Lennox is better than any of his wins IMO

 

I would say stamina/workrate was another

 

Nah....Margarito destroyed Cintron, six heads Lewis and Sergio Martinez as well.

 

And the Marg that won these fights, beat Clottey and lost to Williams and Pac didn't look any different than when he fought Cotto.

 

We didn't like opinion being stated as fact as it related to Pac. No one ostracized you.

 

Would make an interesting precedent you know, an olympian for example, refuses to submit a specimen on request, then sues WADA for defamation, after they fine him or her the full penalty.

 

Not relevant. That's the norm in the olympics. I assume Floyd had that testing in his following fight?

 

He did. But more importantly, he kicked off a rather destabilizing debate about the nature of USADA's policies as prejudiced, thus defamatory as a consequence. An objector receives fines equal to that of a disgraced test, it violates the presumption of innocence, and so through legal precedent, perhaps we can liberate the Olympians, the UFC and any other athletes chained up by regulations, le, le, lesss, lless, less regulations, less regulations equals more jobs!

To half the forum, - it was "something worth fighting for" o_O our most revered battle music. 'Lest we forget'.

 

Zzzz. I'm glad he kept up. Still didn't mean that stating your opinion as fact and getting called on it was ostracizing you. Particularly as options were split fairly evenly. We finally have a working search function, feel free to relive it.

 

Everybody involved had an opinion, but there was only one way to prove it as a fact.... ...sadly, someone pleaded 'indefinite innocence' until proven guilty.

 

You mean the guy that accepted the tests?