Examples that immediately come to mind for me are Bojado and Joel Julio. What other fighters looked amazing against lesser opposition only to shit the bed the minute they stepped up?
Bojado's talent was legit. Maybe not all time great legit, but he certainly had the talent to be a championship level fighter. He was a lazy MF, he didn't lack talent.
Michael Grant looked like possibly the next Bowe coming up the ranks. I would say the first warning sign was when he went the distance with Lou Savarese. I was thinking: "Lewis would kill Savarese inside of 2."
Man Bowe beat the living fuck outta that poor guy. I haven't watched that fight in almost 20 years. Maybe I'll rewatch it tonight.
This is gonna sound like almost blasphemy, but Frietas showed shades of a young Duran coming up. What I mean by that he was a babyfaced Latin kid with big power, combined with an unorthodox attacking style, and freakish athleticism, and tons of ferocity. He was raw, but he was very young, and many of us were thinking if he could hone his skills while maintaining his style, he could be special. Never came to pass. On top of lacking heart, he just couldn't integrate his boxing with his offense, of course, that idiot Oscar Suarez can be blamed for a lot of that.
Managers get really good at picking guys that their fighter will look good against because it fools the 'eye test' crowd and then they buy pay per views. Watch a guy struggle with somebody that presents him problems. Class shows there. Anybody can look like Duran in a choreographed routine.
I remember hearing that they taught Romero to punch by standing on paint cans. I stole that from them, I don't know who they stole it from. But, if you teach a guy how to move and turn his weight, then put him on the paint cans he will punch like murder.
David lemieux to a certain extent. Never was on the bandwagon, but a lot if persons were hailing him as the next big thing. He wasn't a total bust, but he never made it to the elite level
A sort of reverse example is Froch. He looked like shit, almost always, and pretty much everyone expected him to be lit up and exposed when he stepped up. Hell, he was known as the 'fighting farmer' here. Yet he went on to win fight after fight at world class level. MTF
Six head lewis. looked terrific against page He had very fast hands and solid pop. At first sight, looked like a future star. But, when you looked at him a bit more closely, you could see that he had some flaws that explained why he was such a failure at the.top.level, even if he had some insane talent. He had no defensive awareness and fought with his hands low. Guys like this are very easy to overrate, cause they look like killers against mid level opponents, yet they are so.flawed, that they are completely impotent once they fight elite guys. Joppy was pretty much in the same boat. Had some real smooth hands and moved gracefully in the ring, yet fought with his hands low and had poor defensive skills (hence why he performed so terribly every time he stepped up in class).
I thought Herbie Hide looked shit hot coming up, until it was discovered he was a chinless frontrunner.
Lewis also had no chin. Although he won every round, he was no doubt inches from being brutally stopped by Page. Page really did look like shit that night but it's easy to say that now. At the time, Lewis's performance really did seem special.
Agreed. I remember him whacking out a guy named Eddie Gonzalez, who had gone full rounds with Bowe and Holmes, in two. Also, even though Tucker was well past it, the way Hide just blitzed through him was highly impressive. Hide is a classic example of a guy JoM described above. With that speed and power he looked magnificent against the poor and average, but at the highest level his limitations got brutally exposed. Another reminder of why we should demand solid record and opposition from the p4pers, more that than impressive looking performances (*cough*Bud*cough*)
I remember at the time that he and Cotto were highly regarded prospects, that many observers felt that Bojado had the higher ceiling. I agreed with that too.
Orlando Canizales looks far better than his record indicates. 30+ years later and we don't know whether he was an under achiever or overhyped. And we'll never know.
