Boxing shooting stars

Name boxers who had an incredible, if very short prime. Looked incredible for a few fights, but crashed disastrously soon after

Criteria: you need more than one big win to qualify.

I would suggest Curry

 

Pipino Cuevas.

 

Not so sure. He had quite a few defenses

 

Looking back you're probably right there. I was thinking perhaps Nunn but he did win belts after the loss to Toney, although he was never quite the same.

 

Honestly, there's nobody that jump straight at me. The best example i can think of is not in boxing but in mma. Sokoudjou beat two top 5 guys back to back in quick fashion, but pretty much lost all his fight afterwards

 

And even nunn prime was a bit too long, imo, to qualify

 

Miguel Lora in his short prime in the late 80s was one of the most talented bantamweights ever.

 

Curry's prime was longer than Nunn's. Curry's peak was definitely longer.

Nunn's peak was 88-89. Thats it.

 

My knowledge of lower weights is really weak, but I don't think that Lara is what I'm looking for. What i meant is fighter that looked really great for two or three fights, and pretty much sucked afterwards.

A bit like one hit wonder that lasted two or three fights

 

Yeah, youre right, curry is not a good example

 

That's not Curry though. Curry was awesome for basically three years.

 

My first thought was Nunn, too, but I'm not sure he qualifies, either.

Does anyone?

MTF

 

McGuigan meets the criteria.

Awesome against Laporte, Pedroza, and Taylor. Then fell off.

 

Good one

 

Danny green kinda fit the bill, at a lower level. Looked like a monster against Beyer and Lucas, and yet lost afterward, inexplicably, to Beyer and Mundine. Had a small resurgence in his later years, so he's not a perfect example

 

McGuigan is a great pick.

 

Livingstone Bramble also comes to mind.

Excellent in both Mancini fights (much moreso the first fight), and also excellent in dismantling Crawley.

Then Rosario destroys him, and he was never at that level again.

 

Baldomir fits the bill imo. Had some great performance against judah and Gatti, but crashed hard after that

 

Does Mayorga fit? He wasn't all that good but he had that spell where he beat Forrest and nearly unified the division before he started losing all the time (barring a win over a shot Vargas).

 

Antonio Esparragoza might belong, despite the fact that he was featherweight champion for 3 years, and ranked top 5 P4P.

In all his defenses, he never again fought as well as he did in the Steve Cruz fight.

 

I don't think he does. While he lost a lot, it was always against the elite of the elite, and he was very competitive against a few of them (mosley and cotto). And he beat picirillo, who was a solig guy

Edit: replying to Slice

 

Mayorga definitely belongs.

He had three fight prime - the Lewis rematch, and both Forrest fights. Thats it.

 

Jose Luis Lopez had an extremely brief prime.

 

What about litzau. Was viewed as a great prospect before flaming out against Guerrero. Still, he managed to regroup to beat juatez and caballero, who were both highly regarded. Seems like he had star potential with his speed and look Crashed hard against broner a few seconds later and never made it back to tje top

 

Page so kinda of quality. Looked great against.Petrvayev and lopez, and some tought he might have been the best fighter in a very stacked welter divjsion (cough foreman cough), yet got destroyed by a very mediocre fighter in six head lewis.

Edit: jsut rewatched page against Pestrayev. He looked like a total killer. Incredible that he turned out to be so mediocre

 

Lewis got so much hype off of the Page win that there was a minority of Secondsout posters claiming he would beat Mosley.

 

Yeah just.wrote about him in another thread. He did look incredible in that fight. One of the big boxing mag (ko or ring), was claiming thst he was a threat to dlh, tito and quartey

 

Ouma

Quintana

Ledwaba

Mijares

Ivan Hernandez

 

I don't recall Lewis ever being compared to those three. By 2001, Tito was moving up to 160 to fight Joppy, DLH moved up to 154, and Quartey was retired after the Vargas loss.

This was a point when Mosley was the welterweight champion, and the great debate on forums and in the media was who was P4P #1 between Shane, Roy, and Tito.

The Lewis hype was very short lived. The very next fight after Page, Lewis was nearly KO'd by a total nobody named Larry Marks. I haven't seen that fight since it happened, but I remember it was on that God awful KO Nation series HBO had for a few years. That fight woke everybody up, and after that no longer was anybody thinking he was a threat to Mosley.

 

Ouma is a very good example. At one point, Ouma was most hyped fighter in the sport. He was considered a threat to beat Wright.

I would have liked to see a Ouma vs Tall Paul matchup, both at their peaks.