Name some fighters whose highlight reel was more impressive than their actual career. Guys like Jones or Leonard don't fit, because they were as good as they looked. I am looking for guys like Michael Nunn, Donald Curry, Herbie Hide etc who could look astonishing in glimpses, who had spectacular moves or brilliant showings against suitable opponents but couldn't keep it up. Note that these fighters can still be very good, like Nunn or Curry, or fraudish like Junior Witter
I don't think it's at all fair to mention Curry and Nunn. Curry is a HOFmer and Nunn should be in the Hall. They both had top 10-15 peaks of the 80s. I'm more thinking the 130 version of Frietas. Frightening power at 130, but lacked the intangibles to be great. One could argue that Curry and Nunn were great fighters at their peaks.
Julian Letterlough, Carl Thompson, Gatti, Richard Hall for example. Rarely 8n boring fights but decidedly lesser talents. Vitali too to an extent, he usually had a very good repertoire of stuff but at a less than stellar level albeit the Lewis and Sanders fights were jammed with highlights.
Wayne Alexander if we are including non-world class guys. Legit never saw that guy in a shit fight, everything was a barnburner. A fav for sure.
Edison Miranda would fit imo. Kind of astounding that he once was in a collision course with Pascal and the thinking was that he would butcher him (especially after Miranda looked like a million dollar knocking Banks cold while Pascal nearly got koed by some journeyman in Omar Pittman).
I don't think anyone ever saw Letterlough, Thompson or Hall and thought they looked impressive, even if they'd only focus at their highlights. Gatti's a good shout though. Corrie Sanders would fit the bill too.
Shannon Briggs is a classic case. Had the look (both inside and outside the ring) of a superstar but never really could put it all together
Rocky Juarez would up some great highlight reel KOs (Antonio Diaz, Guy Espadas), but watching his fights in full would get frustrating as you would want him to let his hands go more.
Boxing fans never learn.....reminds me of Omar Sheika who was "knocking everybody out" (except he wasn't) and he was gonna go to England and knock Calzaghe out (except he didn't) cos Calzone had struggled with some non-entity himself. Sheika had a reputation that just didn't match the reality.
Yeah I was thinking Zab too.. even in fights he lost he produced some highlight reel attacks and KD’s.. vs Tszyu he landed some lightning ‘hookercuts’ that stunned him hard.. has arguably the only LEGIT KD of Floyd, with second round speed that Floyd simply couldnt react to, and his 1st fight with Spinks he hunted him down and assaulted him in the final round, just seconds from finishing him (which he did in the RE).
David Haye too with a few exceptions. He usually got the big KO win or got KOd trying or almost both.....
Hasbeen Rahman. He had a lot of highlight reels both of knocking out opponents and getting his porker ass knocked out. His ko of Lewis was Epic and him getting kod out of the ring wouldve gone viral in today's world. Not the best and not the worst win or lose was fun to watch
Rachman's fight with Corrie Sanders is one of the all time forgotten heavyweight wars. A better fight than any these fuckin heavyweight stiffs of today produce.
Yeah there was a time that fights like Rahman Vs Maskaev , Tua Vs Inbeabuchi, Jefferson Vs Harris, Sanders Vs Rahman , Tua Vs Rahman etc were standard affairs, lots of these fights happened within a few years of each other. Back then guys were prepared to sweat it out for a shot at the title, and losing wasn't fatal to your efforts.
You would think we were talking about 50 years ago. But no, the sport was entirely different just 22-25 years ago. Thanks, Floyd. You really did the sport a service...
