Examples of "good" or "great" fighters who fell apart when they moved up in weight

Curry never did shit above 147

Gatti never did shit above 140

Nunn wasn't much above 160

It would appear that Taylor isn't much above 160

Chavez couldn't do shit at 147

Rosario's career was never the same above 135

Others?

 

Considering they started a couple of divisions lower and had some success (Chavez about x1000 than Gatti) I wouldn't agree here. Gatti only went up to 147 two times to get a beating and a nice paycheck.

I think a perfect example would be JL Castillo. That bitch ass cheated his way to stay at 135 and fool a few selected with "keen eye" about his sweet science when in reality he would just overwhelm the little guys he fought. Proof of this is he went up just 5 lbs and arguably lost no that african guy before getting absolute trashed by Ricky Hatton.

 

Wlifredo Gomez was never the same above 122, although he won titles at 126 and 130 (thanks to the judges).

Bob Foster wasn't much of a heavyweight.

 

Winky Wright.

 

Yeah after a career of fighting the best and biggest lightweights the division had to offer, winning most of the fights, but not easily and not without sustaiing damage. Obviously, his fight with Corrales was brutal as hell, and his fight with Lazcano was brutal as well.

He had trouble with Ngoudju but you can't make the case that he lost. What you can't deny though is that at 140 and above he just didn't have the hand-speed to be effective and had pretty much left everything he had at 135.

I wouldn't even be surprised if he threw that fight. I know its a stretch and wishful thinking, but I know Hatton stood to lose a lot more than Castillo if he were to lose.

 

Tito up from 154

 

Nonsense. If he'd fought an A grade fighter at 154 he would have lost just as bad as he did at 160.

 

:notallthere:

 

Wilfredo Gomez is probably the most historically significant (non-175 pounder) who struggled when moving up just four pounds. He was a completely different fighter @ 126 and never seemed to have the same menace.

But the most obvious examples are the 175 pounders who moved up under the old 'original 8' system. Bob Foster a glaring example. The most fearsome 175 puncher of all-time, quite sturdy himself, becamse a KO waiting to happen @ heavy.

Modern times? Hatton, Jhonny Gonzalez, Vince Phillips, JLC.

 

Eddie Mustafa Muhammad when he tried to make a move at heavyweight.

 

I would disagree with this if it wasn't for the fact that other than Winky Wright, there were no grade A 154lber's there to challenge Tito. So yeah, you're right by default.

 

Trinidad wasn't quite the puncher at 160 that he was at lower weight classes, but his losses there weren't much about power anyway. It was about styles and opposition level. Hopkins didn't use his size advantage that much on Trinidad anyway. Not much bullying around and not using his strength to overpower or tire Tito up close, but a tactical boxing match in which he boxed Trinidad silly and wore him down with clean punches. Wright was the one moving up to fight Tito but sure looked the larger man in the ring. Size again wasn't the case. Wright just jabbed the shit out of Tito and blocked nearly all of his shots.

 

Trinidad's move to 160 was going just fine (Joppy) until Hopkins called him out on his hand-wraps. After that, it was all down hill.

If anyone has any doubts about Tito's illegal hand-wraps just watch his fight with Mamadou Thiam. He nearly tore the guys noce off with a left-hook that he didn't even load up with. In fact, he followed it up with an upper-cut that sent Thiam reeling. And it wasn't like it was a blazing RJJ combination. It was more like a mallet.

ODH wasn't much at 160 although you have to give him credit for gutting out a decision against Sturm. I know a lot of people thought Sturm was robbed, but it was obvious watching that fight who wanted to win, who threw more punches, and who controlled the pace of the fight.

Pazienza was crappy enough having moved up in weight to be an opponent for RJJ.

I'm trying to figure out with the exception of 175 to heavy-weight or even cruiser-weight to heavy-weight, which move seems to hurt fighters the most. I noticed whenever a puncher moves up and is suddenly forced to wear 10 oz gloves instead of 8 oz ones that it makes a big difference.

So maybe 147 to 154? Or 154 to 160 depending on the sanctioning body?

Corrales was definitely out of his element at 147, that's for sure.

 

I'm not so sure his power suffered all that much. He blew out Joppy without too much trouble and Tito was the only one to stop Joppy until Bute did last year which was many years after the Trinidad-Joppy fight. At Tito just ran into a couple of better fighters who were able to exploit his weaknesses.

 

Curry was a title holder at 154, so it isnt accurate to say "he didnt do shit" there ... besides, his problems started at 147

Gatti shoudlnt even be in the topic with the rest of these fighters

he did worse at 135 than he did at 140 (likely becuase his opponents were either living or weren't slow, predictable club fighters like Mickey Ward)

by the time Chavez actually fought at 147 (the Whitaker fight was at a catchweight of 144) he was old and fading anyway, so I think age had as much to do with it as anything... by that time, he wasnt looking too hot at 140 either

Rosario's career was a roller coaster from start to finish, regardless of the weight... he just happened to be past it when he fought at 140

 

Yep.

Plus Chavez had successfully moved from 130 to 135 to 140...so to say he "fell apart" when he moved up in weight isn't really accurate.

And Rosario was past it, but he still managed to win a title at 140.

I suspect the list of fighters who WERE successful moving up in weight would be much longer than what has been generated in this topic.

 

indeed, it would be a very long list

Tam-Tam brought out the two finest examples, IMO, in Gomez and Foster

Foster, especially, looked like a weak punching bag against heavyweights, but at 175 he was very sturdy and was a destroyer

Gomez too is a good call, though I think some of that is quality of opposition... moving up to Salvador Sanchez, Azumah Nelson, Rocky Lockridge... some real good fighters there, hard to really rip Gomez for losing to those guys... but Tam's point is still valid... because at 122 Gomez seemed near invincible

 

"Gomez beat Lockridge"

-panchyprsss

 

LOL, I figure someone would eventually point that out, but I dont care... anyone who has seen that fight knows Lockridge retained his title that night and was jobbed by the WBC...

I would half expect Cupey ("Trinidad W12 because the record books say so") to correct it, but that would require him knowing A) who Rocky Lockridge is and B) being aware of something other than the fact that Gomez was from Puerto Rico

 

agREED on Lockridge getting robbed. But I figured I would spare us the pain of panchy claiming the decision was fair and using some PR insider story as "proof".

 

Serrano KO1 Arguello ::

 

Arguello was too scared to fight Serrano and ran away from Serrano to face "protected" WBC fighters like Escalera, Chacon, Boza-Edwards and Limon.

 

he then moved up to fight Jim Watt for the 135 title, because he was terrified of a unification match with the superhuman Serrano, who had already destroyed such notable junior lightweights as ? and ? , not to mention the hard hitting ? and the equally intimidating ?

 

::

 

I mentioned them first. :flip:

Go drink some cocaine and watch some Terry Norris fights.

 

:laughing:

 

When Arguello moved up in weight to fight Scott "The Pink Cat" Walker at 141, he had clearly fell apart from his glory days at 140 and below.