Fighters you initially thought were overhyped but actually lived up to the hype.

For me it's Lomachenko. I'm late to the bandwagon but I'm on the bandwagon now.

I still have a nagging feeling that he's a shocking one punch KO victim waiting to happen, but that aside, he's proven to be as good as advertised.

What about you fellas?

 

Calzhage

 

Andre Ward

He looked shitty in some of his earliest fights and for a time, tried to imitate RJJ.

 

I think Ward is probably the best example.

NOBODY thought much of Ward before the Kessler fight. I have a good memory, and to Brotha REED's credit, I think he was literally THE ONLY ONE on the forum who called Ward beating Kessler.

Going into the Super 6, if you said Ward would win it and win it easily, everybody would have laughed. He was actually thought of as the second weakest link behind Jermain Taylor.

Kessler and Abraham were the favorites, and Dirrell was thought of as the most talented.

And while on the topic of Ward, I'll eat crow for being wrong about Froch too.

I thought the guy was a total fraud waiting to be exposed at first. But he certainly proved to be a quality fighter who got the absolute most outta his limited talent.

 

Froch's a really good one. The BBC started broadcasting boxing again for a short while and Froch made his debut on there. My mate, who isn't the most knowledgeable, got on the bandwagon really early and was Froch's number one fan. I kept telling him he was overrated as fuck and would lose to this guy, and this guy, and this guy, etc. But the cunt just kept on winning somehow, against world class fighters. Can't knock him, he usually found a way to win.

I didn't know a whole lot about Ward before the Super 6 to be fair, I knew he was an Olympic gold medalist so I figured he had to be somewhat decent, but none of his fights were shown over here prior to the tournament. All I'd read were FightBeat reviews saying he was boring.