Terrified Akinwande vs Lewis Golota vs Lewis Bruno vs Tyson Surprisingly not scared Botha vs Tyson Briggs vs Lewis
Terrified: Floyd Patterson against Sonny Liston Michael Spinks against Mike Tyson Stephen Fulton against Naoya Inoue Surprisingly not scared: Muhammad Ali against George Foreman Frankie Randall against Julio Cesar Chavez Danny Garcia against Lucas Matthysse
Fulton BECAME Terrified During the Fight, But REED Thinks he Walked Into the Ring Confident, for What it's Worth...Excellent Call on Ali-Foreman Though...Per Reports, Ali's Entire Entourage was Scared FOR Him, in the Locker Room Before the Fight... REED
Disagreed on Ali. We've already seen against Liston that he had no fear and confident to the extreme. Isnt surprising imo that he wasnt scared of Foreman
Foreman had a lot of technical flaws. Arm puncher winging in shots, poor footwork. I think Ali was confident and saw through the hype. I think Frazier was past it by the time Foreman got him.
Hatton looked scared during the Tszyu ringwalk. I actually thought Calzaghe looked a bit scared going into the Lacy fight. Apparently it wasn't easy to get him to take the fight and turn up. He was also saying "He can't punch shit!" while sitting in the corner after realising Lacy was a fraud which suggests he had concerns going in.
Surprisingly not scared: Corrie Sanders vs Wlad Wlad had a big rep at the time and Sanders was a big underdog away from home and looking like he had a foot out the door, part time golfer or something. But he turned up ready to go.
Awfully Convenient Nitpicking Foreman AFTER the Fact...He was the Biggest, Strongest, Most Feared Fighter of His Era and There was a Bit MORE Than Hype to the 40-0, 37 KO's Record He Brought to the Fight w/Ali...Let's Not Forget, He was a '68 Gold Medalist.... To Your Point, Ali Clearly Had a HUNCH About Foreman Though, That Was Proven CORRECT, But a BLIND Man Could Even See WHY Sharing a Ring w/Him Had Folks Deeeeeeeeply CONCERNED for Ali's Well Being... REED
REED Thought Calzaghe Said "He's SHIT", as if Asked to Assess Lacy as a Fighter...."He's SHIT"...agREED On It Being a CLEAR Moment of Recognition fOR Calzaghe and the Fight Got Progressively WORSE for Lacy From There... REED
That's fair. I wasn't around at the time to appreciate the hype/aura of Foreman back then. Saw some interviews of Ali saying how bad Foreman was technique wise and doing his usual thing but that was Ali being Ali I guess. I went through all of Foremans available early fights up to the Frazier fight not that long ago and I was surprised at how bad he looked. By contrast, when I went through Listons fights up to the Ali fights, I was surprised at how good he looked.
He definitely said "He can't punch shit". It means he can't hit me rather than a reference to Lacys power. I actually thought Lacy was going to win that fight. It was more a pick out of hope rather than anything as I hated Calzaghe at the time due to his ducking. Said he was afraid of flying so he didn't have to go to the US to get big fights earlier but had no issue flying to Germany and Denmark to fight bums. What an absolutely shit pick though. Lacy turned out to be a mega bum.
In their first fight Morales looked very confident. Pac was such a beast... but El Terrible showed no fear.
Why would Morales, a legit ATG in his prime be afraid of Pac before their first fight?? Because he obliterated MAB and a couple of lower level dudes ?? Junior Jones had beaten MAB even more impressively and Pac looked pretty ordinary outside of round 1 in the JMM fight. The Pac legend was just starting at that time.
