I don't mean within the fight I mean career wise. For example Holyfield was considered shot only to come back and beat Tyson and have more goo fights.
Arturo Gatti. After losing to Angel Manfredy and both fights to Ivan Robinson, he was on a three fight losing streak and heading nowhere fast! He bounced back, changed trainers and training habits; he loss to Oscar, but did go on to have a solid career after the apparent early downfall.
Andrew Golota... Just when it Looked like he was DONE, Golota Took Some Time Off, Returned & STILL Showed an Uncanny KNACK for CHOKING in Big Fights...TWICE LowBlowed his Way Out of the Riddick Bowe Fights, Showed the Toughness of FLACCID Polish Sausage, in Getting BLITZED by Lennox Lewis & Lamon Brewster, had 2 EPIC Meltdowns in the Tyson & Grant Fights, THEN Compounded All of that by LOSING to John Ruiz, Ray Austin AND Tomasz Adamek... Has there Been a More CONSISTENT Fighter in the Last 20 Years???... REED:hammert:
Is it safe to say the 90's George Foreman would be the most prominent example? Cristian Mijares was (somewhat) forgiven for losing the way he did to Vic Darchinyan. But dropping two straight to unheralded Nehomar Cermeno had many believing his career was over. Two years later, he's once again back at/near the top of the 115 lb. division. Bernard Hopkins' lethargic performance and near-quit job in the Roy rematch offered the suggestion that Father Time finally caught up with him. Then came the Pascal fight - and he's now the proud owner of a three-fight HBO contract.
Thomas Hearns looked to be on a serious decline after being stopped by Barkely and getting dropped and struggling to a close win over James Kinchen. When the Leonard-Hearns rematch was signed, Leonard was criticized for waiting until Hearns looked extremely vulnerable before making the fight happen. Hearns suprised everyone (especially Leonard) by dropping Leonard twice and looking like the winner before the fight was scored a draw (Leonard has since admitted he lost the fight) and then going on to upset Virgil Hill for the 175 lb title.
I think the heavyweight division's probably got the most examples of this...Shannon Briggs' title win against Sergei Liakhovich could be considered another example. I don't know if he was "shot", he was fighting such a poor level of opposition it was hard to tell.
How about Vitali? Guy leaves the sport because he couldn't make it to the ring healthy to fight Rahman...coems back four years later, wins the title his first fight back...and puts together five defenses.
Foreman? I think so, yes. There are some astonishing challenges to that, though. Willie Pep (way under-rated how severely he was diminished post-crash) & Freddie Steele (why is this comeback never mentioned!?) are two elite-echelon examples.
Holyfield: Bowe 3 and Tyson 1 Barrera (although I never bought into that, personally) between Pacquiao 1 and Morales 3
Oleg Maskaev, and this ends the discussion. That guy was ruined- finished- stopped by Johnson, T-Rex Sanders and Goofi Whittaker, and yet kept plugging away and took the WBC Hvy Title with a KO of the man Vitali was supposedly "afraid" of.
You could almost include the first Morales fight for Barrera. I don't know about "shot", I think it's too strong, but "finished as a top tier fighter" might be more appropriate for how some viewed Barrera going in to that fight. Depending on your definition of "success", could you include the Valuev fight for Holyfield? There's a few examples I can think of where older fighters exceeded expectations in losses against younger opponents. Pernell Whitaker, after the two Rivera fights and Hurtao, was written off by some befor the DLH fight, but had some people thinking he beat him afterwards.
