Fighters Who Feasted On Previous Generation Opponents

Not necessarily bad fighters, but ones who "cleaned up" fighters from the previous generation that were hanging around. Potentially making their resume look better strictly at a glance from a casual fan.

I think Ricky Hatton is one of the best recent examples of this.

Burst onto the British scene with a win over a 36 year old Tony Pep, whos career began in the early 80's.

Immediately followed by a win over a 38 year old Freddie Pendleton. This was Pendletons final career fight.

Fought a 40 year old Vince Phillips.

36 year old Ray Oliveira. This was Oliveira second to last career fight.

35 year old Kosta Tszyu, in his final career fight.

33 year old Castillo, who was absolutely ancient in boxing years.

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Nothing against Hatton, I feel his stock has leveled out to where it should be since his "retirement", but his record was a bit flattering at first glance.

So, who else?

 

Joe Calzaghe. Feasting on the remnants of Hopkins and Jones.

 

Louis, Ali and Lewis, though Ali missed out on fighting Ingemar Johanssen (partly because Ali embarassed him when they sparred and Johanssen was retired by Brian London) and Lewis missed out on fighting Riddick Bowe as a pro.

In the case of Ali and Louis, they had largely cleaned up by the time they had been champ for a year or two. For political reasons, Lewis's cleaning up exercise spanned from fighting Mike Weaver in 1991 (who had had much of his career TWO generations before) to finally getting to fight Mike Tyson in 2002.

 

All up and coming, emerging world class fighters do that. It's the only way for the rising prospect to gain credibility. The real question is, does the prospect move on to fight the best of his current generation?

 

Chad Dawson certainly came along at the right time for that. Nothing to slam him, because they were top names of the time but not only that, he fought most of them twice. Three old guys, two fights a piece, with the oldest being boxing's oldest champion ever. Hopkins, Johnson and Tarver. That's hard to beat. Marciano is a good shout too, I think.

 

Marciano

 

And Eubanks , but still he isn't 1 of d best examples 2 it .

 

This .
This is d classic forum , how come it took so long 2 mention d most classic example .
Louis , Cream*2 , Charles*2 & Wright .
Rocco was d textbook picture of a scavenger .
Tyson fought older men almost till d end of his career . Savaresse , Holyfield*2 , Lewis , Ruddock*2 , Bruno*2 , Norris were older . Thomas , Spinks , Holmes , Berbick were d previous generation .

 

Michael Spinks for two thirds of his biggest names, though he fought nearly everyone from his own emergent turn pro post 76\ prime in the early-mid 80s crop as well.

 

By no means exclusively so, but DLH had a penchant for feeding off the previous generation: Chavez x 2, Whitaker, Camacho, Paez.

 

Roy Jones Junior :
Mike McCallum
Vinny Pazienza
Jorge Vaca
Virgil Hill
Tony Thornton
Thulani Malinga

Gerry Cooney :
George Foreman (who fed on him though)
Larry Holmes (also fed on Cooney)
Ron Lyle
Ken Norton
Jimmy Young

 

Hatton is a great shout! ;-)

 

A Hopkins who had just beaten Wright, Tarver and would go on to defeat Pavlik and Pascal.

 

Marciano feasted on previous generation AND current generation.

 

Terry Norris.