Fighters who found it IMPOSSIBLE to relax in the ring

Jonny Nelson = BUG EYED with terror & Bruno paralysed with fear when walking into the ring for the 2nd tyson fight:-(

 

Amir Khan. All over the shop.

 

Duane Bobick. When his big fights came up, he would have this grimace frozen on his face like he was just waiting for the hammer to fall on him. And of course, it usually did. The guy had some talent, but look at the Norton fight, he just stood there with this stupid look on his face until he got hammered down. Speaking of stupid, I had money on him in that fight

 

:yep

Puts you on edge just watching the *******.

 

His foot positioning is right up there with the very worst I've seen at championship level. And because of that his hands are haphazard as well and he has poor punching form 8 times out of ten.

Eager to throw, comes forward more and more with every shot he throws with his hands going lower, when buzzed runs away atsch

He is chaotic as ****!

 

First name that comes to mind is Razor Ruddock.

He had the tools physically to box and punch with anyone. He never felt comfortable in the ring. He wanted to end things with one big punch and get the hell out of the ring.

Rather than relax and set up those shots with smart boxing he just hoped to get lucky.


In retrospect the Dokes fight might have been the worst thing for his career. He was looking for that Home Run the rest of his career. The top fighters are not going to let you land that.

 

This content is protected

This content is protected

In general I agree with your points, but Mike sure let a reckless Razor land nasty nukes all night, which won't have encouraged him to fight smart.

 

ricardo mayorga, then again he did play around alot, i just always remember him letting people tee off on him, micky ward is another one, bert cooper is up there also. nice thread idea

 

I think Mayorga was extremely relaxed. Awkward, but a natural hardcase.

 

Ruddock landed a few but he missed most of those shots. Had he set up the powerpunches with the jab and maybe used his righthand more you never know what mightve happened. Tyson had certainly regressed himself by that time but thats another story.

 

"Landed a few"... please watch the rematch again, Ruddock landed far more than a mere few.

Most Heavyweights miss with more than half of their powerpunches, but he still landed a lot of brutal bombs to Tyson's head & body.

However, I totally agree that using his ramrod jab "The Razor", & lateral footwork, would've allowed him to perform notably better.

 

Andy Golota

 

Good call.

Once he had to think during his 3 minute round or make an adjustment, watch out. My guess is he was another guy that did far better sparring than he ever did on fight night with pressure.
But I recall when he was sparring in Philly and there were guys they would not put him in the ring with. That kind of thing certainly grabs your attention when a guy is undefeated and been a pro for 5 years.

The bout of his I still can't get over was that Knoetze fight. He tried roughing him up from the opening bell and being physical in there and the guy he was fighting was a former pro rugby player. He fought the worst fight possible and on par with Berbick in that Tyson fight. Duane fought like it was a rugby game and got clipped naturally and that was the end for him. The Tate fight was another bad one.

Man, those heavies can really derail after that first loss and it is such a high wire act for them.

 

It was frustrating being a fan of Ruddock because he had all the tools to box. He was 6-4 about 230 in shape and he also had mobility when he chose to use it.

They brought in Floyd Patterson to try and instill some boxing skills back into Ruddock but he IMO didnt have enough time to really do it. He had two fights under Patterson and they signed to fight Lennox Lewis.

He couldnt resist the temptation to throw that Smash which when it missed left him totally off balance. It even left him off balance when he landed it.