He beat Tito. He actually skunked Tito. He beat Mosley in the second fight. First fight was a draw. Hopkins was like 30 lbs bigger lol. I had the Mayweather fight a draw. He was also about 8 years past his best. He was 53 years old for Pac and severely weight drained.
I always thought he did that to prove he was tough. To prove he was Mexican. Dude liked to slug and didn't really have to.
Lack of a right hand Often flight very stiff and upright Stamina Boxing IQ His changing of trainers and throwing blame suggests a lack of self accountability and I think he felt a lot of pressure. Had he stuck to one trainer and stayed a full-time fighter rather than a celeb who spent a lot of time out the gym he may have corrected one or two of the above.
Yes Chris. It seemed like there was a tug of war between his father who lorded over his career and whatever trainer was the flavor of the month. I agree that his inability to relax led to his stamina issues. His right hand wasn't much of a threat. He had overpowered guys at lightweight. In my view when Ike dropped him at '47 he hurt Oscar pretty bad. It was a wake up call in a sense. He realized he couldn't stand toe to toe with full fledged Welterweights. He did rally and pull that fight out close to his credit. I don't think he beat Tito or had any right to complain about that fight. His performance in the first 7 rounds was exaggerated immensely. Yes he was ahead but he was doing more running than boxing from the opening Bell.
I dont think he ever truely got over the difference between amateur boxing and pro level boxing...for the first 3 rounds he was a complete stud..then if his skills didnt over whelm the guy hed fall apart and start sucking wind ...
I always got the sense that his being so rigid and uptight was the source of his stamina problems. I could be wrong, but it always seemed like he needed to learn to relax more.
I must admit, when he arrived on the scene I did not like him one bit. I have never been one to jump on a bandwagon so I kept my guard up on him as anything special. When he was jr. lightweight champ I wanted to see him fight Jorge Paez, Jesse James Leija, Genero Hernandez and John Molina. And he did, but not until he moved up to lightweight and they were still jr. lights. So that made me even more indifferent towards him. It wasn't until he fought Darryl Tyson and Miguel Gonzalez that I started to come around. He now seemed to be taking on the top-notchers. And of course, we now see he took on everyone after that in an exemplary career. When you take on everybody, its hard to diss one's commitment.
It's hard to develop fully when your winning fights by KO and your getting huge $$$ from the door. He was a great star. As I stated before I don't think that came back to bite him until he reached Welterweight.
Question ETM, how did you score the first 7 rounds of the fight. You say he was ahead but It was exaggerated... So I'm curious how you had it. Was it 4-3, 5-2, 6-1?
Yeah, the Tito performance is overstated. He succeeded in making Tito look bad but he wasn’t exactly dominating IMO. He was running early, sprinting late. I had it even. IMO and I can’t prove it but I’m fairly certain he was on some illegal stuff that got him down to 135 and 140. He was HUGE at the weight and I’m always suspicious of cuts like that. It was all part of the plan to get him multi titles and make him look like a monster.
Mayweather and Paq he was way past his prime .. He should have won the tito fight and one of the Mosley fights, I forget which .. he was a great fighter but a class below a Ray Leonard at 147 ..
