Most Underrated Brit?

Tbf lazcano was not a nobody. He was more effective at the lower weight but dont think he could ever be considered a nobody. Gave castillo a good fight...two fights after castillo gave mayweather trouble.

Witter just wasn,t an attractive fight for anyone trying to sell themselves. Ricky needed an opponent he could look good against to get back out to america to make the big money. Lazcano was much more attractive in that he was actually a decent name...but one who,s skills we,re more suited for hatton to look good agsinst. Its basically a sensible business decision. No more than that. Everything in their careers pointed to hatton beating witter....what hatton didnt need was fighting someone tricky who would make a boring fight...and make him not look as good as he was. Witter was in the who needs him club mostly because he spoiled against higher level opponents. Ricky fought tricky guys like mcghee. But it was early days when he was building his name. After he,d built it...he didnt really need to take that risk. Why would you...when theres much more attractive names out there that wouldn,t spoil.

Never was a case of thinking witter would beat him...just a case of not wanting to derail the fanbase he,d built around being in entertaining fights.

 

Cheers bud. Appreciated.

Cheers bud. Appreciated

 

Haye in his pomp being thrown into the CW mix of the last 3 years would've been fantastic.

I do agree with the comments on this post that Haye does get a hard time on here but when he was at his peak he did have a superb blend of power and speed. Him, Uysk, Breidis, Gassiev etc would've made for some exciting fights.

 

It would have been great.

Loads of different styles.

 

For me Haye won every round. Seriously. Valuev was hitting air all night and wasn't really doing anything of effect at all.

I think Jim Watt on Sky gave a card of something like 116-115 or something for Valuev because Valuev was the 'home' fighter and Haye didn't really nail him with that much bar the last round. But the reality is that if you hit your opponent ten times and he hits you twice then it doesn't really matter if swung and missed a lot more, you should win that round.

 

By the time Hatton fought Lazcano he was the most famous active boxer in the country by a mile. Ricky could have fought Witter's gran never mind Witter and the fight would have sold a fortune.

Let's face it, for all the entertainment value that you got for the Tszyu fight it's not like Hatton v Urango or Mayweather were thrillers. I personally think you're overstating the need for Ricky to be in exciting fights to get big fights at that stage of his career. I mean, he landed the Pacquaio fight after he beat Malignaggi and that was a pretty tedious affair.

I just don't buy the business case that Ricky beating a guy like Lazcano for the sum total of nothing in a fairly dull fight anyway was more important or bigger than beating Witter who was arguably at the time seen as the 140 number 2.

 

I’ve not seen it for years.

I’d have to go back and take another look. But from memory, he was too cautious.

 

George Groves before the first Froch fight. A lot of people underrated him.

 

Duke McKenzie. Pure class and three weight champion.
Mason.Hard hitting rock solid chops fast hands.ran into Lewis which pretty well ended his career .

 

Dennis Andries
Colin Jones
Evan Armstrong
Dave Charnley

 

I think your thinking as a fan more than what these guys become....basically a business. After watching witter against zab judah....we knew he was prepared to completely spoil a fight. Ricky needed a comeback opponent he could look good against. Lazcano was a good name that suited hattons style. Hatton got stick for not looking good in that fight but think it was overstated. He battered lazcano mostly.

Its pretty clear to see why he avoided witter...it wasn,t because he,d lose....although tbf theres always a chance... more because witter didnt really do himself any favours with his style. The three times he did really step up he lost to alexander, judah and bradley. I cant remember the alexander and bradley fights...but do remember the judah one. Witter spoiled from the start....completely ruined the fight with it and made judah look not great. More because of his spoiling than anything else.

Again...witter was in the who needs him club. To his credit he almost forced the fight at one point....but he didnt really ever get that one big win that would have got him it. Reckon most people can accept or should accept hattons explanation because it pretty much makes perfect sense. Hatton fought some tricky guys...he also fought guys much better than witter and looking at their career projections they did just miss each other. Never really a great time to fight witter for hatton bearing in mind he was creating waves with his own style of fighting. Guys like that deserve to be picking and choosing imo. Its not easy to fight a front foot all fighting style like hatton did. Think if you fight on the backfoot and your nog entertaining you then have to force the fight with great wins...witter never really had them. He had some decent/good wins just not enough to really force the fight.

 

Not sure if he's been mentioned, but Joe Bugner is underrated in the UK, particularly in the context of how someone like Henry Cooper is viewed. Cooper is still seen as some kind of British great while Bugner is reviled as some kind of joke figure, and I can't see why.

Bugner at least got in the ring with the likes of Frazier, Lyle, Shavers etc., which Cooper and Jim Wicks would never have even countenanced. Bugner was treated very badly by the media luvies who fawned over Cooper for years and bought into Harry Carpenter's garbage about the fight between them being some kind of highway job, when in reality it wasn't. Yeah, I thought Cooper did enough, but it was a close one and I wouldn't argue too strenuously against anyone who scored it for Bugner. Regardless of that, Bugner wasn't to blame for the verdict and should have been commended for giving an experienced veteran like Cooper such a stern argument, seeing as he was only a 21-year-old kid at the time himself.

Instead, a narrative was crafted that he was the bad guy for 'robbing' a UK sporting icon, and the press never missed an opportunity to exploit that angle. Bugner's achievements, at the very least, are comparable to those of Cooper yet he gets nothing like the kudos 'Our 'Enry' still receives even now, years after his passing.

 

Well written, agree with all you say, Cooper was not the gentleman he would have you believe, in fact he was a somewhat dirty fighter, always ready to hit while clinching, or just after the ref said break, not quite the saint history has painted him to be.

 

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