Vassily Jirov after James Toney. He was an Olympic Gold medalist that was beating eveyone at Cruiserweight. After that fight he had back to back losses to Mesi and Moorer and had a draw with Oriln Norris in a fight that he probably should have lost.
On one hand, most fighters would never be the same after that type of knockout. On the other hand, Manny won his next three fights against upper level competition. So idk about that one.
I think Tito ruined Vargas. I never rated Jeff Lacy, but he went from a good fighter to a bad one after Calzaghe. Jones after Target II was about the most staggering because he went from almost invincible looking to a punching bag and that was after a one punch KO and not a thorough beating.
Pacquiao subsequently defeated a younger, undefeated champ (Keith Thurman) AND Timothy Bradley AND Broner. I don't want to hear about the Horn ripoff.
Hatton was never the same after Mayweather knocked him out (when Hatton was undefeated). That's the main reason Manny done a quicker job on Hatton than Mayweather tbh.
Meldrick Taylor and Fernando Vargas after their first pro losses. I’ve always found some similarities to Chavez-Taylor 1 and Trinidad-Vargas. Both had a undefeated, Latino, heavy-handed, long-time champion (massive stars in their homelands) unifying against a young undefeated champ who was a highly touted amateur. Taylor had Lou Duva in his corner, Vargas earlier had Duva but I forgot why they split. Both were classic fights that ended in 12th round stoppages for the more experienced and powerful champion. Both Taylor and Vargas took a lot of punishment and it took something out of them. I thought the final KD was unnecessary, Vargas was done after the 2nd KD of the 12th and didn’t look like he knew where he was. Taylor had more success after this than Vargas (wins over Aaron Davis and Glenwood Brown), but the punishment was adding up. He took a brutal beating against Chavez, and I always pictured Taylor as someone who took a lot of hits in Philly gym wars. The decline from March 1991 to October 1992 was steep. Nando looked bad against Wilfredo Rivera, getting dropped and hurt early on, hurt by body shots later on, before winning. He looked better against Flores but still not too impressive. Looking back, his performances in losing efforts against Oscar and Mosley (first fight) were pretty good. He also had a serious back injury I believe that limited his movement.
The loss to Bernard Hopkins seemed to take something out of Felix Trinidad mentally. I got the impression that it took some of the fire out of Tito, and he struggled with the motivation and desire after it. He fought once more a few months later, and then retired, saying he didn’t want to fight anymore unless it they come come to an agreement on a Hopkins rematch. He came back two and a half years later, beat the crap out of Ricardo Mayorga, then got dominated by Winky and retired again. Then he came back to fight Roy Jones almost three years later.
Alfonso Zamora after his showdown with Zarate. Zamora was the WBA Bantam champion, 23 years old, 29-0 29 KOs. After losing to fellow KO artist Zarate he went 4-4 and retired a few years later.
Hamed wasn’t the same after Barrera clowned him and took his soul. He had one uninspired fight and retired to eat for England. It was wonderful.
It wasn't long after Marciano's first defeat that he converted to a MUCH more professional style. This really helped him out.
