Perhaps he was inviting chances to counter. Most guys Eddie Futch got to spend a fair bit of time with didn't have "poor" fundamentals.
Futch worked with Wayne McCullough who was also reckless and liked to brawl, he was like a poor man`s Duran, when you fight on the inside you need to be able to slip shots the way Duran did, he was a counter/pressure fighter who come forward inviting the shot, then slip and counter.
Duran was a once in a generation fighter and that might be understating it. If that your measuring stick how many in history are going to match up? Futch wasn't going to turn Wayne into stick and move just like he didn't Frazier. You go with the strength. Futch improved guys like Bowe and Wayne a lot. Whether they ended up at absolute technical perfection matters not as who is? Lets have a look at some of Wayne's own comments on Futch with himself - “It was all down to Eddie Futch,” McCullough told Boxing Social via Transatlantic phone call. “He’s the reason why I became champion of the world." “The stuff he taught me was priceless. People used to say to me, ‘Why did you leave Ireland?’ and I’d say, ‘Two words. Eddie Futch’. “Just those two words. And, as they say, the rest was history. I learned from the best coach who ever lived and now I can pass that on to other fighters.” “I couldn’t believe this guy had taken me on,” he adds. “He made me into a pro. He made me sit down better on my punches. He made me hit harder and have a better defence. To start with, I was fighting fighters I was meant to beat but I was learning as well. Eddie took me through that process.” “I went to Japan and nobody gave me a prayer,” McCullough recalls. “Eddie did crucial things in training camp. I was fighting a tall guy with a good jab, so he’d make me practise slipping underneath punches and getting away. “Before the fight, I remember Eddie said to me, ‘Just go out and do what you did in the gym’. He was a tall guy with a good jab. Eddie told me, ‘Jab him to the body, jab him to the head’. “I remember him saying to me one time, ‘Even when you train with me people are gonna whisper in your ear and say you’re doing this or that wrong’. And sure enough it happened. ”One day, I was training in the gym and a guy was trying to convince me to do things differently with Eddie standing on the other side of the gym. He told me that would happen before it happened so I was like, ‘Wow!’ I was taken aback.”
Futch had a lot of good ideas, but I though McCullouch was pretty bad v Naz, I didn`t rate Naz highly at all.
You need to rise above your blinkered view on technical aspects and find a way to appreciate the whole picture. You cannot accept a guy like Roy Jones completely and utterly because he got away with being an unorthodox freak and went against so many rules while still being one of the most effective fighters in history. Here's the thing - when you have that much talent and that much arsenal it barely matters. Different strokes for different folks. Here you are going down the same path with Naz. He broke all the rules and was dreadful with the basics but he was a helluva fighter. He was top 50 in Ring's Magazines Top 100 Punchers of All Time for no small reason. The guy lost one fight in his life and stopped 31 of 37 opponents. His combination of speed, power and reflexes were insane. Being technically correct and "defensively responsible" (a real Johnny Come Lately term that has caught on like wildfire) isn't the be all and end all Markus. Some like Ali, Hamed, Jones and any amount of others get along just fine without it. McCulloch losing to Hamed is no disgrace. Not rating Hamed "highly at all" is flawed. You'd get support tho as he is one of the most hated fighters out there.
Hamed got expodsed by Barrera he could never beat a world clas fighter with tyhat style and struggled with Kelly, Mnny would have slapped him around at feather with his eyes shut.
I don't think a guy that didn't lose for 9 years and 35 fights suddenly got "exposed" as such Mark. Guy had 17 stoppage in a row in title fights across two divisions going into McCullough and was lineal for 3 years at Feather. He beat a huge contingent of top 5 contenders. The guy was a bit of a beast. Sure he had his weaknesses but he had some very daunting strengths as well. Hamed's preparation drama's are also well documented. Having said that Marco fought great and was a heckuva fighter himself regardless. Not many careers hinge on one fight and it's certainly not the case here.
Barrera was better than Hamed and was by far the best fighter he fought, Hamed had all those stoppages because he was so powerful and had quick hands, it was simply case of a world class fighter being able to exploit Hamed`s bad balance after he over committed to his shots, Barrera was on of the fastest counter punchers in featherweight history, Hamed never fought a world class counter puncher before that fight and Marco could match Hamed`s hand speed too, as could Kelly.
Read the back stories to the fight as well. Hamed beat plenty of "world class" fighters. For sure he got away with murder technically, and just as sure the odd guy is going to take advantage of that but they need to bring a lot to the table themselves. There just ain't that many of them. Hamed may not satisfy you aesthetically but he's going to beat others that do, or certainly come a helluva lot closer to it than himself. What Kelly are you talking about.
Good little brawl that. Hamed found a way to axe a guy that was quick, powerful and quite orthodox. He showed excellent tenacity and heart and brutal power. Kelley had never been left like that before. That's the thing. Hamed is flawed, he's there to be hit, he can be caught off balance but you still have to be able to weather what he himself brings to the table. It would take very good fighters across history to beat him.
Almost all top level boxer punchers had a great jab. But everything else is all relative. At which point is an attribute "overrated", at which point is something "great"?! Wlad, Bruno, Joshua, Louis, Lewis...where exactly do you rank Bowe in comparsion, and how big are the differences? I guess some boxers are well known for it's power and sensationell knockouts, so people just forget about their fundamentals or a great jab. Think about Mike Tyson! Execellent jab. But much more as an opening for the attack. In a nutshell i think many good jabs just got overlooked in boxing history, because the fighters become more well known for other attributes. Another Example: Ken Norton! Famous for his cross guard, breaking jaws, his glass chin and great left hook. But his jab was just incredible! I think that defensive boxers / out-boxers are more likely to be associated with a good jab. Simply because they use it more often and the fights last longer. So it will be more visible because the spectators realize that they can keep the distance because of the jab.
