This is one of the things that makes boxing so fascinating. Not only the physical skills, but the way fighters live their lives and overcome various mental obstacles. Like how trauma and environment as kids affected their adult lives. And just having the discipline of a Bernard Hopkins. That can’t be easy, avoiding life’s many temptations. Especially those that come with success.
Toney and Duran first came to mind. Ray Arcel once said that had Duran trained with the dedication of Barney Ross he'd have never lost.
A bit like the thread about which boxers had interesting lives outside the ring, again this is a no-brainer. It's a physical exercise, requiring stamina, strength and discipline. Having to quickly lose weight, not getting rest, booze, drugs and poor diet and the like are clearly going to be detrimental. Not trying to write your threads for you @cross_trainer but perhaps a more interesting thread, albeit one that might get fewer responses and subsequently die on its arse, would be which fighters benefitted from an unhealthy, chaotic lifestyle. As I say, it would probably fizzle out quickly with few responses and get drowned in the sea of threads but it might be worth you having a go at creating an interesting thread. Is that opinion valid or do I need to have had one boxing match to give it gravitas?
The real question is whether an argument could be made to rate it as the greatest opinion of all time.
I think Galento would fit your latter requirements, as would Butterbean. Neither man's eating habits improved their in-ring performances, but both men attracted attention because of their physiques.
But I would want to know first whether those posting an opinion had ever had at least one opinion before, for cross-referencing purposes.
It's interesting how many people say "Toney". I guess my question would be, how many fights did he lose through indiscipline? More that that, he would have been able to make 168lb for the contracted Jones rematch, which he would have been thrashed in again - what might that have done to him? Finally, he probably wouldn't have ballooned to 190 plus where he made some of his legacy against the likes of Jirov and the losing efforts with Peter. Discipline changes his whole career, but maybe not for the better. How to be sure?
You make a good point there. Or at least a good enough point to count as a prior opinion for cross-referencing purposes.
Very good. I particularly like the way you have risen above the bait I put out with my mean-spirited dig at how crap your threads are - as in your choice of topic for discussion rather than your wardrobe - and you have been the bigger man and not been mean-spirited back. At least, I don't think you have but I couldn't quite understand your last post. Bit above me. Anyway, HNYYC. Work that out if you're so bloody clever.
Tony Galento. He'd have been a Middleweight in the era of Graziano and Zale. He would have been absolutely murder.
Ha! No worries. For my part, I didn't know whether you were being mean-spirited or just constructively critical, so no harm done. Unless and until Boxing Forum 24 pays me a tidy salary to post, I'm afraid I'll just have to continue producing mediocre threads that meet whatever inscrutable criteria I might have at the moment of posting.