Which Fighter Broke Your Heart When They Declined \ Lost?

Muhammad Ali v Larry Holmes. My saddest ever sporting moment.

Other mentions -

Sugar Ray Leonard coming back for that disastrous Hector Camacho fight.
John Conteh - second Matthew Saad Muhammad bout.


Will post more later.

 

Hi Guys.
I wouldn't go as far as to say " it broke my heart " or even close, but the front page of BN week ending 25th May 1974 had the headlines " Valdez wrecks the robot " and showed Bennie on his way to the canvas courtesy of a wicked combo from the multi skilled, somewhat underrated Colombian, by that time Briscoe had a formidable reputation as a iron chinned, body punching, tank of a fighter, and I had followed his career with a passion, lest we forget, there was no YT at that time, so you had only the fight reports to asses or imagine the fighters, I thought he was unbeatable at this stage of his fighting, Valdez proved me wrong.
Fond memories, stay safe guys.

 

Lloyd Honeyghan-Adrian Dobson. Saw it live on Benn-McClelland undercard.

Honeyghan had been finished for a long time, should have retired after the Breland debacle.

Lloyd was nearly blasted out in the 1st round but actually came back well in the 2nd, looked pretty good but in the 3rd got caught again and was being hammered badly when the referee mercifully stopped it.

Sad sight especially when you remember they way he travelled to Italy to destroy the undefeated European and future two time light-middleweight champion Gianfranco Rosi.

His unforgettable demolition job of the brilliant Don Curry and massacre of Johnny Bumphus and incredible 3 round thrasing of Jorge Vaca to win back his welter crown. Great days.

 

Kostya - Hatton

Julio - Randall

Chacon - Arguello

 

Yeah, when Kostya lost to Hatton I was miserable for a month.

 

Julio Cesar Chavez!

 

Duran when he quit.

 

Another bad one seldom mentioned was the Donald Curry--Linton affair. They were trying to get Curry back into contention and this come out of retirement bout was a disaster. Curry had nothing. Maybe 1/3 the fighter he used to be.

Another bad one was Arguello losing to Pink Cat Walker. Alexis had like zero reflexes and was made to look silly by a guy gliding around the ring in pink trunks. Horrible way to leave the sport after such a magnificent career. At best, Walker was an ESPN caliber fighter and here he was with an easy night's work.

 

Holmes-Ali; saw it "live" on closed-circuit back in the day. There was a moderate consensus that Ali had a chance - not much of a chance, but something - and I hoped it would at least be competitive. That faded when he took off his robe, and looked like a 38 year old guy who kind of worked out once in a while; he just didn't look HARD. Then the first round, he did his usual hijinks that marked the latter part of his career, then he ... did nothing. And kept getting hit. I hoped he was just playing possum and would turn it on later, but later never came. The body punch that caused him to cringe and scream in the ninth was awful - Sylvester Stallone said it was "like watching an autopsy on a man who was still alive". When Dundee waved off the referee before the tenth, the last shot we saw on the screen was Ali slumped on his stool. The arena was utterly silent, about 1,000 people rendered mute. For an absolute legend to go out like that, without even throwing a decent punch, was heartbreaking.

 

Yes Honeyghan losing to Starling then Breland was a tough one.

 

I was gutted when Edgar “Mad Dog” Ross was stopped by Tony Chiaverini.

I knew people who knew Edgar and even though I’d never seen him fight kind of adopted him as my favorite in that part of my youth. Read the result and felt like a rug had been pulled out from under me for a while.

Ironically, I got to talk to Tony many, many years later and he was a great guy. He had mad (pun intended) respect for Edgar and basically said he was a warrior and it was one of the biggest nights of his life to beat Ross at that time.

 

I was absolutely distraught when Tito lost to Hopkins and with the Pacquaio-Marquez II decision.