Fighters who could have had a better career if they boxed smarter or let their hands go more often

Any fighters you can think of that had the capabilities or talents to be even better career wise if they had either boxed more intelligently / safer or threw more punches? You have fighters that were very gifted offensively but had the tendency to let their hands go too much and brawl unnecessarily with reckless abandon while neglecting defense when they could have showed more constraint and boxed at a safer distance. And then you have fighters who were notorious for not letting their hands go enough even when they had the offensive tools to do so, whether it being overly patient or overly defensive minded, but just didn't fight to their full capacity consistently.

 

Antonio Tarver had really good power and was an excellent boxer.

But he spent a lot of time not throwing punches.

 

Jeffries. It seems like a lot of his fights were more competitive than they should've been due to how cautious he was.

 

If Wlad had gone bombs away when he'd had Joshua stunned he'd have had a very good win on the ledger. Same for in the Fury fight.

 

He was old and might've gassed out, especially against Joshua.

 

He might also have won by knockout

 

Broner should've thrown punches.

Hamed possibly could've changed the outcome against Barrera if he'd thrown like ten more punches per round.

 

I think he held back against Joshua because he knew his gas tank wasn't there.

Against Fury, he just seemed like an aging fighter who couldn't pull the trigger.

 

Let their hands go more:

Laporte
EMM
Medel
Kevin Finnegan
Arbachakov
Rodrigo Valdez (a round snoozer)
Hugo Corro
Mosley post-Forrest
Colin Jones
Gerry Penalosa
Ronnie Harris
Briscoe in non-title fights
Henry Wharton
Dwight Hawkins
Buster Drayton
Toney
Andre Dirrell
Hector Thompson
Benton (though he likely had cuffs on)
Pat Barrett (more a lack of development perhaps)
Simon Brown

 

I spent his entire career yelling at David Tua, "Would you let your hands go!"

 

Joe Bugner also fits into that category like Juan Laporte.

 

Capable of using very good skills to box more rather than brawl:

Minter
Benn at 160
Shozo Saijo
Chacon
Saad
Boza
Wilfredo Gomez
Yaqui Lopez
Morales
Walter MacGowan
Mark Kaylor
Tatsuyoshi
Sugar Ramos
Mando Ramos
Bomber Graham (more fighting with discipline instead of disrespectfully twatting about)

 

Excellent list. Ill add Jimmy Young and to a smaller extent Mike Weaver. Both needed to let there hands go more

 

Jose Luis Lopez and Marlon Starling are the first fighters to come to mind with fighters that were very talented but just didn't throw more punches than they should have.

 

Audley Harrison looked scared to throw a punch in many fights