Or early ish. Who are some boxers who retired with something still left in the tank? Here are a few Carlos Palomino former welterweight champ retired at 30 after a comprehensive loss to Roberto Duran, Carlos showed in his comeback in his late 40s he could have carried on at the time and been relevant. Henry Wharton, multiple world title challenger Wharton also retired at 30 after winning his last two fights against respectable opposition, I don’t believe there was any injury involved in his retirement. George Foreman, well, he did come back but retired for the first time at age 28 after seeing god , preached the name of the lord for ten years and came back and won the heavyweight championship. What could he have done if he hadn’t retired that first time around or just taken a year or two off? Who are some other boxers who retired in or around their prime ?
Ernesto Marcel retiring at age 25 right after making his fourth successful world title defense when he beat Alexis Arguello. Looked like he could have still went on for another 3 years or so but chose to leave the sport early due to his mother's wishes.
Vicente Saldivar retired at 24 when he was undisputed Featherweight champion. Came back less than 2 years later, won the title again, lost it again and retired again at 30.
The guy Saldivar (narrowly) best to regain the title is another one. Johnny Famechon retired after dropping his title to Saldivar at the age of 26 and never came back.
Donny Lalonde retired earlier than might be expected because he claimed he’d sorted out internally that he had been taking out aggressions that stemmed from being an abused child. Once he pieced that together he decided he could never punch another human being again, and quit then and there.
Muhammad Ali still had some gas in the tank. His performance against Berbick showed as much. He could have been a force in the multi-belt 80's. It's a shame we didn't see some of those match-ups.
These are all Joe Louis opponents. This post in intended to be read with that song from "the Incredibles" playing in your head. Some of these guys came back like Buster Douglas and Moorer but weren't the same. 24)King Levinsky 25)Al Ettore 28)Bob Pastor 26)Tommy Farr 27)Natahn Mann(gone 3.5 years) 24)John Henry Lewis 26)Paycheck 30)Al McCoy 27)Red Burman 30)Gus Dorazio 30)Tony Musto 26)Buddy Baer 28)Abe Simon 26)Tami Mauriello 30)Cesar Brion Denver Ed Martin is the youngest fighter I can think of to be "over the hill" but he continued fighting untl 40.
Hi Stevie. Have met and spoke to Stracey on numerous occasions, and found him to be a nice bloke, friendly, funny, modest, and self effacing, and always had time to chat about his career and fights, fighters he admired and left an impression were, Ricky Porter, who he said taught him plenty on his way up, a tricky, crafty, well schooled old pro, is how he described him, the strongest by far was Menetrey, who gave him some trepidation going into the fight, he said he trained very hard for this encounter, and knew he had to be in tip top shape, Charles had warned him of how hard and strong Roger would be , regarding the Napoles fight, he listened to Duff, who was adamant the old champ was ready for the taking, say what you like about Duff, and plenty did, mostly negative, but he was unparalleled in sensing when a champ was up for the taking, as was the case, he was taken aback by the workrate of Lewis, and said he was one of the fittest he had ever faced, he put Palomino defeat down to 3 fights in around 6 months, and what with his or more pointedly Lawless style of non stop pressure fighting, had caught up with him, and he felt it burned him out, so yea an interesting man, who I liked a lot. stay safe buddy, chat soon. Mike.
Dave Tiberi was 26 when he retired. Odd decision after getting robbed in the Toney fight when there was a lot of money still to be made. Ji won kim was 27 when he retired unbeaten and ibf jr feather champion Francisco Bojado, the heavily hyped boxer in the 2000s, retired at 24, winning no major titles. Frankie Gomez retired also at 24 and 21-0. 13 KOs