Which Boxers surprised you?

Same with both.

 

When Sean O'Grady won the lightweight title I expected this young guy would be great for the division for years to come...he sorta just slipped away.....

 

Yeah after the Brubaker fight I did back Tim to beat Jeff Horn I just didn't think he would do it so easily and completely dominate him.

 

Not many will agree, but I always rated Hatton higher than Calzaghe because he took more risks. The reason IMO that no-one cared about Joe up until Hatton lost is that he was generally fighting no marks, and had a reputation for doing so, padding his WBO record. I genuinely believe Joe was good, but has become overrated, IMO. His record is very weak aside from Kessler. At least Hatton took the risk of testing himself against the best of his era while they were still at their dangerous best - and he beat one of them (Tszyu)! Calzaghe waited until both Jones and Hopkins had been knocked off their perches first.

 

Still have to take into account that it was BHop that priced himself out of a Zags matchup back in 2003... that fight was all ready and Bernard doubled his money demands

 

Ryan Garcia. I thought he was a complete hypejob. He obviously has physical gifts; remarkable handspeed and pretty good power. But I've always been entirely unimpressed with his boxing skills, and I still largely am. He has pretty subpar fight IQ as well. However, he still improved enough to become a champion and beat Devin Haney (steroids use aside). He's far from a great fighter, but he is legitimately in the upper echelon of his division.

 

He was all of that, lol. And he opened up the division not by beating Klitschko, but ducking the rematch and then popping for PEDs and being stripped/vacating the titles.

 

Kovalev. I didn't expect him to unify and arguably beat Ward in their first fight

 

if he’s in there having to fight sensory overload as well as the other man, he’s one bad MF for being able to manage it well enough to accomplish what he has.

 

Fury is no clutz. Awkward and herky jerky sure. But he’s slick, has always been.

 

Ricky Burns, always comes to mind as somebody that I never really thought was that good. However he won titles and beat good opponents, seemed to lift his game against good opposition.

 

He's a very good boxer. Maybe an ATG when it's all said and done.