Why did jimmy young had a lot of losses on his record?

I watched couple of fights and highlights of jimmy young. He had great wins over foreman and lyle. But at the same time had a lot of losses against subpar opponents. Can somebody explain why? I know records don't tell the full story however im curious what do older fans think. I still consider him to be a very tricky defensive counterpuncher. Good fighter with very slick interesting style .

 

I don't think he was ever prepared to," go that extra mile,"imo he did not have a champions mentality .

 

He lost 4 of his first 11 fights. He was matched pretty hard during this period. From 1974 to the Ken Norton loss at the end of 77 he was excellent. After that things went downhill and his form fell off. He had the odd ok'ish win. While past his best he fought a bunch of prospects as he was seen as a good stepping stone.

 

He made a lot of improvements over the years and then started declining hard late 70s

 

He was put in the deep end early in his career like for example he fought Shavers with only 10 professional fights who in comparison had 40+ fights.

Young had his best spell of form between 1974-1977 with notable performances vs Shavers 2, Lyle x2, Foreman, Ali, Norton, when he was legitimately a top 5 Heavyweight during this period.

But for whatever reason after losing 2 very close decisions to the awkward Ocasio. Young become a journeyman after that for upcoming prospects hence his record got alot more messy in the latter part of his career.

 

My guess: he suffered some sort of brain damage and totally lost it late in his career.

 

Ironically, for some of these, he was actually too young, and for some he was too old.

 

My trainer got to know Jimmy really well, since my trainer also did a lot of work as a sparring partner back in the late 60’s to mid 70’s and considered Jimmy a genius when it came to boxing. But, no matter how talented without money and the right connections you don’t go far as a fighter.

According to him Jimmy originally was managed by a father and son, who did their best for Jimmy, but just didn’t have the connections and money to get Jimmy’s career moving where it should, which is why Jimmy was often thrown into fights at the last minute with little to no preparation and he had to work full time for a living.

Early on the only training Jimmy often had was his work as a sparring partner, but that isn’t always a reliable way to stay in shape and active, since camps can get cut short or you can get fired early in the camp, which happened to Jimmy a lot.

Eventually the father and son sold a huge piece of Jimmy’s contract and one of the buyers knew Blinky Palermo and got him involved and all of the sudden promoters were somewhat interested in Jimmy. Palermo then got Don King involved, which eventually resulted in Jimmy signing with Don King and Jimmy started getting opportunities and was also able to train and prepare properly.

 

Young’s career presents as a kind of sampling of Walcott’s spotty career with perhaps some of the same whys and wherefores in play??

Certainly fed to the sharks early - and in the case of one opponent - Shavers - he wasn’t the only lamb brought to the slaughter in the fattening up of Earnie’s earlier career KO victories.

When he rematched Shavers about a year later, write ups suggest he won but that Earnie was afforded home town bias with the draw verdict.

He was a sparring partner for Joe Frazier concurrent with his early pro career.

He fought near and around 200 lbs during his early career - not so big but his later, best career performance saw him fighting between around 210 lbs to 215 lbs.

Not having a great punch or at least rarely punching with any measure of bad intentions would make for a tough career despite the pure boxing skills possessed otherwise.

On occasion, though rare, Young could whip out a punch with some steam. He appeared to hurt Ali with a right hand and Ali confirmed that he certainly felt the punch in question.

Even though not uniformly motivated during his career, apparently, it seems that when Young got serious, adding some significant wins to his resume, the prospect of even bigger wins and even bigger $$$ fueled him to stay on track if only for the relative short term.

He thought he beat both Ali and Norton and those losses likely spelled to him that his dreams of any further, positive progress were busted.

He showed some real moxie hanging with Cooney for as long as he did despite an horrendous eye cut that effectively blinded him. Certainly, Gerry put out Young’s contemporaries, Lyle and Norton, in far more emphatic fashion.

I would also add that Young was the unfortunate victim of what was arguably Gerry’s most well rounded and technically sound performances.

 

FTFY

 

Excellent info. Thanks.

Jimmy’s career is a classic example of pure stats not telling half the story of what a fighter actually was, at his best and under the most ideal conditions in terms of due financial support and properly accommodated preparations/training.

 

Damn. I think I'm past my own prime now.

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Very nice.

However and whenever it went down, you can’t argue that Jimmy wasn’t forever young.

 

All is not lost. All you need to do now is to compensate with some style adjustments and redistribution of accents toward your current strengths - but, alas, increasing absorption of punishment is ultimately always par for the course when you have moved beyond your absolute peak days. Hang tough my friend.

 

There was a time tho, when he was the alpha of his ville.