The first thing that came to my mind, and surprising that I didn't see anyone else jump on, is Moore vs Durelle. Talk about a total ass beating that Moore turned around...
:roll: Yeah, you bet. There is nothing impressive in the least about having stood up to that many consecutive more or less unobstructed heavy blows from an iron fisted super heavyweight...and then rallying back to win the fight (**** the event). Only a total Leotard would praise the Lion for such ho-hum banality.. :blabla
Btw folks, the contributions are appreciated (at least the serious ones) but given that our frames of reference don't necessarily all perfectly overlap maybe a brief descriptive of what transpired to go with the names? You needn't expound at the same length as mine. :yep. Just a sketch of the action...at a minimum cite the round or rounds you feel the survivor/victor played their finest possum. :good
McKinney-Jones, and McKinney-Ncita. In both fights McKinney was dropped and hurt, and looked for all the world as though he was on the way to suffering a clear and comprehensive loss of some sort (more than likely inside the scheduled distance). In both fights, he found a way to land payoff right hands that earned him improbable victories.
If it wasn't for that mendeling Mills Lane Oliver McCall would have pulled off the greatest possum play against Lennox Lewis.
Nobody nominating Julian Jackson vs. Bomber Graham? Jackson can't even see, so he backs into a corner where he knows the guy has to be in front of him and Graham is out cold long before he ever hits the canvas. He got sandbagged into being knocked out. I also like Larry Holmes against Weaver -- not that he's totally out of it or hanging on, but he's running out of gas against a guy he underestimated in a very, very tough fight. Then he sets a trap for that uppercut and wham, turns it around.
:twisted: It's not my fault I thought you meant something else by the title. Look at my post count, you think I read the OP anymore? There's no challenge in that. I guess what the thread is about and make a quick, factually correct statement. In this case, my statement can't be disproved against the thread title, so there you go. It was both serious and accurate. :bart
"Sugar Ray do it! Camacho do it! Why they stop me from doing it!...Those tears, that was me getting ready to knock this mother ****er out!":rofl This was my favorite boxing quote of all time
A lot of people here are getting the idea of playing possum confused with someone genuinely getting their ass kicked and coming from behind to turn a fight around. Some of the fights mentioned were simply hail mary punches or lucky punches with no playing possum involved. In the case of Jake LaMotta he was well known for playing possum by taking punishment and pretending he was hurt and wobbly in order to get a guy to leave himself open and then rush in for the attack. One of my friends had seen him do this from ringside when he fought Anton Raadick in Chicago. It drove the audience wild.
This was gonna be mine, surprised it took so long the be said. He was knocked THROUGH THE ROPES - amazing comeback. One of my favourite fights too, only sullied by the sad state of McClellan nowadays :-(
I think that's true to an extent. The original inspiration for the thread was IMO somewhere between the two. Lennox definitely accepted that he was losing the 2nd once he got hurt, and adopted more discretionary tactics.