Seeing David Price's career repeatedly nose-dive into the dirt has been really sad, at least it has been for me. David always seemed humble, and like he was truly invested in making his career work. To make matters worse, he has a number of devastating kayo losses to known steroid cheats. I don't know how heavily that weighs on David's mind, but it would make me seriously bitter. David's career has an extremely level of concern for me. He, like Augie Sanchez back in the day, seems to have a weird tendancy to get knocked out in catastrophic fashion. A couple of those defeats were bone-chilling, and the final onslaught by Thompson in the rematch was tough to watch as well. Hopefully we don't see this turn into a situation like Meldrick Taylor or Terry Norris in the long run.
Kelly Pavlik. If anyone wants to know what it would've been like if Gerry Cooney had beaten Larry Holmes...see Kelly Pavlik
Don't know if anybody remembers this guy, but Alan Moody of Chicago in the 50s was hyped to the high heavens until Del Flanagan of all people (don't mean to denigrate Del's skills but he was not known for KO power) destroyed him.
The fact that Kova clearly beat Ward has to be a feather in his soggy cap. Now, to call him an ATG would be delusional.
Yes, Anthony missed the bus... I remember the night Lawless was close to his tears when his two top prospects were both upset by American 'bums'. Frank Bomber Bruno going down to one Bonecrusher Smith and Mark Kaylor losing to a Buster Drayton... That is the thing, hindsight often shows these busted prospects were not so bad overall, and the people who beat them were often underrated at the time. It is part of the hype of boxing and is fun and I think we all get involved and the fighters suffer because of this. I remember on one site in the early 2000s suggesting Mohammad Abdullaev was the second coming of 70s Duran...
I really thought Abdullaev was going to be something myself. He had the look for awhile. But you never know how a guy is going to react to a defeat. So many of them just do not recover. and it changes everything.
I remember Kid Diamond being undefeated, hyped and hugely favoured leading into his fight with Nate Campbell but being badly exposed and given a drubbing by Nate. He went on to win a NABF title afterwards but his time on the world stage was pretty much over once Campbell finished with him.
I remember thinking Clint Jackson was a shoo-in for a world title. Just saw a recently posted fight of his where he got his ears boxed off by Cowboy Don Shiver back in the day. So, no.
In all due honesty, Clint probably stayed in the amateurs too long. Meanwhile, his nemesis, Roger Leonard, may have been a world champ under the right circumstances.
