Worst performance by a British fighter in a big fight?

Cleverley vs Kovalev. Including Nathan's cringe-inducing ring walk and having to get escorted back to his corner by the referee at the end of the round.

Darren Barker vs Felix Sturm - a proper cash-out style pumping.

David Price vs Tony 'Grandpa' Thompson x 2 - rubber jawed chicken dancing.

 

Good shout on all three.

 

Joshua vs Ruiz.

 

Yeah, there's a distinction between a mismatch or someone getting caught by a bomb, and the fighter "performing" poorly.

Pat Cowdell barely landed a telling blow on Azumah Nelson, and got flattened by one punch. It wasn't necessarily a poor performance though; he just got caught cold by one of the division's ATG punchers.

Johnny Nelson against James Warring was a poor performance. He froze on the night, didn't fight anywhere near to his level, and stunk the place out. If he had put in a good performance, he had a good chance of winning as shown by what he did later in his career when he was properly focused.

 

Good shout. Barrett was favoured to win, and Galloway was an awkward but eminently beatable fringe contender. Barrett sleepwalked through the fight and made Galloway look like Pernell Whitaker.

 

Hardly a big fight,it was at the Paisley lagoon ffs.

 

This. It was meant to be his big coming out party in the US where he was going to go on to become some global icon but instead got badly beaten and embarrassed by a guy who had 3 fights in 3 years and was called up on short notice. Of course all we heard was some of the worst excuses you could imagine afterwards.

 

Absolutely desperate to mention Billy's name.

 

True; we all know Saunders has no fans. But it was a middleweight world title fight. In that sense it has to be considered bigger in a sense than, say, Price v Thompson.

 

Don’t think it’s fair to include Clev v Kovalev. He boxed naively but he went out there toe-to-toe at least and gave it all he has. He didn’t quit.

Surprised only one mention of Stevenson v Bellew. Yes we know Bellew is drained at LHW but he had physical advantages and also good technical skills, but really he **** the bed big time. At least he redeemed himself at CW.

And yeah can’t agree with Haye v Klitschko. Haye was so elusive in that fight and just couldn’t set off. The broken toe excuse gets mocked but for a “sniper” knockout artist who relies on explosive speed and power I can see why it was a major hindrance against a giant defensive master like Wladimir. Disappointing and boring but from a boxing standpoint it wasn’t that bad a performance.

 

My colleague just mentioned Lewis v McCall 1, a very good shout I'd say, nobody saw that coming, Lewis had his brains scrambled and was walking like he'd been on the Labatt.

 

Haye talked a big game I thought the man wanted to behead Wladamir...instead he struggled to land a glove on him.

 

Saunders v akavov what a huge fight that was!

 

How is Witter V Judah viewed these days...?

Haye has to be up there really bigged himself up pre fight landed two big shots all fight. Went from being an articulate big punching cruiser to a s**** talking calculating shyster as a heavy.