Nigel Benn exploded on the British scene, was put out by Watson, then was a pretty big hit in the US, before losing to Eubank. And yet still came back despite initial shaky performances at 168, to become the best version of himself and put in the finest performances of his career in a Eubank rematch and a war with McClellan.
Ali, kind of. Many people thought he was lucky against Cooper who dropped him, Sonny Banks dropped him as well and many people thought his fight against Doug Jones was close, people thought Liston was going to kill him, literally.
Does Glen Johnson fit the bill. Though I cant remember how much he was hyped initially but seems like he did have some going into the Hopkins fight. Whatever he had was abandoned at that point as he went down the path of fighting in people backyards and getting stung on the cards. Watching some of those fights hes always bigged up as a guy who hadnt wuite lived up to his talent and would always fall short. Even with good world level victories in his pocket in Eric Harding and Clinton Woods he was brought in as an opponent to make both Jones Jnr and Tarver look good against, until he beat them. Even then he didnt have the best of luck on the cards and was still used as an opponent as a benchmark for how good champions and prospects could appear.
Yep. George was on top of the world through the Norton fight. Then he was exposed by Ali, and to a lesser extent, Ron Lyle. He redeems his reputation with four victories, including the Joe Frazier rematch, and earned "comeback of the year" awards in the mags. Then he loses the shocker to Jimmy Young, melts down, and retires for ten years. Those who were around during that time will remember that George wasn't making many top-ten ATG lists; rather, he was thought of as another hype job who didn't pan out. Then he comes back... through careful matchmaking, excellent marketing, and a level of ring intelligence, toughness, and discipline he hadn't shown in the seventies, he comes all the way back and cements his reputation as an all-time-great. I sure didn't see that coming any time during the eighties.
Speaking of which, I wish there was more of Larry Gains This content is protected This content is protected
Ingemar Johannson, he stopped Henry Cooper in 1956, then destroyed the undefeated no. 1 contender Eddie Machen on Sept 14 1958 in round 1. After that fight, the hype was on, he then stopped Floyd Patterson on June 26 1959 to win the title. So until June 20 1960, he was unbeatable. After Patterson stopped him in 1960, his aura was gone, then in 1961 he was stopped by Floyd. Then in 1963, his last fight with Brian London really spelled the end for him.
Before Bennie exposed him Luis Rodriguez blasted him out in under a minute. That’s the much smaller ex-welter champ, non-puncher. The chin was a glaring deficiency all of Tony’s career really.
Khan and Mijares in more recent years. Darchinyan post-Donaire. Montiel seemed to lose a few times when poised to make a splash (Too Sharp, Gonzalez, Donaire) but always seemed to half get back on the wagon and notch up some solidish wins plus the big upset against Hasegawa. Hasegawa himself got shown up for being chinny and defensively naive when were all wanking over him but had an ok little run up at feather when past his best. Donaire too really. Even people on here were talking like he was a fly/bantam version of Robinson before Rigo exposed the holes in his game. They've been exposed since but he's prolonged his career quite well and remained relevant after the initial illusion was shattered. I really wanted him to beat Inoue and predicted he'd do well in that fight, it was nice to see.
I think of hypejob as more as completely unwaranted hype with little achievement. So someone who's a world champion who loses to another world champion is in no way a hypejob. They simply faced a style they weren't able to defeat. Many people thought Amir Khan was a hypejob after Prescott blew him out in a round. He'd only beat smaller and lesser opposition. However Khan has ended up having a good career at world level.
