I can't choose, but I concede some possible examples: rjj, Holyfield, Arturo gatti. Depends how you see it though. Some people don't take an L as a loss just as a lesson. Have there been fighters with short careers who fall into this category? Hector Camacho jr maybe? Or JCC jr perhaps? Enlighten me... Btw off quilter LL had to take Rahman to court for one year to grant the rematch. Can you imagine a Lennox Lewis not destroying a prime Rahman? Lol.
Imagine this: Roy Jones jr retires after winning the heavyweight championship off John Ruiz. Retires with a 48-1 record and boxing fans get to listen as his fan base talks about how Roy would knock out prime Tyson, Lewis and Fury on the same night. This goes on for the next few decades as they hyperlink his garbage music videos sayin “y’all must have forgot.”
Roy jones is the first one who came to my mind. If he had retired on time.... I remember roy jones at his prime, and that was like... This content is protected AMAZING!! he was AMAZING!! imho he tarnished a lot his legacy with the last part of his career. There are lots of them, though. It's very hard to quit boxing. Even as an amateur. 20 years later, you will still find yourself doing a bit of shadowboxing every now and then, or you will find that you can still remember the warm up movements as if you had to train tomorrow again. Very very difficult to quit boxing if you really loved it. Look at sergio martinez, imho he should have not come back... but.... it's very hard to quit boxing... very very hard... and he came back.
Audley Harrison. Does a Roberto Cammarelle and never goes pro. Says the pro-game's not for him ... he wants to pursue goals outside of boxing. There would be ' What if Audley went pro ' threads on this site periodically to this day.
Tyson is another example.he woukd have never lost to the danny williams and mcbrides of the world in his prime/semi primedays.
I don’t know, the vast majority of ATGs (and just notable fighters in general) fought on too long until they were far from what they once were. The ones who retire before then are the exception rather than the norm.
Roy. The Roy after Ruiz was just a totally different guy, you have to watch the woods, Ruiz fights with the tarver and Johnson fights to see how much he slipped. Hopkins enhanced his legacy by fighting too long. To go the distance with kov and take on Joe Smith at 50 is crazy but impressive
James Toney comes to mind. I was at his second to last fight when he lost to a guy named Charles Ellis. At that point he was slurring his words and couldn't get a way from a right hand to save his life. He should have stopped after the last Sam Peter fight but he carried on for a few more years taking punishment from heavyweights. Leon Spinks was sadly another guy that was suffering from CTE but he also had a severe substance abuse problem. He should have stopped fighting by 85' but instead fought all the way into the mid 90's taking punishment from club fighters while being virtually homeless.
