Maybe not a myth, but an exaggeration of how Meldrick Taylor was totally ruined by Julio Cesar Chavez. Taylor had the 2nd best win of his career a year after the first JCC fight. He declined very quickly after that, and was a shot fighter after the Terry Norris fight. He took too much punishment in general, and the first Chavez fight certainly was a horrible physical beating. But it wasn’t only the Chavez fight that caused him to decline, and it wasn’t like he immediately looked shot after it. He won a title after that against an undefeated champ in a division he was undersized in. Both Hagler and Leonard have misconceptions about their styles by casuals. Hagler changed up from his usual methodical boxer-puncher style to a bull against Hearns and people often associate him with that style. Leonard switched up to be more fleet footed against Hagler and the Duran rematch, and people associate that style with him. It would be like watching Floyd’s fights with Judah and Mosley and concluding that his usual style was to walk opponents down behind a high guard.
Mike Tyson being defended by a tax lawyer in his **** trial is a myth. Vincent Fuller practiced tax and criminal law. He had one of the biggest successes in criminal defense that any lawyer has ever had when he defended John Hinckley. Aaron Pryor being ducked by all the big names in his era. He won a title at 140 against Cervantes in August 1980, the same night Hearns beat Cuevas. Within a few months, he was offered a Sugar Ray Leonard title fight at 147 for half a mil, after having made 1/10th of that to win his title. He turned it down. He had an offer to fight Mamby in a unification bout at 140, but turned it down. He turned down a high profile fight with Duran due to managerial issues. In 1982, he got his huge fight with Arguello. So it took him 2 years after winning a title to get a big money, high profile fight. That’s not especially long, we see fighters all the time wait longer for big money fights.
Taylor looked far better agaist Chavez than in his fights at higher weights after that, he climbed his personal mountain to out-box Chavez only to have his greatest moment taken away from him.
Leonard told Pryor to go away at a press conference after his fight as Pryor asked him for a match and wa said to have burst into tears when he heard Ray retired due to an eye injury meaning he had to settle for a fight against Arguello instead.
It doesn’t matter what someone does in a press conference or says in an interview. We all know that fights are made with contracts with lawyers negotiating. Pryor had an offer for a Leonard fight and rejected it, he admitted it. If you want to say he was lowballed by $500k, that’s one thing. But he had just gotten like 1/10th of that when he beat Cervantes, and that’s how much Duran was offered when he first got the Leonard fight, before negotiating to more. And Duran was a pretty big name and champ since 1972. Leonard was a diva. But all the “Pryor was ducked by all the big names” was just revisionist history. HBO just made it look like that for dramatic purposes.
Yeah but who the hell is Opollo Creed and what’s the deal about being an actor being knocked out because he was playing a song?
You really think British fighters are the dogs bollocks. Sorry there have been some great and good British fighters like you get from various continents and nationalities but without a shadow of doubt the best fighters come from the Mid West USA. Name a truly great fighter and you will find invariably they lost to someone from the mid west.
That Broner "just needs to let his hands go" Like, hes on the brink of P4P if he "just let his hands go" He doesn't let his hands go because he'd get lit up, because despite what people said earlier in his career, his defence is NOTHING like Mayweather. He shells up because that helps him keep fights relatively close and to not get hurt. He "let his hands go" when he was at 130/135 because he was bigger and stronger than his opponents and could walk them down
Broner has always been very average. It’s amazing how much the right people behind you can raise your stock. But in reality, he was never very good. He was definitely a product they tried to market as something great.
The myth that Kovalev was robbed in the first Ward fight. I rewatched it the other day and scored it and had Ward winning, he just kept doing enough in each round.
