Times when a fighter cares more about beating X, than they did about the title

Very, very few it's a business.

Where the $ go the fighter follows.

 

I don’t think there was a title on the line when Bowe and Holyfield fought for the third and final time. Evander was hell bent on knocking Bowe out. Didn’t happen of course but he attacked Riddick with vengeance and had him down

 

Joe frazier was probably more obsessed with the idea of killing Ali or atleast make him pay for all the trashtalks in their vicious third fight.

 

Agreed. I think that simply “ beating “ Muhammad Ali took precedence over winning back the title by that point.

 

It’s been a long time since there have been significant bouts with no titles at stake. I’ll come in with Zarate-Zamora, Schmeling-Louis, Marciano-Louis, and Young-Foreman. Tim Witherspoon recently talked about taking out James Tillis, because Tillis went the distance with Mike Tyson.

 

Actually- I think if Hagler had to chose between a rematch with Leonard or restoring is title I know for a fact he'd have fought Ray in a parking lot with a chalk ring the next day if he could.

 

Ray certainly knew the business.... A rematch would have been interesting

 

yeah good question, there were undoubtedly hundreds of fighters who wanted to Knock the F out of each other.

 

Ted 'Kid' Lewis vs Jack Britton. You don't fight each other 20 times when it's 'just business'.

 

Golovkin was ready to step in for Canelo's opponent at the drop of a hat. Sadly 40 isn't aged enough for ginger.

 

Jeopardy style: Who is Joe Frazier (?) might constitute the near perfect answer to the premise..

Always felt that Tommy Hearns was more overjoyed about his perceived “redemption” v one SRL in their rematch, with Hearns hanging tough, lasting the distance and not being stopped in the final rds as was the case in fight I. So much so that Tommy didn’t seem as displeased as he should’ve been over the draw decision in a fight which, imo, should’ve been awarded to the Hit Man. Some time after the fact, even SRL admitted that Hearns kicked his ass.

 

Louis in the Schmeling rematch,
Frazier in the Manila,
Hopkins in the Jones rematch

 

Starling and Honeyghan comes straight to mind.