What fighters do you think quit a little too early?

Andrew Golota was known to always sabotage a fight when he was up on the score cards like when he fought Riddick Bowe or quit early like when he fought Lennox Lewis or Mike Tyson. Golota will always be known as a quitter by heart.

 

Honestly the only person I can say is Nicholas Waters, he had no damage, took really no damage (other than mental) in his only loss. He just kinda said "damn, that's crazy" and walked away. The majority of people being named had chronic injuries and simply didn't wanna force through it, that's not quitting early, that's understanding your body is breaking down.

And people need to quit saying Hagler, he didn't quit too early. He had 60 fights, and that was the last legacy fight that he wanted, he had been far less active, he was only sticking around for that. He was ready to go.

 

I would have said Paul Pender as he was still quite young and could have gone on to fight Fullmer or Tiger for the undisputed Middleweight title not long afterwards.

But he later suffered from CTE (he didn't show symptoms for 20 years) which highlights the dangers of the sport and the fact that boxers who feel they have retired relatively unscathed are by no means out of the woods.

 

Riddick Bove first retirement. He was only 29 years old. Today, among the top 10 HW, hardly anyone is under 30 years old.

 

Guys tended to retire much earlier then.

Packey McFarland had a fight at 25, then a fight over a year later at 26, then retired, unbeaten apart from a DQ when he was a teenager. But he was turning up fat in his later fights and had lost motivation.

 

Toshiaki Nishioka, maybe?

 

Yonnhy Perez, too.

 

Tony Bellew - had improved and was at his peak and best form when he retired. He admits this himself.

 

Grigory Drozd, Denis Inkin

 

Ike Quartey comes to mind. He took a five year break and missed out on a lot of big name fights at 154 after his loss to Vargas. By the time he came back, he had lost a step. He could have fought Mosley or Tito and rematched Vargas and Oscar not to mention could possibly even be in the hall of fame with a few more titles.

 

Marcos Maidana.

 

Rocky Marciano - He retired at 33 and, as a champ, all he did of consequence was get rid of the old guys. The 1950s were pretty much bereft of top notch, in their prime, heavyweight talent. It would have been nice to see Marciano do a bit more.

 

Are you crazy? Groves almost took his head off, GGG would of killed that nearly 40 year old froch

 

Billy Joe Saunders.

 

Imo Ward left at the right time, he was getting thoroughly outboxed in his rematch with Kovalev before he took to fouling and got back in the fight.