I've mentioned this one on another thread previously. Its a remarkable rise and fall. In the 90s the career of Keith Mullings kind of reminded me of Smith, just not on the absolute cliff fall that Smith went on.
Wilfred Benitez possibly fits into this category. Considering he was so young after the Hearns fight he declined significantly and lost a number of fights against inferior opposition before retiring due to ill health at a young age in my opinion.
Some great mentions so far... I'll add Junior Jones. He was ranked #2 at bantam in 1993 and being spoken of as a soon to be pound for pound candidate... and then an obscure fighter he had already beaten burst that bubble and he was never the same.
Fair call. I was only aware of the Stevenson KO in the AMS tbh, a single right hand and it was all she wrote - in itself not a be and end all forecaster of doom in the pro ranks - given Teofilo and Savon had a habit of doing same to boxers who later boxed at the high level in the pros whilst upholding decent chins (most notably Tua). Nonetheless shocking the way Big John went out in the pros and the slippery slope thereafter. There are glass chins but then there all too fragile whiskers below that - rendering truly chilling single shot KOs - the way Tate and Jones Jr went down, like dead men, was shockingly similar. OMG, Cooney? Tate fit the opponent profile you described - just as well that fight didn’t manifest.
Yes. Lots of accounts, he got DUI’s and was on the bar scene a lot. He was binge drinking before Foreman II. Bob Foster has mentioned it too. Many accounts really just dig a little.
Lloyd Honeyghan. A 2-1 favorite to beat Marlon Starling, he wasn't even competitive in that fight and then looked frail and helpless against Mark Breland. Never approached world class again.
Great mention. He had a brief resurgence when he beat Orlando Canizales and Barrera twice but his bubble was popped once again when Kennedy McKinney and Erik Morales stopped him back to back. Never became the same from that point on.
Might be a bit soon, since he's not officially retired (as far as I know), but how about Jared Hurd? He went from undefeated with 2 belts a couple fights ago, to looking like he was about done in his last outing vs. Arias.
In the superb book about Wee Benny by John Burrowes, booze is the underlying theme as well as the Gorbals. He probably hit his peak against Peter Kane when he stopped the Lancashire lad in 13 epic rounds. He took that fight seriously, trained like he was the challenger, laid off the sauce and hit 112lbs easily
Good call.He was such a jack-in-a-box and a swarmer in the Aaron Pryor/Henry Armstrong sort of way. I thought he'd have taken Starling apart and against Breland he was even worse.
There was a brutal ko of Tate by Chapman as an amatuer. It was a shock when it happened. The stevenson one was not a surprise at all. but the guy suffered those ko's and just how many heavies come back from that many brutal ko's? There was some talk of a Tate--Cooney fight but it died. Good thing. But it would have been another brutal early ko for Cooney and some of the public would have bought into him even moreso.
To be fair he twice beat a p4p rising star in Barrera including a shocking stoppage (DQ officially but he whipped Barrera’s arse) and reentered the upper echelon. I get your point though. Even after the Barrera triumphs there was still that question mark over his chin and durability. Eventually those flaws came home to roost. Edit-@Flo_Raiden beat me to this.
