Fighters who have no one to blame but themselves

Steve Hearon, our resident Classic Boxing serial killer, was the #1 rated 140lb guy and in line for a shot against faded Bruce Curry as I remember. He decided against manager's advice to book himself against 147lb Lupe Aquino for a quick 10 grand payday and got paintbrushed. No title shot.

Jimmy Heair did the exact same thing. #1 Contender and took a fight outside his manager's advice against spoiler Rudy Barro. Lost a Majority Decision. Never came close to a title shot again.

Elisha Obed topped them both for stupidity though. He was trying to build back up after the quit job where he lost his title against Dagge and was coming off a nice KO win over tough Larry Brasier. He was booked in a homecoming fight against Sammy Barr and decided, or one of his six managers that he sold pieces of himself to decided, that he'd take a quick 10 rounder against rough trial horse Taco Perez three days before the Barr fight. Of course, Perez went the distance and made Obed work for every round and Obed was flatter than a pancake for Barr and got a gift draw. Precursor to his massive fall to clutching stumblebum loser years later.

 

Good points that I think apply even more to the 15 round era. A lot of the greats from that time didn't even get warmed up until round 5. It is really interesting to compare the pacing of a 15 to a 12 rounder. I personally think an underrated trait of a great fighter is how to pace themselves over a fight and then adapt to circumstances outside of their fight plan. Over 15 this is particularly clear.

Even in a fight like Conn vs Louis, against someone like Joe 2 more rounds to stay out of trouble could seem like an eternity!

Actually Billy Conn maybe an example for this thread, not sure if mentioned already?

Some great quotes associated with that fight.

Billy Conn:
"I lost my head and a million bucks."
"What's the use of being Irish if you can't be thick?"
"I told Joe later, 'Hey, Joe, why didn't you just let me have the title for six months?' He said, 'I let you have it for twelve rounds, and you couldn't keep it. How could I let you have it for six months?'

 

I wasn’t so gracious back then, but tbf to me I was
still in that phase where I took my favourite fighters defeats personally! Thankfully I’ve long since grown out of that foolish attitude, and now where I once cursed Jackson for his brutal destruction of my fellow Yorkshireman…I now appreciate the quality, accuracy the ferocity and timing of that punch. It was a masterpiece of a punch, especially knowing the dire straits JJ was in at the time he delivered it.

 

Great stuff and yes, great fighters often paced themselves to perfection (a fighter who springs to mind immediately with this great attribute was Monzon- who fought like he had the exact judges scorecards in his head throughout). Whenever I think of Billy, I heard Don Dunphy's voice saying "He was a brash young Irishman out of Pittsburgh, he thought he could beat Joe Louis". But in Billy's case, he deserves great credit for being ahead after so many rounds, like Tommy, but yeah, Joe (like Ray) turned on the gas and it was game over.

 

The ref said if everything stayed the same in the 4th rd he was gonna stop the fight, which it was until Graham gave him a free shot.

 

Golota getting himself DQed twice against Bowe and throwing away what would've been two highlight wins for him.

 

I don't think anyone thinks "Herol > Julian", Jackson won the fight fair and square and he's a two woeight and Graham was unable to win one so of course it's Jackson>Graham, but Graham was clearly the more talented and skilled boxer which was shown in all but the final second of the fight's duration and i think he would beat Jackson 8 times out of 10 but on that night the punchers chance came off.

 

Ok Pat I think we’ve reached that part where it seems everything I bring you isn’t enough to convince you that the fight was close to being stopped so it’s best to call it quits on this particular part of the debate. It’s been fun though.

You heard the commentator say “doc says Maybe give it one more round.” You dismissed it.

You saw JJs eye all but closed up. Not enough on its own.

Herol’s cornerman Don Ingle spoke about him only needing to run for 3 minutes and he’d win. (Whether they said that to Herol I don’t know but if they had information confirming this I’m sure they would’ve told him. Herol’s words later in this post may well be some sort of confirmation that a message was indeed passed onto him regarding this.

I sent you a link that said Brendan Ingle advised Herol to “don’t get involved. Just keep doing what you’ve been doing.” Or words to that effect at the end of the 3rd round. Again in of itself nothing more than good solid advice, I grant you.

But let’s hear the words of Herol Graham himself. Unfortunately I couldn’t get the doctor or referee’s testimony…not that I tried. But I’ll add Herol’s own words in his: “Best I’ve faced” interview. Read the best puncher he’s faced part which was obviously Julian Jackson. The part where he says…

“One shot and I was gone and it came after The referee was going to Stop The Fight In My Favour.
I made the mistake of going for a sucker punch when he was in the corner, and Jackson responded with a knockout punch.”

Now obviously I don’t know whether Herol got this news from his corner or the ref or whoever, but it’s more than likely it’s what he believed, no matter where he got it from.Though I’m sure you’ll query this.

Either way it seems more than possible than Herol AT LEAST SUSPECTED that this may well have been the final round.

And as it turned out…it was!
https://www.ringtv.com/353645-best-i-faced-herol-graham/

 

Gerry Cooney

 

Andrew Golota Vs. Mike Tyson

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In that vein you could add Rocky Lockridge fighting Wilfredo Gomez in Puerto Rico as well, Lockridge being the champion1!

 

Antonio Tarver in the first Roy Jones fight. Tarver took care of business in the rematch, but he cried for so long about being “robbed” in the first fight. He spent so much of the first fight doing nothing in the middle of the ring. You either blame Tarver for his inactivity in the middle of the ring, or credit Roy for his body work (Tarver also never had the greatest stamina/workrate either).

Andrew Golota for being a headcase and blowing 2 wins against Riddick Bowe. He also was ahead of Michael Grant (a highly touted undefeated contender) before he got dropped by Grant and surrendered.

I don’t think it really mattered much anyway. Unlike in the DLH fight (where Oscar spent large portions doing nothing), it was very obvious that Quartey lost to Vargas. It was competitive but not close.

Quartey got the short end of the stick against Vernon Forrest though.

Vernon: I’d like to thank God…..

Larry Merchant: You ought to also thank the judges

 

i only saw one guy smoke a cig during a post fight interview.