Getting their bubble burst

I miss Mike Casey. His article on Quarry was a gem.

 

Marvelous Marvin Hagler did this a lot.

he busted the bubble for Fulgencio Obelmejias and John Mugabi and to a lesser extent, Thomas Hearns who thought he had a chance.

 

Paulie Malignaggi played the role he was supposed to (Cotto, Hatton, Khan, Porter, Garcia) but also putting in a dud against him seemed to be a career killer.

Bubbles burst:

Senchenko (32-0) homecoming in Ukraine with a stoppage win, truly shocking to me at the time. Senchenko came back to stop a truly shot Hatton after and that was mostly it for the wins. Didn't see Paulie beating, much less stopping an undefeated prospect in their home country.

Lost a controversial close fight to Juan Diaz in Texas, and had a great in-ring post fight interview. Won the rematch and that was pretty much it for Juan at the top level. Really killed the remaining hype on Diaz.

Lost a close fight to Broner and basically signaled the beginning of the end for Broner as a top notch competitor. I don't think Broner won another big fight. A lot of people had Malignaggi outworking AB for the win (not me). The Maidana fight right after was the last time I saw AB near his true self.

Beat Judah in the "Battle for Brooklyn" grudge match, both were faded.

The Cano fight was a bit of an upset, too, I thought.

Bernard Hopkins took all the shine off of Pavlik, Tito and even DLH when he crushed them. Tarver and Pascal both felt done-for after Hopkins took them to school.

 

Marlon Starling did this to a few guys.

Jose "The Threat" Baret (great nickname) was 16-0 with 15 KO when he fought Starling. He scored a dubious knockdown in the first, but all things considered he wasn't really competitive and got stopped in the fourth round. He went 1-3 afterwards to finish his career 17-4.

Mark Breland was an Olympic gold medalist with a claimed record of 110-1 in the amateurs, and he picked up a world title, but his first big test was his defense against Starling. Despite doing a pretty good job of piercing Starling's usually impenetrable guard, Breland looked tired and kind of frail at points throughout that fight, getting thrown around and sometimes just sagging to the canvas for no clear reason. Starling knocked him out in the eleventh. Breland had reasonable success after that, even winning another championship, but no one seemed to think of him as a potential all-time great after that, and the chin that Starling exposed haunted him until the end of his career.

Lloyd Honeyghan had only one loss, a chintzy technical decision that he quickly avenged, when he defended his world title against Starling as a clear favorite. He was never in the fight, got stopped in the ninth, and was never a world-class boxer again.

 

Speaking of the Ragamuffin Man, Honeyghan burst Donald Curry’s bubble in a big way. In his case, I think Donald was never the same and some of that was opponents seeing his vulnerabilities.

I’ll add one of my favorite fighters ever, James Scott. The Rahway NJ prisoner lured top contender Eddie Mustafa Muhammad (Gregory at the time) behind bars and punched his lungs out with a withering body assault. He did the same to Yaqui Lopez.

 

Fighting Harada popped Jofre's the invincible aura, literally giving him his only two losses.
Both Leonard and Duran popped each other's aura with their first and second fights.

 

Holmes popped Cooney's bubble
Mercer popped Morrison's bubble
Thompson burst Haye's bubble

 

Emmanuel Stewart said Toney was never convincingly beaten (agreed) but his stock went all over the place… he was running everybody over then Tiberi happened? but… he was busy, burnt out… then RJJ happened…? Right the weight caught up finally - then Griffin? Okay maybe he’s not Ezzard Charles 2? Wait… who the hell is Drake Thadzi? All those fights have puzzling elements to them whilst he never stopped being an obvious ATG he definitely became a “day at the office” guy rather then “the man” the way he was at the lower weights, I don’t think he was “The man” again till 190lbs right? Then… I don’t think he took out all the notable challengers to rule 190lbs… I think Jirov was the defacto champ at the time right?

 

Jones beat him decisively. Sam Peter in the 2nd fight beat him decisively. Some feel that Tiberi beat him decisively, but was robbed.

 

Yes Samuel Peter beat him as an old obese man in a rematch… Jones beat Toney because Toney was a fool not because he was better… Tibs also got him at the end of a monthly to bi monthly stretch of killers like Johnson, Nunn, McCallum and Sosa context matters to the statement - I think Manny was getting at that the best version of Toney never showed up to get beaten, he got beat and it was always a head scratcher or circumstance.

 

Jones was flat out better than Toney. He schooled him and basically dominated his divisions for nigh on a decade afterwards before the decline. Toney won some, lost a few and never was the man at a single division afterwards despite some good performances.

 

paradoxically, Toney was obese in the first equal fight, in the second one he looked much better physically and... he clearly lost to Peter