Fighters who would have benefited from being more agressive

Great call outs especially Laporte!
I'll add Joshua Clottey to the list.

 

Joe Bugner and Juan LaPorte were terrific calls. I would also add David Tua. How many fights did he have where he pulled out a late round KO while hopelessly behind on points? I can't tell you how many times I yelled at the TV, "Will you let your punches go!"

 

Marlon Starling letting his hands go more would have really helped him out a lot in some of his fights. He can unleash some really nice combos when he wanted to but just didn't do it enough.

 

Yeah, LaPorte is pretty much the poster boy for this. Early Marquez too.

 

He also gets mentioned as among the hardest punchers pretty frequently in the Best I Faced. He just doled those punches out like he was rationing for a coming apocalypse.

I picture his heavy bag workouts comprising of him throwing four punches for every 3-minute round, haha. And I’m a big fan, but boy he could be frustrating to watch.

 

Probably Rances Barthalemy.

 

There's a wonderful line in AJ Liebling's The Sweet Science where he is commentating on the Harold Johnson v Archie Moore fight. Harold is well ahead on points and, as he leaves his corner for one of the later rounds, is told 'Don't go mad in there, Harold'.

'Apprehension seldom had less basis' is Liebling's comment on that. To this day, one of my favourite pieces of writing. The book is a source of joy.

 

@Dorrian_Grey What do you think?

I'd say Hagler comes to mind.

 

Johnny Nelson for sure. He was big at the weight, strong, fit - and could crack. There was no good reason for him to be as negative as He was.

 

Maybe Joe Bugner?
Joe just liked everyone and didn’t have a killer instinct. Perhaps it was because of his fight with Ulric Regis.

 

Yeah, Laporte was a fighter of bizarre lethargy. Granite chin, good skills, dangerous puncher, strong...but he just wouldn't let his hands go enough, sometimes to the point it looked to me like he was intentionally tanking fights. The Gomez one in particular, he loses by a mile, but on the rare occasions he let his hands go you could see that a stiff legged, declining Gomez was there for the taking, but Laporte would simply not sustain a normal workrate. As a busier fighter he could well also have had Pedroza and Chavez on his resume

 

Adrien Broner. When he started moving up the weights, he stopped letting his hands go. He was too busy impersonating Mayweather to actually win his fights. Still funny af though.
Rigondeaux was a very big puncher and could have quite easily scored more stoppages if he just let his hands go a bit more. Probably would've helped him score some bigger fights too.
Wlad, Arguello, and Zarate sometimes spent too long looking for the perfect shot instead of throwing imperfect punches to set up the perfect punch imo.

 

Jimmy Young.

An utter disgrace as a HW Title challenger.

 

A more aggresive Norton would have at the very least one more win versus Ali and therefore would be 2-1 in the trilogy.

 

Laporte has to be the poster child for this subject.
Like you, I remember yelling at my television many times while watching him fight.
He seemed to just go into a shell, even when he had to know he was behind on the score cards.
The ability was there, but the fire seemed to be lacking...