Pick a fighter whos's best performance was in a exciting fight?

It was a fight between two undefeated ATGs. The heart and killer instinct Leonard showed to turn that fight around was incredible. His ATG status was cemented in my eyes. Especially after seeing Hearns go on to destroy so many great fighters after that loss.

 

Vargas beating Quartey.

 

Tragic, but Benn V McLellan had it all in this bloody theatre we call sport. A tragedy that was almost Shakesperian in the way it unfolded, savage, atavistically brutal and breathtakingly bereft of anything akin to beauty. A life changing fight for both participants and spectator...

 

Iran Barkley vs Thomas Hearns 2 …is an exciting fight in my opinion

 

Bobby Chacon vs Danny Lopez

 

Golota in the Bowe fights

 

First that came to mind for me too.

I want to say McCallum-Toney 1 just because it's such a fantastic fight, but Toney was still developing and McCallul a bit faded.

FOTC was a good shout, and Bowe-Holy 1.

 

I think every great performance is an exciting fight.

 

Ward beating Gatti

 

Frank Fletcher (whatever fight you think was his best performance … I’d go with Clint Jackson).

 

Holyfield in Tyson vs Holyfield #1
Ricky Hatton in his win vs Tszyu.
Hagler vs Hearns and vs Mugabi.

 

Hi Flo.
Good shout, well remember the build up to this fight, it was big, both were all action fighters, with huge followers, it split California in half, over here we had only BN to report on these two, they were polar opposites in looks, the dark swarthy Chacon, up against the all too pale Lopez, with his crop of ginger hair, one tall and angular, the other short and stocky, Lopez was my pick going in, for such a skinny fighter he packed unearthly power, thanks for the memories.....
stay safe buddy, chat soon.
Mike.

 

In defeat, Iran Barkely vs Roberto Duran, Ron Lyle vs George Foreman, Mac Foster vs Jerry Quarry, Andy Ganigan vs Alexis Arguello, Lupe Pintor vs Wilfredo Gomez, JJW vs Rocky Marciano I, Earnie Shavers vs Muhammad Ali, Angel Espada vs Pipino Cuevas Ii, Jack Sharkey vs Jack Dempsey, Sailor Tom Sharkey vs Jim Jeffries II, Ezzard Charles vs Rocky Marciano I, Rocky Graziano vs Tony Zale I, John Mugabe vs MMH, Marvin Johnson vs Mathhew Saad Muhamad I, Yaqui vs Saad II, Billy Conn vs Joe Louis I, DuJuan Johnson vs Aaron Pryor...there are too many instances to count where excellent competitors peaked in exciting bouts which they lost to count. Let's throw in Bazooka Limon vs Bobby Chacon IV.

I saw the entirety of Espada vs Cuevas II on Cavalcade of Boxing. This one was stopped between rounds atter Angel had sustained a fractured jaw, but nobody else ever stood up to that many power shots from Pipino before succumbing. Yet Espada also came off the ropes to batter the then iron chinned Cuevas clear across the ring. Just as Alfredo Escalera is not in the HOF because of Arguello, so too is Espada excluded because of Pipino.

Meanwhile, Mac Foster and Thad Spencer are forgotten because of Jerry Quarry, who also ruined Jack Bodell's career with one lethal right. JQ ruined and ended careers of second tier guys like Buster Mathis, Bodell and Spencer. Only Frazier, in Joe's true peak performance, was able to swap punches with Jerry without being haarmed. Yes, I said it. The pre ankle fracture edition of Joe Frazier from Ziggy to Jimmy Ellis I with JQ I sandwiched between them was actually suoerior to the later FOTC version. For example, 1969 Frazier's face simoly did not swell. Jerry knocked Mac and Ron from the unbeaten ranks, and decked, dominated and ruined Buster, Sr.'s career in a situation where the elder Mathis was in his best shape at 232 right after he dominaated Chuvalo. Foreman and his backers wanted no part of Jerry, and Ali wanted no part of Jerry's power. JQ ended the rise to contention of promising 6'5" prrospect Larry Middleton, ending a 19 bout winning streak by Middleton to drop Larry to 20-2-1, sending Middleton into a career ending 2-7-1 tailspin. Jerry was much more than the Great White Hope Duane Bobick and Gerry Cooney represented, but a gatekeeper, The Great Contender, who knocked off a number of heavily hyped great black hopes. The inferior Lyle and Shavers are well remembered today. But JQ, with one punch countout power in each hand. Thoose with a low opinion of Jerry need to educate themselves, and consider what his legendary opponents had to say.

Jerry was clearly at his peak potential for Frazier I, coming off of Mathis, Sr., but as Frazier and Foreman both noted, he fought the wrong fight. Jerry's versatility was often his downfall. Marciano and Frazier had one way to go, so were always hyperfocused by turning their limitations and handicaps into their greatest advantages..

My reasoning behind a list like this where the losers peaked in exciting bouts is the axiom that the true measure of a man is revealed in defeat. All of the losers in the exciting bouts I listted realized their full potential in the bouts I listed.


As outstanding as John Conteh was in Saad Muhammad I, he was very far from his two fisted peak. Chuck Wepner's well remembered peak was obviously Ali, but it was reported the following day as a bout where Muhammed toyed with Chuck, except in round ten, where notoriously incompetent referee Tony Perez blew the call by ruling an obvious trip by Wepner as a KD against Ali. Muhammad deliberately avoided winning that bout on cuts, resulting in an extended match with a fully satisfying ending, but it was not an exciting match, as Chuck clearly had no hope of winning.

The normally dull and boring Joe Bugner went to war against a trimmed down (208) post Jamaica Frazier, went the 12 round limit, and might have even been awarded the decision on neutral territory with three neutral judges. It is speculated that referee and sole judge Harry Gibb gave it to Frazier as his compensation for so unpopularly awarding Bugner-Cooper to Bugner. Frazier was clearly the disappointing Bugner's very best, as instantly devastating as a very angry Bugner woukd later be in destroying china chinned southpaw Richard Dunn. Bugner, who was extremely proud of lasting the distance with Frazier and Ali 2X, was enraged with Dunn's paltry showing against Ali for all the marbles.

And immediately after Tiger Williams vs Earnie Shavers ended on CBS, announcer Tom Brookshier called it , "An exciting end to a DULL fight." Shavers-Ali was different. Earnie repeatedly wobbled the GOAT from the outset, and wildly exceeded what was widely believed to be the upper limit of his potential, winning round 14 on all cards. Exciting despite the round by round scoring being broadcast live on NBC, because Earnie had seriously wobbled him repeatedly throughout with singular shots to seemingly demonstrate the ultimate puncher's ongoing chance.

Lew Tendler's greatest match was a filmed defeat in a challenge of Benny Leonard. The straight left Lew severely buckled and decked the Ghetto Wizard with can be readily viewed on YouTube. Benny wisecracked and bluffed his way out of it, as Ali did early with Shavers, but what would've happened if Tendler was a foreigner who didn't understand English or had a real killer instinct like Duran? (Notice that when Ali took on guys like Mildenberger, Blin, Lubbers and Coopman, he's pretty quiet and does next to no clowning.)

Antuofermo was an exciting fighter who Hugo Corro managed to produce an extremely dull affair with. Vito was perfectly willing to rematch MMH after their draw, emphasizing in the ring immediately after that he'd much rather rematch Hagler than ever have to deal with Corro again. Antuofermo-Minter I was a bout I had Vito winning, but if accepted as an honest decision against him, there is a case that Minter I may have been Vito's career best showing. (What corrupt British judge Roland Dakin did that night in Las Vegas should've gotten him permanently barred from boxing. The only round he gave Vito was the 14th, in which referee Carlos Padilla wrongly ruled his push down on Alan's torso as a KD, leaving Dakin no choice but to give it to Antuofermo. Meeanwhile, sitting at home in the UK, rejected judge Harry Gibb clai .med he had Vito the winner. Did he really? Or did he merely want to rub dirt into the camp of the defending champion for objecting to Gibb as a first choice official scorer? Regardless, even some of the UK press thought the decision for Minter was an outrage. Today, of Corro, Minter, Hagler and Antuofermo, Vito is the final survivor.)

There are far too many other exciting bouts in which the loser produced his peak career performance to ever list, but to me, that's a personally self imposed challenge of preference.

 

Danny was tall at 5'8" with a long collarbone (i. e. broad shoulders). This allowed Little Red to generate tremendous punching power, but Schoolboy was further along after halting superb veteran Chucho Castillo in ten, then losing to prime Olivares after nine. Bobby had greater speed than Lopez and superior raw talent. He had rebounded from his first loss to Ruben (due to Bobby's own lazy overconfident undertrained cockiness), while Danny was undefeated at 23-0, but with no Chucho or Ruben in his rear view mirror as yet. And Little Red before his epic mustache was somewhat akin to Sampson without his hair. Years later, Danny's lack of speed proved fatal against Sal Sanchez.

Of course plenty of skinny guys have carried monstrous power. Ray Robinson (109 KO), Tommy Hearns, Joe Gans (100 KO), and of much more recent vintage, 6'7" Deontay Wilder with his basketball background and weight like prime Ali's has also been very widely recognized for his punching power. (Ali at 220 after Dunn looked like a midget toothpick when fooling around in a pro wrestling ring with the reportedly 6'8" 400 pound Gorilla Monsoon. )

In a LHW Division loaded with power punchers, the 6"2" 170 pound Michael Spinks came out on top, posssibly invincible at 175 with his power, speed, skill, advanced training methods, conditioning and physical strength. (His lean physique remains the same at age 69. His physique changed little from 170 for David Sears to 212 for Tyson. A very clean athlete.)