It was somewhat disturbing seeing the 21 year old Itauma wheeled out on a stretcher due to exhaustion, especially at an age when you'd think a trained athlete would have some of their best cardio. Have there been any notable boxers who started their careers with shaky cardio and then turned themselves into ironmen, or close to it?
I thought of Foreman as well, but his career is such an outlier. Taking a 10 year leave from the sport and returning again near 40. It's hard to see him as a template for others due to that.
Anthony Mundine I remember he faded down the stretch in his first 12 rounder with Sam Soliman then in the Ottke fight he was severely gassed in that 10th round before he was KO'd. He then went on to be in a lot of tough 12 round fights where he did very well.
Just about every decent fighter I can think of. Jai Opetaia won the first six rounds easy against Marius Briedis but struggled with the next six because his fighting background was against Australian domestic opposition. He needed to go 12 with a world class operator to improve his stamina. Daniel Dubois couldn't handle the pace Joe Joyce set in their fight. He had to fight outside his comfort zone to stay on even terms with him & couldn't sustain the pace for 12. That fight showed him that he needed to improve in that area. Itauma had never been past 6 & people are scratching their heads wondering why he gassed out? Please. I'm still waiting for Slow Eddie Hearn to get Teremoana a decent 6-rounder. This is a guy who ran out of juice halfway through the final round against Jalolov at the Olympics. Jalolov himself ran out of juice against Joe Joyce the first time he went to an Olympics & went home with nothing. The big Uzbek kid behind Jalolov ran out of petrol embarrassingly at the World Boxing Championships against the Kazakh in the final. Should have been DQ'd for a ridiculous amount of holding b/c he was too exhausted to keep throwing punches. Like Itauma, he'll improve. They all will if they're matched intelligently.
