What fighters seemed to fight only as good as the fighter in front of them? By this I mean fighters who would look average to ordinary against average to ordinary opposition but when matched with a talented,threatening opponent would lift their performance to meet this challenge. An example of this is Evander Holyfield who looked less than stellar against ordinary opponents like Bert Cooper,Vaughn Bean,Alex Stewart and Bobby Czyz but when faced with a Tyson,Bowe,Mercer,Foreman or even a Lewis would bring a completely different level of output and intensity to meet these much more dangerous challenges. Another example is the 70's Ali who'd go through the motions with a Buster Mathis,Joe Bugner or Rudi Lubbers only to bring his A-game against a Frazier,Foreman or Quarry. Any other fighters like this spring to mind?
Interesting thread. You could argue that all great fighters fight like this but I see what you mean. How about Joe Calzaghe? His performace against Lacey was his best and Lacey was the best fighter he fought. Charley Burley certainly deserves a mention. He actually had a different style for when there was something serious on the line. You mentioned Ali who said, "I can't train my hardest for every fight. It would kill me."
your avatar is the epitome of ....never mind. how about jimmy carter? he did it all the time, even losing the title occasionally and outside title defenses you never knew what you'd get. and not because they wanted to, but the black dynamite crew had to 'carry' their opponents in hopes of getting more fights, so it's kind of the same principle. arturo gatti..wait, never mind.
Archie Moore made it an art form to just do what ever was needed to win... Maxie Rosenbloom was suspected of doing his best to just drop a fight or two. Kid McCoy and Abe Attell had reputations for very often doing as little as required, hell McCoy became part of the English language because of it.
Not sure about Ali. Take the mentioned Mathis fight. Ali toyed with Mathis and tried not to hurt him. The gulf in class was woefully obvious. I think Lennox Lewis is a great example. He usually won. But most of his opponents were in the ordinary-good, rather then great-legendary range. And he was often only a punch or two, or a round or two better than them. Some examples: Mercer, Bruno, Mavrovic, 'spent' Holyfield - and of course Rahman and McCall for falling below the level of your weak opposition!
This way of thinking is often just used as an excuse to brush aside poor performances. Not saying it doesn't apply to some fighters of course. Sanchez for instance just struggled with more technical boxer types.He wasn't simply fighting to their level while in actual fact could have thrashed them at any time.
