fighters like eubank,charles and griffith have either taken the life of another boxer or as in eubank`s case changed watson`s life.how different would thier careers been had these tragedys not happened as i dont think any of them were as destructive after those fights your opinions would be very welcome
An event like that takes the killer instinct out of a fighter. They might fall apart completely or they might retain something but they always change. Arthur Pelkey was one of the most promising white hopes of Jack Johnsons era with a consistant record untill he fought Luther McCarthy for the white heavyweight championship (lets call it the equivalent of the WBO today). He won the title killing McCarthy in the process but after that he went completely into the tank and was never a force at world level again. That fight in my opoinion eliminated possibly the two strongest of the white hopes. Not a lot of people mention this but Max Baer was prety consistant before he killed Frankie Campbel and vicious with it. Most of his losses up to this point were by DQ. After he killed Campbel he started having nighmares about the event. He started smoking to calm his nereves and went to pieces with his training retreating increasingly into his playboy lifestyle. That is a large part of what the clowning was about. Baer was scared to cut loose on a man.
How could it not affect a fighters state of mind knowing that they have the potential to cause such damage? Agree with janitor that it had a huge impact on Baer, who it is believed also had the death of Ernie Shaaf on his conscience. Barry Mcguigan also admitted that he never had the same killer instinct after his tragic fight with Young Ali. It reminds me of the recent fight between Rogan and Sexton where Rogan stepped off seeing his opponenet was in trouble looking for the ref to intervene. Rogie was chastised for his lack of a killer instinct but I would rather commend his sportsmanship.
the question i was trying to ask was if these sad events had not happened how would there legacy`s have been different as they would not of held back in thier later fights
Same can be said from Bom Bom Mancini He had a hard time dealing with depression, and, according to many, he was never as aggressive as before
