I wanted to know if you guys know of any fighters who have made as much money and had such successful careers as Margarito with such a limited skillset. I mean as his basic introduction to the sport he had a measly (by top pro fighters standards) 16 amateur bouts and turned professional at just 15 years old. Now while I don't doubt you can develop some sort of skills at that age you certainly won't be a very developed fighter at that age with that many amateur bouts. Then we look at his skillset. Has the guy ever done a single defensive or reflexive drill in his career. He doesn't duck, slip, dodge or parry anything it seems to be a part of the gameplan to take everything on the chin. If he does have any handspeed he doesn't use it he just wings in uppercuts and hooks at his opponent as he bears down on them. His footwork consists of him chasing his opponent around in straight lines. He doesn't even really have the most natural punch power around. None of his stoppages tend to be knockouts, rather forcing his opponents to cave in under intense pressure and thudding his power shots in rather than snapping them. Tony seems to get by on three things: Heart, Chin and Conditioning. The three sort of go hand in hand with each other. His chin is unreal he has walked through huge bombs from some massive hitters and came through intact. The conditioning is exceptional but I do believe many fighters can and do have similar cardio levels. That is simply a result of his diet and hard training and his willingness to fight on regardless in his fights. Then the most important aspect: Heart. This is born in him and I want to know if any of you can give me examples of anybody who has been as successful as Margarito purely as a result of their heart. Please save the plaster jokes for other threads.
Rafael bazooka Limon and Takeshi Fuji Rocky Marciano and Sung-Kil Moon to an extent, but both had better physical gifts, power and natural talent than Marg.
Margo is even less talented then the guys Lora mentioned IMO. In an era with same day weigh-in's he'd be a middleweight you'd never hear of. Simple as. Only 24 hour re hydration periods have allowed him to have any success.
A fighter who became an ATG with a comparable lack of skill would be Sandy Saddler. Sometimes strength, size, chin and strong relentless punching out does skill. 1 thing I'd credit Margarito with is stamina, strength, chin, combinations and uppercuts. The uppercut is a lost punch for many fighters today too. At least he works behind a jab too Disagree with Lora about Marciano being unskilled
Marciano was a tremendous natural fighter, but by a textbook point of view his skills were poor.Its an irrelevance in the context of his career and him as an effective fighter, but relevant to the kind of thing the original poster was trying to get at imo.
Jess Willard had a lot of heart Jack Johnson was winning but started tireing around round 20 and Willard came on and koed him in the 26th round
Not many, but then again you dont have to have a ton of skills when you have concrete in your gloves.
Marciano had an iron chin,lots of heart and good conditioningi think he wasnt very skilld either he was entertaining as hell tho also his defence is underrated but still not amazing. [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9b0yHvw-vW0[/ame]
