Are there any fighters you prefer to watch their "green" version in comparison to their "prime"?

Danny Romero was known as a balls-to-the wall banger early in his career. After suffering an eye injury that required surgery & a plate in his head, he altered his style to become more of a methodical stalker. Even though he would go on to score some of his biggest wins after that, I think his aversion to exposing his eye to further damage would prevent him from reaching his full potential & contributed to his landmark loss to Tapia.

 

Azumah Nelson - his balls-to-the wall effort vs. Sanchez produced 1 of the greatest FW contests of all time. Not sure if a rematch w/ a more experienced, but also more measured Nelson would've produced the same high-octane thrills.

In the same vein, Duran's win over Buchanan may not have been his most polished performance, but it was unsurpassed in terms of pure animal ferocity.

 

I like to watch Freitas when he was starting (the earlier footages that are out there) but you could make a case that that was his prime...

 

I'm big BHOP fan. He was a completely different fighter post Trinidad than he was earlier in his career. Early BHOP that fought on Tuesday night fights and other smaller shows was an aggressive, smothering Philly fighter thatuswd his size an physically to bully the middleweight division. As he aged and moved up in weight he morphed into a much more cerebral fighter that used his intelligence and skill over that physical strength advantage that he had at 160.

 

Wouldn't of ended well with a Mercer in the mood and a few years younger !!

 

Pre Watson Benn . Nigel was still very exciting to watch but before this fight he was a mad man

 

But if he was peak then, he wouldn’t be the green version.

 

Lennox Lewis was who immediately sprung to mind.

 

I still enjoy watching Canelo and his more recent performances, but man do I miss those superb combinations he had as a younger man.

 

Went from the next best combination puncher in the sport behind JMM to not throwing any at all!

 

I still remember that combination that Canelo threw at Josesito Lopez when he stopped him. He really threw some mean combos back then.

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Michael Moorer at light heavy. I think boiling down to that weight made him vicious.

And another vote for Benn…that first run of straight knockouts before the loss to Watson was amazing to watch…he was hellbent on scoring a knockout every time.

 

Julio before he got contented to playing out the long game and leaning on the judges.

 

Eh, he still does sometimes, just pretty infrequently. He threw some excellent combos against Callum Smith iirc, and his combos against Munguia weren't half-bad either. He'll usually drill a combo on an opponent (double jab, right hook is his favourite I believe) then change the pattern to catch out his opponent (this is how he scored his KD against Charlo for example, where he turned the hook into a cross). He's more crafty these days and of course he learnt against Floyd that you can't get away with 10 punch combos against world-calibre level boxers.

 

John Mugabi.
He was much more confident and relentless than the version that came after the Hagler loss.
He seemed to fold much more in what should've been his prime yrs than he did during his journey on his way to the championship shot.
The fights against "Hard Rock " Green and Hagler are perfect examples of it.