Some fighters seem cut to an uncanny extent from the same mold. Who are some pairs of fighters who almost seem to be carbon copies, at least to some extent. I’ll start us off with two: 1) John Conteh and Virgil Hill: two one-handed (left) light heavyweights who were primarily boxers who relied on movement, a great jab and occasional bursts with hooks and the right hand. Even the same olive complexion. Half an inch difference with Conteh at an even 6-feet and Hill a shade taller. Both were champions of course, as well. If you’ve seen one (at least the later-career Conteh), you’ve pretty much seen both. 2) James “Hard Rock” Green and Curtis Parker: two middleweights from the same era. Both short and stocky (Green listed at 5-4 1/2 and Parker at 5-8, although he fought shorter than his listed height out of a crouch. Both pressure fighters, volume punchers and body punchers. Both action fighters who fought a lot of wars. Who else ya got?
Are we talking purely about appearance and stance? Or are we also taking into account how they fought and went about their business? If it's the former then I can kind of see what you're getting at with Conteh and Hill, but if it's also the latter then I'd say they went about fighting very differently. Hill was always a cautious, light-punching boxer whereas Conteh had a much more nasty streak in him and enjoyed scrapping at close quarters more. Anyway, one example which stands out right now for me, in terms of the former criteria, is Leslie Stewart and Larry Holmes. Stewart was obviously different (and smaller) as an all-round fighter to Holmes, and lacked his durability and chin. But he looked like a carbon copy of Holmes in terms of his stance, how he faced up to his opponent, the way he moved his shoulders and feinted etc. Very similar mannerisms, and particularly visible in his fight against Hill, oddly enough. More of an obvious one, but in terms of style, size and stance (not appearance, for obvious reasons) Paul Spadafora was very similar to Whitaker, albeit a cut-price version. The southpaw stance, the stepping around, the body shots / combinations etc. were all Whitaker-lite.
Cotto always reminded me of Jose Torres. Gustavo Ballas had some moves reminiscent of Nico Locche. Margarito and Gaspar Ortega had similar styles too. Chang was like a mini Duran although not as good of course.
I guess we’re talking about it in whichever way you want. Conteh was more aggressive but less so after he lost full effectiveness/use of his right hand. More of a cutie who bounces around after that. But the big resemblance to me — besides physical appearance — is that they were both almost exclusively left-hand oriented. You don’t see too many guys rise to the championship level who are both one-hand dominant to the degree these guys were, but less two who look a lot alike and happen to be in the same division.
Figured I’d revive this one and see if there are any other seeing-double fighters who make us do a double take. I’ll add Tony Tubbs and Buster Mathis. Both were kind of plump but had good footwork and despite being the larger man in many of their fights (probably all of them in Buster’s case) were more boxers who didn’t pack much of a wallop. Couple of dancing bears these two were.
