Best losing efforts you've ever seen

All good ones.

Chocolate against Canzonei fo sure.
Schmeling against Baer as well.
Charles against Johnson.
Witherspoon against Holmes.
Soliman against Wright.

 

Marco Antonio Barrera whilst still a viable contender was considered short of the elite after his back to back losses to Junior Jones before facing off with Erik Morales.

But his performance was so brilliant in a fight that was so great that Barrera's stocks rose dramatically even though he didn't get the nod (even though he deserved it) against Morales.

After this Barrera was once again considered amongst the best fighters in the world and he went on to achieve so much more (Morales 2 and 3,Hamed,Tapia etc).

A truly great "loss".

 

Cotto to Margarito
Marquez to Pacquiao in the second fight
Taylor to Chavez

 

Nelson v Sanchez
Pintor v Gomez
Juarez v Barrera
Mavrovic v Lewis
Klitschko v Lewis
In-Jin Chi v Morales
Morales v Maidana

Will think of more later.

 

Barrera flat out won that fight, it was clearest of the trilogy for me, the problem with threads like this is, you'll get allot of disputed decisions that should have gone the other way

 

I thought fight 3 was the most clear cut for Barrera and fight 2 was a slight robbery against Morales but I agree that Marco clearly took fight 1.

It's a good point you make re disputed decisions in great losing efforts.

I suppose Golota-Bowe deserves a mention as Golota twice beat the absolute stuffing out of what was then considered the second or third best heavyweight on the planet only to lose through his own stupidity/mental fragility both of them. Though I'm not sure these fights really fit what the thread starter was looking for.

 

If these are losing :
Chuvalo vs Ali , Doug Jones vs Ali , Jorge Castro vs Roid Jones , Jorge Castro vs Terry Norris , Reggie Johnson vs James Toney , Sergio Martinez vs Paul Williams #1 , James Toney vs Sam Peter #1 , Rosario vs Camacho , Danny Perez vs Antonio Margarito #1 and many more of course , quite similar to a robberies thread .

If you mean really losing then Edwin Rosario vs Ramirez #2 .

 

I re-watched those a few months ago, really impressed with how Golota completely outboxed Bowe, he really brought some nice skills to the table.

I actually scored 1 as wide as 9-3 for MAB, 3 I thought was 7-5 MAB but quite a clear 7 rounds, 2 I could see it 7-5 either way - very close. 1 was the least close and ofcourse the worst decision

 

Morales against Maidana. I agreed with the decision, I had Maidana winning by like a round. At the end of the fight I felt that Morales won it, but was surprised when I saw that I had Maidana winning.

 

Fernando Vargas against Felix Trinidad - Vargas came back from almost getting stopped in the first round against one of the best finishers in the game,kept his composure and fought his way back into the fight,pushing Trinidad to the brink before getting knocked out in the last round.



Ray Mancini vs Alexis Arguello - like the Vargas-Trinidad fight,a dangerous fight for the younger,much less experienced opponent against one of the best pure punchers of recent history.Mancini put forth a hell of an effort before getting nailed by a devastating right in the 12th.(I think)



Danny Lopez vs Mike Ayala - an untested underdog battles through a broken nose and does a superb job of fighting and countering off the ropes,sweeping atleast seven of the first ten rounds on my card,before gradually slowing down towards the end and getting stopped in 14th.



Julio Cesar Chavez vs Juan Laporte - an inconsistent fighter that got soundly trounced by both Gomez and McGuigan in his previous two losses facing off against a peaking Chavez and holds his own in some vicious,toe-to-toe exchanges and battles his way to a relatively close decision loss.

 

Fenech vs Nelson 1 was impressive, and Whitaker was pretty good when losing to Ramirez

 

Eubank against Thompson in both fights. pretty inspiring stuff.

 

Malignaggi vs cotto

 

Duran-Camacho I, and Duran-Pazienza I. Duran-Camacho I is generally considered to have been a robbery that El Cholo should have been awarded. Duran-Pazienza is less controversially in Vinnie's favor, but Roberto did put him on the deck for the first time in Paz's career.

Barkley-Duran. A losing effort may actually have been the greatest performance of the Blade's career, and arguably the best performance of any of the four champions in the process of being dethroned by Duran. During the post fight coverage in the ring, Duran's praise of Iran was by far the most effusive of any opponent he'd ever defeated in the immediate aftermath of the competition. "You're a great, wonderful fighter!" in English over and over, congratulating him on his effort. On that night, Barkley truly was outstanding.