Best maximizers of potential

Lennox Lewis
Wladimir Klitschko
Evander Holyfield
Bernard Hopkins

 

Who is he , never heatd of him - we are in classical forum.

 

I think Froch achieved about as much as, if not more than, you could expect of a fighter with his talent.

 

Andre Ward and Danny Lopez are the first to spring to mind.

 

Greg Haugen (RIP)
Alan Rudkin
Lou Ambers
Barney Ross (relative to his potential too 10 atg standing)
Horacio Accavallo
Carl Froch
Daniel Zaragoza
Shoji Oguma
Vito Antuofermo
Chartchai Chionoi
Pongsaklek Wonjongkam
Chucho Castillo
Pone Kingpetch
Tim Bradley
Fritzie Zivic
Sammy Angott
Orlando Salido
Brian Curvis
Freddie Welsh
Alberto Davila
Salvatore Burruni

A mixture of standing and ability there no doubt from a slow, unskilled non great toiler like Froch to a highly skilled but physically unremarkable (toughness aside) pure boxer like Ross. Accavallo the ultimate more than the sun of his parts flyweight. Salido an unremarkable but dirty and determined toiler and so on etc etc

 

Quarry squandered quite a bit of his talent with lax training, booze and pills.

 

The best maximizer of potential that I've ever seen? Easily Bill Miller.

James and I were out of the same amateur club for awhile, even had the same trainer for a short while. But they took off, I had no idea where they went. A few years later I'm on a couch, somewhere at a party, drunk off my ars watching James fight for the title. I just remember Nunns on his back and everyone was all shocked. He got up, James jumped all over him and he was now the Middleweight Champion of the World. I was like.... Holy sheet! He did it!

I had never met Bill until I started up at Galaxy, headed by Jackie Kallen. I had originally met her when she just started coming down to our gym. She eventually got a heavyweight out of Chicago and she was taking over as a manager for him. She was always cool and very good to look at. I designed the Galaxy logo for her, when I was 17 or so, when she was just starting up Galaxy.

Back to Bill.... Up at Galaxy we had a solid stable and solid fighters with many good trainers. But Bill was the man up in that gym doe. I had no clue of his training history until many years later. I was reffing and judging the amateurs in Detroit and was up at a new gym in Royal Oak when I ran in to him again. We spent a good amount of time around each other and talked on many occasions. I miss that guy, he always had good stories from his good ol' days (R.I.P) My trainer never wanted me to talk to anybody, while in a gym training, we were there to work. So I never talked to him up at Galaxy. I'm really glad that I got the time to talk with him, Bill was one cool guy.

But the way that Bill trained James...... the results that came from his knowledge and training techniques were amazing. James went from being a good amateur boxer, the last time that I had seen him, to a professional world champion. To me it was simply amazing. So I called up Jackie and got started. We were training at CMI before she opened the official Galaxy. It was a small room in a work out facility in Southfeild, Mi. But with James' hard work and natural abilities, that small room brought up a worlds champion. But it would have just been raw talent if Bill Miller wasn't there to sculpt it.

We lost one great guy when we lost Bill Miller.

 

Excellent. I always liked Gym stories.

 

Yeah,I'd take em,both wasn't so gifted with Bobo only having decent power and Buddy having a good left hook,but both used it to their max potential and went competitive with the ATG's of their era.

 

Great list.

 

Thank you, I have all kinds of gym stories.

 

Tin, Greg Haugen was the very first I thought of on this subject. Probably in my mind as I was watching his fight last night against Tony Lopez. But really, Greg couldn't box, wasn't mobile, wasn't a big hitter, never was a defensive genius, but what he had, he bundled it together and went on to fight Julio Cesar Chavez, Pernell Whitaker, Jimmy Paul, Hector Camacho (twice) and Vinny Pazienza (3 times) in high profile championship contests where he must've made a bucket load of money. Whether he kept it or not is irrelevant, but he went a very long way on minimal skills combined with tenacity.

 

Ray Mancini
Dwight Braxton
Mickey Ward

 

Marvelous Marvin Hagler.
Made himself through hard work and dedication
to the greatest Middleweight in history.