Boxers who got better after their first loss

Bernard Hopkins

 

Most of them - If you got knocked out with a right hand wouldn’t you think about it all the time?

 

One loss, though it would affect a fighter's psyche, isn't enough, maybe in the 0 days, but in the past losses were expected on the way up, though obviously you didn't fight to lose. But when they did they learned and carried on.

It surely must have been the measure & inspiration to see it doesn't happen again, or too often for ALL Top fighters... likewise when swimming at the Top, again not desiring the loss, there is always that knowing, this is going to be a hard fight and a tough man to beat.

on the other end, there must have been plenty of Club fighters who at some point early in their careers they knew this was their lot in the Sport too.

 

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/he-lost-his-first-pro-fight-and-then-became-atg.710661/

 

Something that bothers me- just talking out loud, a boxer being KO’d doing everything right, imagine what that must do to your mind.

 

Loads and loads of future world champs lost their pro debut fight - so surely they all got better later on!

 

Sugar Ray Leonard, Lennox Lewis, Sonny Liston and Joe Louis to name 4.

 

Lets add duran before someone else does.

 

Definitely all of those. I will add Marvin Hagler.

 

Benny Leonard

 

Juan Manuel Marquez

 

Nigel Benn comes to mind. And while it wasn’t Dennis Andries’s first loss he showed the sort of character you need. After he got hammered by Hearns what’d he do? Packed his bags and went and trained at Hearns’s trainers gym. And he improved loads.

 

Manny Pacquiao.

 

It would make sense, but seems to me that today, majority of figthers will either lose motivation themselves after a loss, or their promoter and network lose faith in them.
There's big issue where with single loss, fighters stop getting the A-side or prospect/potential star treatment - so no more dates that are known to them months in advance and no more opponents that are picked for them to make them look good.

Life of an A-side is much different than life of a B-side in the sport - and I don't think many have it in them to live through that kind of grind. That's why, I think the rule is rather that They get worse - or pack it in completely.