Boxers Who Were Great, But Truly Never Lived Up To Their Potential

Kirkland Laing (ABA Champion and beat Roberto Duran) (alcohol and drugs)

Bert Cooper (Trained at Joe Frazier's gym and was a heavyweight title contender)
(alcohol, drugs and promiscuity)

John Conteh (WBC light heavyweight champion) (alcohol and promiscuity)

Buster Douglas (Undisputed heavyweight champion) (alcohol, obesity and no desire to train)

Riddick Bowe (heavyweight champion) (complacent and lackadaisical in training)

Wilfred Benítez (welterweight champion) (no discipline or motivation to train)

Randolf Turpin (middleweight champion) (alcohol , lack of financial literacy and promiscuity)

Leon Spinks (Olympic Gold medallist and heavyweight champion) (alcohol and drugs)

 

Sugar Ray Leonard. 3 years off before the fight Hagler...

 

Several fighters whose careers were cut short by WWII, such as Billy Conn's.

 

It's so strange seeing these two mentioned together. Vitali lacked raw natural talent, but he had immense discipline, stayed in shape, and gave it his all in every fight. Witherspoon had lots of raw talent, but wasn't always in shape, lacked discipline, and didn't give it his all every fight.

Vitali didn't achieve true greatness due to a crappy era and his (understandable) refusal to fight his own brother in what would have been a potentially amazing fight. He had unfortunate injuries in his two most important fights that would have change his resume like night and day had he won them. Once those ships sailed, he never got another opportunity to fight an elite fighter. Vitali was also injury prone and his body began to break down, yet he still tried his best.

Witherspoon's circumstances were the complete opposite. He was active in 2 of the most talent rich HW eras (80's and 90's), and fought a few big names, but came up short for many of his biggest moments. Against Holmes, he was perhaps pushed to a title fight too soon, but despite his lack of experience he did amazingly well (some even think he won). It seemed thing would only go up from there, but he he put in a lackluster performance against Thomas and didn't seem to get out of first gear. He just didn't show up for the Smith rematch, and then his career went completely downhill after that. Witherspoon was honestly his own worst enemy and had issues both in and out the ring he failed to overcome. To think a guy who became a 2x champ is considered an "underachiever" shows how much potential he had.

 

Wasn't that because of a detached retina?

 

Tyson definitely.
Camacho pre Rosario was an exceptional talent. For me, he’s right up there with Tyson as the most gifted fighters I watched live. Within a minute of an opening round I thought “wow these guys are good”.

Michael Nunn blew me away when I first saw him. He really seemed to drop a few levels at some point.

 

I don't really know. Before the fight with Hagler, he had a fight with Kevin Howard, and before that he had a 2-year break. I think it was retirements.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_Ray_Leonard#Retirement_and_return

 

He heavily disappointed me.

 

Riddick didn’t utilise his height and reach advantages (like, say, Lennox) as he should’ve and he was too naturally inclined to slug when he could’ve opted to box more intelligently and make life easier on himself….ultimately too much wear/tear in a relatively short period of time. Omg, the Holy trilogy alone took a LOT out of Riddick.

Deemed potential is a funny thing. Ultimately, the most real thing is what they actually were or evolved into - their “true” potential realised after the fact of actualisation.

 

I didn’t ask for any of this. It was just a pun lol. But on Riddick he found his ceiling anything after the fact was what it was. Just because he fought differently to Lennox doesn’t mean it was an inferior route to take. Tall guys can fight inside as much as the short ones can on the outside. It’s all about what’s between your ears.

 

It doesn’t always pivot on what “you” asked for or not.

The subject was/is Bowe - yes, I “got” the pun……Bowe obviously didn’t avail himself enough of the name sake fitness equipment.

If you have the tools to fight at range it’s not so smart to fight in close and wear unnecessary punishment. Measure the legacy and health of Lewis against that of Riddick and then tell me who did or didn’t take the inferior route.

As you said, it’s all about what’s between your ears - and where possible, minimising the pounding of what’s between your ears is generally a preferred option - that’s IF the fighter has/had enough between the ears in the first place to understand this.

 

Meldrick Taylor

Fastest fighter I ever saw. EVER.

 

Eddie Mustafa Muhammad .. incredible talent, murderous power , a compete head case in his days as a fighter ..

 

Riddick Bowe. One of the biggest wastes in HW boxing talent. He had EVERYTHING. Size, speed (for his size), power and the ability to land it, aggression, skilled at fighting at a distance, shockingly skilled at fighting close up for a SHW, etc.

He easily had the potential to be a top-10 ATG, maybe top-5. Had Bowe been able to stay in top form, the 90's would have been just ridiculous with him and Lewis trading the titles back and forth multiple times.

I see the Tyson comments... interesting thought. I think he was maxxed out on skills for the team he had. Had he been able to maintain focus while adding some serious in-fighting and clinching ability, yeah, that would have been something -- maybe bring in Duran or Frazier as another trainer?

Also, while he clearly doesn't belong on this list in general, can I mention the senior career of Larry Holmes? Had he controlled his weight, he'd probably have beaten Nielsen, become the oldest HW champ at age 49, capped off his senior career as being something more than a contender.