Boxing’s best second careers

Roberto Duran also needs to be mentioned,. he retired after the second Leonard fight, after the Kirkland Laing fight he was unofficially retired and then after the Hearns fight,l he had several comebacks and what cemented his legacy to me as a top ten of all time was really his win over Iran Barkley because Iran Barkley was almost a Hall of Famer and Duran who was considered old had won his first title 17 years before which at the time was the longest gap between first and last title, and became only the third boxer to win 4 titles and the first Hispanic to do so.

 

Interesting thing about Baldomir: I met him and he seemed to be a genuinely nice guy at the time. He even gave me his autograph and a small Argentine flag he carried with him. I really liked the guy for a long time after that. Then he goes and does that. i went from liking him to hating him in no time, The thought of him makes me want to puke.

And you are right, Baldomir just didnt have the guns to beat Quartey. He would have given it a good go but would have been overmatched, I give Ike 7 rounds to take care of that piece of ****.

 

Hopkins had a crazy redefinition after back-to-back Taylor losses to move up and dominate Tarver, I don't think it was expected he would be SO good at 175. It wasn't a break, but I would say he really redefined his legacy with the Tarver, Pavlik, Pascal fights.

Amir Mansour had 10 years off of boxing due to prison time and came back and had a bunch of bangers and was a lot of fun to watch and made some money. His second career was his "real career".

 

Not to be picky but Duran was fighting less than 9 months after SRL 2 and 8 months post Laing.

I’d say one has to be retired or out of action at least 18 months for this to count, so no relatively brief interruptions or guys who retired and unretired in the blink of an eye. Let’s stick to those who were truly gone for a significant amount of time and actually made an impact when they returned.

 

He was off 18 months between 1984 and 1986...

 

Don't hold me to this, but I think George was the oldest man in any weight class to win a lineal title, until Hopkins broke his record. (Hopkins might be the single most impressive example of longevity in any athletic sport.)

 

How can Vitali not be mentioned ? He retired as champ in his prime due to injuries. He came back after four years w no tune ups to regain the title in his mid thirties, defend the title nine times and retire undefeated. I get nobody likes Goliath but he’s vastly underrated.

 

True. Vitali's comeback was really impressive.

4 years off the ring, came back at 37 to fight then WBC champion Sam Peter, and in a span of 4 years, went on to score 10 wins in 10 title fights.

Larry Holmes is another one who hasn't been mentioned yet.

His late career after brutal KO loss to Tyson was impressive.

Went 20-3 at the age of 41-52. Scored big win over top-5 undefeated Ray Mercer and challenged Evander Holyfield at 42 for an undispuded HW title.

At 45, lost a razor-thin decision to WBC titleholder Oliver McCall who was coming off big KO win over Lennox Lewis.

That's pretty impressive.

 

Clinton McKenzie. Doesn´t quite qualify as it was 17 months and 19 days but should get an honorable mention.

He had lost 4 of his last 6 bouts including his last 2 with him being violently koed by Tony McKenzie (no relation) in his last bout. I think he had retired but not too sure.

His 1st bout he beat ranked but inexperienced Chris Blake, then he survived a hellish left hook to outbox future British light-middleweight champion and IBF World title challenger Ensley Bingham before taking the Southern Area Light-welter title from Mike Durvan.

Then he faced the huge punching Lloyd Christie (Errol´s brother). Clinton held a narrow points win over Lloyd but Christie had gone from strength to strength from that fight by destroying Tony McKenzie in 3, hammered the brave Mo Hussein in 12 in another defense and destroyed the undefeated Chris Blake in 1 round to win the Lonsdale belt outright.

Lloyd was a big favourite but Clinton fought the fight of his life to outbox the British champion to take a hard fought decision and win back his coveted title for the 3rd time.

 

This too is just under the criteria. Ayub Kalule spent years boiling himself down to 154 at his manager's behest and he appeared to be done after the Mike McCallum fight and retired. But did stage a comeback 17 months later at his natural middleweight poundage (He actually turned pro as a middleweight and won the Commonwealth middleweight title and was duking it out with Sugar Ray Seales, Kevin Finnegan and David Love before his manager decided jr. middleweight was barren with more opportunity). On his comeback at the age of 30 he won the European middleweight title and beat Sumbu Kalambay and Lindell Holmes along the way before meeting his Waterloo at the hands of Herol Graham. But not a bad comeback.

 

Not to mention a razor thin loss for another alphabet title vs Nielsen at age 47 ...

 

Kalule never seems to get enough credit for getting off the floor twice to floor Kalambay and win on points in Italy for the EBU title. Kalambay went undefeated after Kalule, beating the undefeated Herol Graham and beating Barkley (would win world title in 3 divisions), the great McCallum, Robbie Sims and future WBO champ Doug DeWitt in world title fights before running into Michael Nunn´s terrific left cross.

He also travelled to England twice during this comeback, 1st to crush undefeated puncher Jimmy Price in a round and in his last fight where he gave Herol Graham a tough fight before being stopped in the tenth.