Boxing's most pyrrhic victories.

I prefer to call it an Eylau or Borodino victory.

 

Margarito vs Cotto I

 

Leotis Martin vs. Sonny Liston

 

Erik Morales was pretty much finished as a top line fighter after his victory over Manny Pacquiao.

He was upset by Zaheer Raheem in a tune up fight for the Pacquiao rematch and battered by Manny in the rematch and rubber fight. You could make a case that he was diminishing as a result of the Barrera wars but the victory over Pac-Man in their first classic basically finished Erik imo.

 

Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, led an army into Rome and defeated the Romans in a battle that cost him frightful casualties. When he was congratulated on his great victory, he replied, "another such great victory as this and I am ruined."

 

Anyway, has Tyson-Ruddock II been mentioned, yet?

 

Ali-Shavers. The GOAT had show that when trimmed down to 220 just six weeks after his dismal showing against Young that he hadn't really lost anything since Manila if in peak condition. Yes, I'm indeed saying that if the Champ was in the same condition for Dunn that he would've lost the title to a challenger who really was better qualified than Leon Spinks.

Earnie made it possible for Leon to pull off the upset, Muhammad's timing was forever off after Shavers, and indeed, as Larry Holmes can be seen saying on YouTube, it was Earnie who messed up the GOAT for life.


Shavers was Ali's true Manila.

 

I enjoy all your writing but the damage to Muhammad accumulated from nearly thirty years of organized fighting. Mark Kram estimated that if you include sparring he boxed 20,000 rounds. That's why people who say this fight did it or that fight did it miss the mark.

 

Duràn's title wins above lightweight,it literally curses him to automatically lose his next fight.

 

Another would be Ayub vs Sumbu,that fight took the most of what Ayub had left as a champ past his prime,he gets obliterated by Herol Graham In his next fight...

 

Fury v Wilder may play out that way

 

Tim Bradley vs Ruslan Provodnikov

Roy Jones vs Antonio Tarver

 

Benn and Eubank were never the same.. Benn more so after the McClellan and Watson fights respectively.

 

Johansson v Brian London. Johansson won every round before being knocked out in the fights final seconds before he could be counted out. The next day the Swedish papers were making fun of him and Johansson decided to retire.

Another one is Moore publically campaigning to fight Marciano who was going to retire. If Moore just done nothing he'd be remembered as a lineal HW champ today but he wanted the Marciano fight and he got it.