Paul Smith should have been middleweight his whole career. I know he was a two weight world champion but wish Haye had had more fights. Should Frankie Gavin have done more? Prince Arron maybe
Khan's main issue was that with during his time with Virgil Hunter, he was apparently only ever in the gym when he was training for a fight, and just seemed to regress skillwise after being with Hunter for only a little while. Compare this with Andre Ward, who was in the gym most days even when he didn't have a fight scheduled.
That’s what I thought, but they were different fighters. Martinez more of a puncher and Amir had much quicker hands. Khan should have gone to the Mayweathers, sad to say. As long as he had a strong entourage and team with him, which he didn’t, they would have got the best out of him.
Tbf it’s very hard to train somewhere all year around when you live thousands of miles away. Ward lives in Oakland which is 20 minutes away from that gym. I get what you are saying though, as long as you aren’t sparring all year around, you have to train all the time if you are going to be at the top of your game.
Sergio. Maravilla. Khan. Could have adopted a simelar style and at times did under roach. Someone mentions it on comms in I think Martinez v pavlik that Martinez would wait his time.. And then ambush someone. Obvious Khan didbt have Martinez power shots but he could put together combinations well. So for Khan Stay outside and then use his hand and foot speed to raid in and out. He did this at times v maidan a. Hunter tried to turn him to a defensive fighter and after about 2 fights it was fairly obvious that was never going to work Khan liked to attack to much and maybe didn't live the life. But hunter gets a lot of credit for Ward and I'm not so sure he deserves that much. Always felt he was a bit of a fraud.
Boxing is a sport with so many world titles and weight divisions, vacant title shots, weak divisions, weak champions, robberies and so on .. That just merely winning a 'world title' doesn't necessarily mean you achieved a lot or are the best in youur division. I'd say Khan overachieved with all his flaws ..thanks to being a manufactured product given everything on a plate. Kell underachieved because with his talent he should have unified titles, had better names on his resume and won a title up at 154.
Callum Johnson for me. Had problems outside the ring and didn't fight for years then had injury issues. His kd of Bebertiev shows what he could have done. But he's past prime now. Shame.
Vernon Sollas - had loads of talent but run out of puff - allegedly a problem with salt retention. I remember him sprinting out of his corner and walloping an opponent within a second of the first bell in an amateur contest. I would say (I'm bias as I was brought up round the corner from him) that Ken Buchanan, highly rated though he is , could have gone much longer at the top if had not run into Duran. I also agree with someone above that Groves never made the most of his talent. Again he was unfortunate to run into a fierce battler just at the key moment. A little more ring xperience and he would perhaps have gone on to make an even bigger impact
Possibly, but there's every chance he'd have lost a fight at some point if he'd stayed busy, and we've yet to see what happens to him mentally when he loses. Probably better for his longer-term career that things went the way they did.
Last time I saw Junior was in an exhibition bout in Hull on one of the cards St. Paul's put together to showcase its talent. They threw a novice pro called Nathon Smith in there with him, he was doing the old Ingle working men's club routine, just body-sparring here and there while Nathon tried to hit him to head or body. He was still in shape. Weird to see him looking like such a pudding tonight, belly bulging through his tee. Sad and true.