Isn't it normal for these goofballs to talk about how God is on their side and God either meant for them to lose or win...Manny, Mayweather, Holyfield, Tyson (Allah, God), Foreman, Ali, SOG Ward, on and on and on. I find it eye-rolllingly fascinating.
If you read my first post, "...Ruddock devolves from a potentially talented fighter into a one punch pony.". I make note of the fact that he was a boxer at one time. He fought Weaver early in his career in 1986, before Ruddock devolved into a "one punch pony". I find it hard to believe sometimes that he knew to box at all. For example in the first fight with Tyson, he suddenly strings together a deadly punch combo in the round before the fight was stopped. Why couldn't he do more of that leading up to "the smash"? I used to really like this guy, but the more I found out, the less I liked him.
Many people bang on about Razor Ruddocks fight two fights with Mike Tyson. He fought like a complete ******, against Mike Tyson. No Jab, and hardly any straight punches. Just one shitty left hook, and afew other punches...which i don't even know what they where. He could of made the fights with Tyson allot easyier on himself, if he would of learnt how to throw straight punches, and use his jab.
I tend to agree. He could have been a lot bette3r than he was, and another era would not have seen him propeled the the stars.
I agree Razor criminally neglected the rest of his arsenal, he had a hard accurate jab and a very good right hand .Floyd just could not get through to him.
It's strange though isn't it that us fans, ok we boxed a bit, coached a bit etc. could see that Razor needed to use his excellent boxing skills to set up the big punch but he, a world class fighter didn't seem to know about the boxer he was in his early career-he was never famed for his power early on but his skill.
He had alround skills until the press and tv got ahold of him (after the Dokes KO) after that he played the role of KO artist and knew it could land him a few big money fights.. it did and it also ruined his chance of growing into a very top class boxer puncher... He sold out.. and got greedy...
Agree with you to an extent. Ruddock never lived up to his potential because he was always trying to load up on the big left-hook-uppercut smash. It still puzzles me how this fighter, that most followers of the sport had his jab almost on par with Larry Holmes abandoned this very punch that earned him his nickname. Even worse is that Razor had a solid right hand too and could have put better combinations together against Tyson, Lewis and Morrison.
I started having my doubts about Ruddock after viewing his 1989 match with James Smith. Bonecrusher was 36 years old, very out of shape and off for while when he entered the ring with Razor, and landed a shot in the second round that damn near ended the fight. His performance against Dokes diminished some of my skepticism, but I never truly had confidence in him to be a long standing force in the division.
I don't know about ending the fight, Ruddock got up laughing and didn't look too hurt (he absolutely wiped out on the knockdown but that was a bit of a Razor trademark!) But still, yeah, Ruddock shouldn't have been open for those kind of blows in the first place from Smith, in a fight he otherwise bossed. It's not just that his technical boxing went, it's that he seemed to regress. When he tried to jab again under Paterson, it was like he always seemed surprised to be throwing them.
If you acknowledge that he started out with talent and potential before "devolving", then why do you take issue with people cooking up What-If h2h scenarios for fun? I haven't seen anybody on here claim that he was even one of the greatest of his era...only that he perhaps could have been.