I'm looking for fights you got wrong. Fights that you thought was a toss up stylistically or fights that you had the loser as the guy with the advantages going in but he got decisively beat. I didn't pick Hatton to win, but I thought it would be a close contested fight and it wasn't.
Ruben Olivares vs Bobby Chacon #1. Nobody thought Chacon would show up "weight drained" and get wiped out.
Fights I thought would be good matchups were: Lomachenko-Gary Russell Rigondeaux-Donaire Ward-Dawson Pacquiao-Hatton Pacquiao-DLH Hopkins-Trinidad Tyson-Holyfield Lewis-Holyfield Vargas-Quartey Judah-Tszyu Mosley-Margarito Mosley-Forrest Fury-Klitschko Pacquiao-Barrera
I didn't think Duran would beat Hearns, but I definitely didn't think it would be that one-sided. I thought Sanchez vs. Gomez was going to be a lot closer than it turned out to be.
It was in his second bout with Ruben Olivares that Bobby Chacon had his most famous weight-drained incident, resulting in him being stopped in an early round and losing the WBC version of the world featherweight title. - Chuck Johnston
Lewis v golata. Going in after what had happened with bowe I assumed golata would give Lewis a hard bruising battle. Golata showed so much in that match, good jab and right hand s and a solid chin. So yep, expected a lot more.
A shout for the Z men---Zamora and Zarate. I liked Carlos a lot back then. Who didn't? But Zamora was a scary guy. I wasn't sure about the fight. One thought was Carlos uses that height and reach and tags Zamora all night long at the end of his punches. And that's the worst place to be. The other side of the coin was Zamora. He tucked that chin. Got low and sprang up real real quick. If he ever got inside those wide arching swings of Zarate, those nice sharp punches would land clean. And nobody wanted to get hit clean by this guy. I really did not think Zarate could be remotely effective deflecting punches or backing up. So it all boiled down to which guy gets hit clean? A Monday morning quarterback kind of fight though since the guy that has his armed raised was going to win in a 1 way fashion. Competitive match sure, but a 1 way fight. Sure do not see matches with the young gunslingers too often, do we? And the loser of those type fights never do seem to bounce back much.
Frank Tate against Michael Nunn. Former Olympic champion, Tate,was considered one of the best of the young guns that were expected to take over the post-Hagler middleweight division along with the flashy eye-catching Michael Olajide and the elusive but dull Michael Nunn. Tate and Olajide were matched up for one of the vacant titles and Tate took the win as Olajide proved to be more style than substance. Tate then went on to stop the once fearsome, Tony Sibson in his first defence and then came the defence against the unbeaten Nunn. Nunn had been steadily improving but was still considered a pretty unexciting and safety first boxer and most thought that Tate would win. However Nunn surprised everyone by giving arguably his finest career performance as he totally dominated Tate with a mixture of lightning speed, reflexes, elusiveness and surprisingly effective hard punching. In the end, it seemed like Tate just mentally gave up such was Nunn's domination as what was considered a good match up instead turned out to be a superb showcase of Nunns talents.
Julio Cesar Chavez vs Edwin Rosario. Rosario was considered the best lightweight in the world at the time and was actually the betting favourite going into the fight against Chavez who was moving up from Jr. Lightweight. Not exactly a mismatch but in the end, Chavez was just giving a masterclass on how to totally beat the resistance out of your opponent.