Fighter with the most LEGITIMATE excuses for bad performances?

Your scorecard was merely your "opinion", unshared by literally anybody. Unless you were a judge that night, your opinion is irrelevant. As I said, all three judges had Ali ahead by a significant margin at the time of the stoppage, so their was no chance Bonavena was derailing anything.

 

It's not really common knowledge these days, but it was at the time lol

 

Also, Machen didn't have a bad performance at all. Here are the words of his manager.

"That was one of the best heavyweight fights ever put on anywhere," Flaherty said after the bout. "Both of them looked like real professional heavy weights. I'm happy with the draw."

It's just that people need to excuse Machen's performance because if not, Williams couldn't have been this one-dimensional sloppy slugger, everyone on this forum thinks he is. If it were anywhere near true, Machen would've exposed it and wiped the floor with him, as he did Valdez, Dejohn, Jackson, etc.

 

I seem to recall he had the flu or something akin to that, in my opinion he didn't look like he was at his best for that fight.

 

I chatted with a Latin boxing historian named Jose Corpas about this. He told me that Zarate had symptoms that resembled dengue fever. Zarate had little real time to recover but was threatened with legal action if he pulled out.

 

Sonny Liston in the Lewiston fight with Muhammad Ali. Between The Mafia, Ali's Religious ties, Liston's belief that Ali was completely insane/possibly possessed, and the fact that Liston was probably born in 1917, give Sonny a little slack!

Edit: Adding 3 more excuses: 1. Jersey Joe Walcott never counted over Liston. 2. In reality, Nat Fleischer stopped the fight, from outside the ring, and convinced Walcott that Muhammad Ali was the winner. 3. Liston was "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered." And, to be fair, so was Walcott.

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Is "he's not that good at fighting" a legitimate excuse?

 

I think your sarcasm radar is broken.

 

Post Covid Povetkin has good excuse he looked like a zombie in the Whyte rematch. I don’t think the loss will effect any career analysis of him.

 

Gilroy was hugely respected in his day.

 

Although I don't think he could ever have won, the agony Floyd Patterson was in, caused by a trapped nerve in his back was clear to see in his first fight with Ali. Floyd fought with pitiable courage that night.

 

Odlanier Solis against Vitali. He tore everything in his knee.

 

I’m gonna say it. Sugar Ray Robinson vs Joey Maxim. No way in hell does maxim win that fight without the near heat stroke Robinson suffered

 

As much as I dislike him, I gotta mention Margacheato and, weirdly, for being in both sides of excuses for losing while fighting Miguel Cotto

Margacheato - Cotto I: It was never proved but word is Margacheato had his gloves loaded in this fight, and we need to remember that in his next bout (against Mosley) Margacheato and his trainer were caught tinkering with his handwraps.

Margacheato - Cotto II: Ironically in this fight it was Margacheato the one with a good excuse for losing, because the injury to his right eye, which had already been badly damaged by Pacquiao to the point it almost cost him Margacheato his boxing license.

 

That wasn’t the Holyfield fight. It was Foreman.

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