Sometimes, a fighter doesn't take their opponent as seriously as they should, either because they think they'll win easily, or they're thinking about a future fight with another opponent for a huge payday. When has this happened? I think Tyson-Douglas is a great example. Tyson, by his own admission, barely trained for the fight.
Recently, Zolani Tete. Exposed as the Warren hype train he is (tho still a good fighter). You do NOT underestimate a guy like Casimero. Simple as.
I don't know if Hearns was looking past Barkley in 1988 but he was just on autopilot and thinking he had an easy win. That was enough for most guys, but Barkley was motivated and he came to fight.
Everyone good against Sergio Mora it seems. Maybe he's better than I thought. But I expected vernon forrest and shane mosley to perform way better than that. At least forrest showed his true class in the second fight.
Vivian Harris vs Carlos Maussa Lennox Lewis vs Vitali Klitschko Wladimir Klitschko vs Corrie Sanders Erik Morales vs Zahir Raheem Ricky Hatton vs Luis Collazo Lennox Lewis vs Hasim Rahman Just a few off the top of my head.
I remember around the time that Lennox Lewis fought Rahman he was asked if he would take a break mid training camp to shoot a cameo for a movie if his opponent was Mike Tyson. He admitted that he wouldn't and that he also really didn't regard Rahman as that much of a threat. Whoops! He also arrived in high altitude South Africa 10 days before the fight while Rahman had been already there a full month prior. Clearly looking past Rahman and not paying attention to business as his mind was on Tyson. I'm surprised that Manny Steward allowed all these distractions. He knew better.
He definitely did for 2 reasons. First, immediately after the weigh-in, he accused Banana of being happy just to be there. Second, he seemed gassed after 4 rounds, when he was fighting with his mouth wide open.
Mosley definitely did not look past Forrest. They had history from the amateur days PLUS there’s no way he would’ve made it to the final bell against that version of Forrest without being in absolute tip-top shape. Remember, Forrest made Shane scream out loud with a body shot in round 9 or 10 that should’ve ended the fight. Shane was Sugar that night, just not sweet enough to deal with Forrest.
Both AJ & Andy Ruiz looked past each other, Andy Ruiz over-confidence & self-belief was the main reason he won that fight. If Andy Ruiz didn't under-estimate Anthony Joshua, he would have been much more careful, possibly skip the KD & lost the fight via UD (closer to what happened in the rematch)