Fighters who had their best achievements past their prime

Maybe, but i think he was in great form at the time of bludgeoning Patterson, also a lot of people argue the point that his actual best achievements resume wise were earlier in his career. But that wouldn't be a foregone conclusion by any stretch of the imagination, winning the championship is massive, so this one may qualify, just some food for thought

 

Those weren't his best wins, however.

How about Jack Dempsey? Some consider the Sharkey fight his best win.

 

Ricky Hatton. Spent ages defending the WBU title. You could argue he was just found out at the top but still think he would of fared better if he had not spend so long fighting for the WBU.

 

That's the first one that always comes to my mind.


Schmeling-Louis is a big one too that I don't think has been mentioned yet.

I'd say Winky Wright's big wins in recent years (Tito, Mosley, Quartey) fit here as well.

 

BHOP beating tarver and pavlik and nearly beating JC
THomas Hearns beating Virgill HIll

 

winky wright was another who did his best work in his later years
Juan Manual Marquez is another

 

hagler was getting on when he beat hearns
Morales when he beat PAC

 

Many interesting cases, but for me Foreman is the main man.

Foreman's comeback (or Foreman II) is an unique case for several reasons:

1) it is not just that he was way past his prime. It is that Foreman II had been totally gone for one decade!!!.

My impression is that a boxer can be past his prime and declining, but, as far as he stays in the game, he can still keep some juice inside and be a contender. But Foreman had been away of the ring for 10 years when he came back. How hard is that?

2) in opinion of many, Foreman II came back as a much better Boxer in almost every sense of the word. The young Foreman was a slugger. Foreman II was smarter, wiser.

I think that somebody (Dundee?) once said that while young Foreman was outsmarted and outwilled easily by Ali, Foreman II wouldn't have fallen by the rope-a-dope trick. Had Foreman II showed at the Rumble in the Jungle, He would probably have been a more dangerous rival.

3) Foreman II is great not just for defeating Moorer. He also gave Holyfield (who was on top of his game) a real fight, same to Morrison and Shannon Briggs

 

Joe Calzaghe scored his best wins in the twilight years of his career (Kessler, lacy and BHOP)

 

I think it would be fair to say that Carlos Monzon peaked against Bennie Briscoe in'72, when he outboxed and outfought Bad Bennie over 15...but his best quality showing may very well have been his final fight..his up from the deck swan-song vs Rodrigo Valdez..who, for all intents and purposes, would have won the Middleweight crown that night if it were against anyone else. Unlike the first time these two met, a year earlier in'76, Valdez was ready and more focused, unlike the first time, when he had just gine through the shooting death of his brother. The rematch had a past his peak Monzon hitting the deck in the second, a shot that would have been the prelude to, if not the finishing shot, a follow up beating and perhaps a ko for Valdez, again, if he were fighting someone else besides Monzon. To me, bouncing right up from that shot, as though nothing at all happened, showed what an underrated, all time class A chin Monzon had, and the subsequent rounds, where there was a seesaw type of deal going on, gradually became Monzon's masterpiece, where he out generaled, outboxed and even cut and hurt Valdez in the last two rounds.

 

I agree with that, and it should be kept in mind by all the detractors of Joe Calzaghe that it was because of brittle, often vbroken hands that Caklzaghe had to alter his style and punching technique to what is often contemptuously and wrongly referred to as "slapping". It was indeed in his last fights, past his prime that he scored these victories, and let's not forget the Jones fight, for though Jones was past his peak, J.C. was not exactly a spring chicken himself, and he didn't just beat Jones, but outclassed him as well.

 

Lewis simply got lucky he cut Vitali, who was winning the fight on all scorecards, and everyone knew it. Even Lennox knew he got lucky--you can tell by how overly defensive he is in the post-interview. It's one of his worst performances, not his best.

As for the topic, I think Foreman's entire comeback career is unsurpassed as far as fighting well beyond your "prime". He reinvented himself and was in some ways a better fighter. In a sport where your prime is more critical that any other. No one else in boxing has done that to such a degree.

 

Yeah I hate it when a fighter gets lucky by busting someone up and winning a fight.

Worse still when a fighter goes and ruins the fighter leading on points by knocking him out.

I think there should be a rule against these sort of flukes!

Archie Moore was the worse though; if you saw the first Durelle fight, you would be so sick, you would never want to see another fight.

In fact I am so angry right now, I just going to come out with it; Archie Moore is a cheat, and not just a one time cheat, he must of cheated on at least 125 occasions! We do not need people like that ruining our sport.

 

Ali was the 1st man that sprang to mind.

 

After Ali beat Liston in '64, the thing you heard alot from the fans of Liston was "it's lucky for Clay that he didn't fight the Liston of the late 50's. There's a mystique around that version of Sonny Liston. Some genuinely believe that the Liston of '58-'59 was the peak version of Liston.