Fighters who intimated the intimidator

This is more gaining the mental upper hand than actually intimidating but there’s more of this that goes on than most people realize.

At the weigh-in, I think (could have been one of the press events), before Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquaio then came out from opposite ends of the stage. Neither came quite to the middle. Floyd then pointed at a spot and said ‘come here’ and Manny came right to where he pointed.

I never saw anyone make a big deal about it but I noticed. Floyd was the one giving directions.

 

Young Corbett II against Terry McGovern.

McGovern was seen as being this invincible wrecking machine, and his record backed that belief up.

Needless to say most of his opponents were terrified of him.

Young Corbett II showed him no respect, and while McGovern was in his dressing room, he yelled "come and get your beating you Irish rat!"

He ended up knocking McGovern out in the second round.

It would be very interesting to see exactly what happened there!

 

Surprisingly it was Joe Frazier who actually intimidated George Foreman in their first fight. Foreman himself said that he was scared of him.

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I am not convinced. George told him to take them off, & he did in his own time, not when ordered to.
That does not show that he Moorer was either following directions or intimidated.

 

Maybe, but George was often both inaccurate, gracious & modest to a fault when he was the comeback teddy bear.
It may have just been a kind story.

 

I remember that one...Mickey Rourke was on the show with Toney as well when he had a short boxing career.

 

Probably Zoo--Judah.

Hopkins against Tito.

Vargas tried hard to be macho against De LA Hoya but was probably deeply insecure.

 

Fury intimidated Wilder in fight II. He was scared.

 

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Atlas was right about the con bit though..and maybe understanding that about George worked against Moorer....made him dismissive of GF?

 

That's probably a better characterization than intimidated....although Atlas I think is on record about it. Still with Atlas being one of those silly D'Amato 'look into my eyes' pop-psychology acolytes, his views are to be taken with a grain of salt.

Nice...and I think it was Manny and friends who went over to Floyd at that basketball game in 2012 (date?) too.

 

For what its worth, Atlas thought so.

 

Absolutely. Intimidated means to be frightened and put off in an overawed, demoralizing manner. I don't think any Boxer on earth did that to Duran or Tyson. All fighters get scared and anxious, which is different to 'intimidated', and some can get a bit disheartened - how they deal with it shows their character and guts.

It makes me laugh seeing forum posters say a world class fighter of 30+ pro fights is 'intimidated' of a fighter they knowingly signed to fight and risk themselves against. It's asinine.

 

"He is scared cause he looked away" Sounds like something a teenager would believe to hype themselves.

 

Tyson and Durans scariest times where when they were children. A boxers life was more civil then they were ever used to.

 

There’s psychology on both sides of it.

If Mike Tyson thought the other guy was scared, it certainly would embolden him. If he saw a guy who convinced him that he wasn’t bothered one bit, it probably had to shake Tyson at his core somewhat.

But Tyson was a guy who relied to a great degree on intimidation. I doubt Arguello, for instance, ever bothered to try to intimidate an opponent because he was self-contained and self-confident.