Fights That People Remember Incorrectly

Lewis-Vitali: After Vitali's cut he was getting the **** beat out of him more and more with each passing round,,,, TKO6 would have been KO8 had it continued. Lennox Lewis FTW.

Tyson-Douglas: Buster Douglas' "Domination" of Tyson is astoundingly over-exaggerated in many conversations.

Roy J.J.-Toney: While Toney did get whooped, again the "domination" aspect gets overplayed.

Fury-Cunningham: The KD of Fury tends to overshadow the excess of the bout.

 

Agree on ODLH/Quartey. Thought Quartey's 'greatness' in that fight is vastly 'mis-remembered'.

Disagree on DLH/Trinidad. Thought Oscar was giving Tito a boxing lesson. And HBO does have 'Legendary Nights' footage of Gil Brandt instructing DLH to 'stay away from him', so that was definitely told to him in the corner (though not sure if that was presented in the original broadcast). And I think you could make a case that DLH, through that flurry to the body, some hard jabs and parrying alot of Tito's shots, actually won Rd 10.

Interesting topic.

 

Still, Vitali was ahead 4 rounds to 2, with a torn off face. TKO6 would have been KO8? Maybe, but Lewis was tired as hell, it could have been Vitali KO8 Lewis.
Of course I was pulling for Vitali to win, especially after Lewis rediculous comments afterwards. BUT if Lewis would have won that fight, by Vitali quitting on his stool, by judges decision, by knockout, etc I'd have given the man huge props.

Just look at Curtis Steven's last fight. Guy dominates Stevens 10 1/2 rounds, Stevens doesn't even get to put the guy to the ground, and they stop the fight on the feet.
The ref practically carried Cleverly to his corner when he fought Kovalev.
The refs for a Mayweather fight let him hold, and elbow his way to victory.

The refs, the doctors, etc know who to pull for. Vitali had those cuts since like the 2nd round, they never got extremely worse, blood wasn't in his eye, but how convient for them to stop the fight when Lewis is extremely tired. They know who to pull for.

 

Pacquiao/Cotto -- Too many times I've seen people say how Manny "destroyed" Cotto. While an impressive win via TKO, Manny Pacquiao took his fair share of punishment in that bout.

It's the most damage I've seen on Pacquiao's face in some time to be honest.

 

Garcia - Khan - Khan was 'dominating' up until the knockdown. Khan was winning, but Garcia was timing Khan and landing decent shots himself. Just because the HBO team completely ignored Garcia's work doesn't mean Khan was dominating.

 

Dont wan't to start this debate just stating my views. But, have you ever seen the number of stitches that cut required (it also involved inner-muscular sutures)? He would have lost all sight in his eye.

 

Leonard/Hearns 1. People talk like Leonard ko'd Hearns when in reality, Hearns was on the ropes with Leonard pleading with the ref to stop the fight, the ref stopped the fight and Hearns walked to his corner. Hearns never hit the canvas and Leonard was doing more shoe-shining than damage to Hearns when he had him on the ropes. A very premature stoppage in my opinion. Of course I am a big fan of Hearns and never have liked Leonard so I may be a little biased.

 

Well you're wrong about the Ali fight. People had never seen that tactic before so everyone who watched it back then may have exagerated a bit but ali didn't win many rounds in that fight.

He won the first but the rest exepct the last belonged to foreman.

 

Was Ali not up on the scorecards at the time of the stoppage?

I'm fairly sure he was and imo deserved to be.

They might not have seen the rop-a-dope before, but it was working.

 

Mayweather/Judah - Judah had a lot of success early rounds , outspeeding Floyd and at times beating him at his own game . Even knocked him down which everyone seems to forget/ignore . I gave him 4 rounds including the KD . Yet Floyd did what he typically does , he adapted and completely took over the whole fight . Zab had no answer for him in the second half of the fight . But Till this day Judahs performance is so underrated in that fight .

 

An awesome finisher like Ray would've knocked Hearns TFO on the ropes had the ref let him. I don't recall any of his corner complaining either.

 

I'll add:

Calzaghe/Lacy - Not for what happened in the ring, but for the notion that many Brit fans here seem to portray Lacy as some highly popular darling who all of America rallied behind and thought was the next great American fighter. The truth is, he was a Showtime level(when Showtime was FAR behind HBO in quality of its fighters) fighter in a 'stop by' division who was way more 'exciting' than great (think James Kirkland).


I'll add a more recent fight: Cotto-Mayweather.

Somehow on ESB, this fight is starting to be touted as some gutsy Cotto performance that just came up a bit short. Other than a bloody nose, a strong final minute of Round 6, and a few solid jabs, Cotto did mostly nothing but walk forward and get busted up by steady diet of sweping right hands and uppercuts.