Fights that ruined a fighter's career , irrespective of win or loss?

Fires one that came to my mind was Corrales vs Castillo

 

Kovalev was a top 5 p4p fighter when he was robbed vs. Ward (also considered a top 5 p4p fighter until retirement) and he VERY quickly fell off.

Gassiev doesn't seem to be handling the Usyk loss well despite not taking much damage at all.

Gary Russell Jr. had his ego forever killed by the Loma loss and has hidden out for a decade vs. his favorite opponent "TBA".

Tua and Ibeabuchi snatched one another's primes on the same night.

 

Camacho after Rosario
Mesi after jirov
Ruddock after Tyson
Brewster after Liakhovich

 

There are a few cases of winning performances ruining a fighter - the first to come to mind is Nigel Benn, never the same after McClellan and went downhill rapidly (completely understandably, I might add).

I'm wondering whether Andy Ruiz may end up on this kind of list eventually - the euphoria of beating AJ led him to completely lose his discipline in training and turn up for the rematch in an absolute state, following that an overcorrection and loss of too much weight too quickly looked crap and barely beat a very unspecial fighter in Arreola.
Admittedly he's still got time to turn it around and was never an elite fighter to begin with, but he may wind up being that rare case of a good win (without permanent physical damage done to either himself or his opponent) causing the decline... I guess time will tell.

 

I thought about the Camacho Rosario fight, after eating a big shot Hector was never the same fighter again though he fought many times afterward.

 

Saying that sort of takes away from what Ward did to him in the rematch. He was about as competitive in the rematch vs Ward before the stoppage as he was in the first fight. And after being stopped by Ward, he returned with 2 KO wins not too long after that. You're painting a picture that him losing the decision in the first Ward fight caused him to fall off, I don't think there's anything to suggest that was the case. It wasn't till he got KO'd by Eleider Alvarez that it became apparent that he was past it, which was quite a while after the first Ward fight.

 

You spelled whooped wrong. LOL

 

Benn/McClelland neither man was ever the same again after that fight.

Michael Brodie after the first war with In Jin Chi wasn't the same, was stopped in his next 2 fights.

 

I don't think he bothers, of course like fans, boxers sponsors and so on are with different approach after you had lost fight.
To choose pro boxing as career is dumb thing.
More well known boxers in CW division after WBSS were : Bellew who later fought vs Usyk after he had 2 fights vs Haye at HW. Then he retired. Usyk who moved to HW. Briedis who exactly after fight vs Usyk get german proms and some other lads not enough interesting for big markets.
Gassiev announced that he will move to HW, then get injuries and delayed HW debut fight.
Now looks that he does have manager? promoter? who often feeds to his boxerS ( in plural ) non hopers to fight with.

 

I disagree with Mosley. He lost to Forrest who had his number, and lost to Wright who was bigger, stronger, and just better. Other than those two losses he beat everyone he faced including in a four year win streak (if you gave him the Cotto fight as I did) with names like Vargas, Cotto, Mayorga, Margarito, and Collazo in the process.

I also disagree that Tito shortened Vargas' career, aside from losing to ODLH, Vargas did very good for years even beating a very good Javier Castillejo. His punch resistance did seen to have taken a toll a bit, but he did good for six years after losing to Tito.

Same with Victor Ortiz. After losing to Maidana, Ortiz had a good winning streak and some of his best wins against fighters like Vivian harris, Andre Berto, and Nate Campbell.

 

Exactly, Mosley was not by any means ruined. He had some nice wins post Wright, I even had him edging the Cotto fight.

 

He didn't face anyone of note other than Cotto , who he lost to, and Margarito. ONE big win in ten years since the first ODLH fight.
Vargas and Mayorga were shot when SSM beat them. Collozo was decent...but that's about it. Decent. Nothing to write home about. Especially when looking at Shane's career PRIOR to Viper. His style changed, he was more timid and gunshy. His pretty good jab became more a pawing range finder. Viper ruined shane mentally.

I believe pre-Tito Vargas would have taken Castillejo and Flores apart. He didn't look like El Freoz. And that's what this is, how these fighters changed after a big loss (At least for me), for the worse. Shane never looked like SSM after Viper, Fernando never looked like El Feros after Tito.

And if I recall was shaken pretty badly by Shibata (Or maybe it was Javier, been a long while). He was juiced to the gills for Oscar. You really want to count that?

Nate Campell??? Vivian Harris??? C'mon. A win against Berto wasn't bad, can give you that.. Berto got the 'Deontay Wilder string of title defenses', which I honestly believe stifled his growth as a professional boxer. Guys brought in to lose.

 

I just don't think they were ruined.

When I think of ruined fighters:

David Reid after Tito.
Naseem hamed after Barrera.
Gatti after Mayweather

 

Slightly more debatable one...

Hamed after Barrera - fought one more time and just quit.
Okay his condition and conditioning were already on the slide, but I think that loss just took all the desire out of him, and despite taking and winning the Calvo fight he just didn't have the desire to even try and get into the kind of shape he'd have needed to stand any chance of avenging his L.

In a sense his career was arguably already run out by this point so hardly left to ruin, but it was the final nail in the coffin he'd been building for a while