Francesco Damiani

Good article! Kudos.

 

Oh, was it that far up the timeline? Mike was starting to unravel at that point imho. I don't know if he would have done better than Douglas, who was on fire, but things could have been very interesting. Damiani should have taken the 500K vs Tyson and taken his chances in the ring! But I suppose he thought he deserved more. He didn't have a name in the States, and Mercer put a full stop to that strand of thought.

You could say that. I never heard of "Dennis Du Ploy"

 

I wasn't even aware till just now that Johnny du plooy had passed away. I was looking at damianis record and wondered what happened to du plooy. Then read he died several years ago. The curse of the heavy weight s strikes again!

 

Yes. He was a chiselled specimen in his prime then became very fat when he retired. I think he died of a heart attack.
It's a worrying phenomenon.
That's why it's no laughing matter when we see a young guy like Tyson Fury putting so much weight and perhaps heading in the same direction. Whether the man plans to fight again or not, it's not a good development.

 

Yup. I read an interview with him and he wasn't doing too well in his final years. He wistfully reminisced about when he had a million dollars in the bank and how, as a young fella with no sense, had blown the lot. Pretty sad, really.

 

Isn't that a warning for quite a few boxers to be honest. They get the high purses but only till there winning. When there best days are behind em that's when they could do with the money. To late by then for so many.

 

If indeed he avoided Holyfield for fear of getting hurt, then why would he jump at the chance of fighting Tyson? That argument doesn't make sense.

 

I have watched some Damiani's fights recently.

He looked more like an office worker than a pro boxer, but in reality he was a very good boxer.

His fight vs Biggs impressed me. Damiani won every round and stopped Biggs on cuts in 5th.

Damiani looked good vs dangerous and hard-hitting Du Plooy, stopping him in 3 rounds.

Vs Ray Mercer I think Damiani was already past his peak, still outboxed Ray comfortably - 6 rounds to 2 - until Ray catched his nose with an uppercut.

In his last pro fight Damiani has fought Oliver McCall, that fight is on Youtube.

Damiani was clearly past his best, but it was an even fight in the 1st half, then younger McCall started to land more and more punches.

What surprised me in the McCall - Damiani fight that Francesco took many hard power punches from McCall and never went down.

But when McCall landed hard right hand in 8th and broke Damiani's nose once again (like Mercer did), the Italian turned his back and refused to continue.

His broken nose was the reason of his 2 stoppage losses.

 

Poor Damiani didn't have an Achilles heel, he had an Achilles nose But the McCall fight 'no mas' was probably more a result of the nose breakage on top of his bad conditioning. I've read an interview where Damiani said he was probably only 60% for that fight and should never have taken it. Maybe he needed the payday. Painful payday ...