Great fighters with zero personality

Lennox Lewis, Evander Holyfield, Michael Spinks, Marvin Hagler.

 

You have to understand - Leonard grew up in Palmer Park, in Prince George's County, MD in poor circumstances. Leonard does sound smart in comparison to many people from that area. In fact, Leonard IS smart. He could easily have become a criminal as many who grew up in that area became.

 

Wlad may be "boring" but he is highly educated and smart. You can bet he'll end up way better financially than many of the more "charismatic" fighters. In fact many fighters with boring personalities ended up very financially secure - Lary Holmes, Rocky Marchiano, Marvin Hagler and Michael Spinks being several examples. Joe Louis did not, unfortunately. And one charismatic guy - Leonard did end up financially secure.

 

Joe Calzaghe had the charm of a freshly laid turd. Good fighter mind.

 

Because he’s black??

 

Definitely comes off as contrived and phony though, like he’s too eager to please...often made him seem vapid during his interviews and his commentator days. Seems like he had more personality when he was young and cocky but probably suppressed it to try to appeal to as many people as possible.

 

He was hanging out with that "gangsta" entourage which gave me a strong impression that this was the case. And yeah, a lot of the black fighters like Stevenson, Wilder, Floyd, Stevens etc have the whole "hood" thing going. I was pleasantly surprised. Ward sounds like a university professor when he speaks. Doesn't mean I like him as a boxer, but he is very eloquent out of the ring.

 

I think that in Liston's case, it was more that he kept his guard up, than any lack of personality.

He could apparently be quite charming in private.

 

And you can't blame the man for keeping his guard up really can you ?
Not after what he'd been through in his life and had to put up with. I did read around children he was also different again , he trusted kids not to **** on him , so you saw a happier Liston around .The guy had a lot of mental scar tissue IMO

 

Sonny was actually pretty sharp

 

Which interview do you mean? I don't ever remember seeing Andre Ward hanging out with any gangstas.

The guys you listed seem very different from one another. Stevens is reportedly an actual ex(?) gang member from one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in America, Floyd is all about the tacky "bling bling" and making-it-rain-on-strippers image, Wilder mostly just yells and boasts like a less polished version of Ali, and I don't know much about Stevenson but he was an actual pimp.

If I were a black American boxer, I would probably adopt some kind of outrageous persona too. Gives some (mostly white) fans conniptions but gets them hooked, and other fans find it funny and entertaining. Either way, it leads to $$$. Andre Ward would have been a superstar if he'd had an outrageous Mayweather-type shtick (or if he'd been white, but that's another matter). But instead it seems like he stayed true to himself as a humble, pious, family man, probably costing himself tens of millions.

 

Well apparently he got himself involved with this guy, somehow:

https://noisey.vice.com/en_us/artic...-a-lot-drake-birdman-diddy-diss-courtesy-call

I don't know too much about US rap and gangs, so I may have the wrong impression, dunno.

 

Michael Spinks? Has there ever been a fighter with a more pleasant, quirky personality than Spinks?

 

Evening Longhorn. Martha Louis was indeed an attorney (just read that in the SI article on Liston which is linked from another thread) which shows that my point about a woman making it as an attorney being unlikely at that time was a load of unsubstantiated crap.

Sonny doesn't sound a nice bloke in that snippet of yours. It's a shame because when he was being nice in interviews he seemed the nicest guy in the world and you feel for him but there is just too much you read about him where he sounds like a bad egg.