Seeing people cite the Klitchsko brothers as being so dominant that they rarely lose grounds got me thinking... What very good or great fighters lost rounds fairly often, for one reason or another. One of the best examples might be Alexis Arguello. Sometimes took him a few rounds to warm up and figure his opponent out, and occasionally had his ass on the canvas. Was trailing at the time of some of his bigger wins, or at least even'ish with his opponent. So, thoughts?
Robinson, Armstrong, Moore, Louis, Charles, Walcott, Marciano, Patterson, Frazier, Holmes, Holyfield, and many others.
Ali is another very obvious answers (I'm bringing it up because I want some non-generic answers, as per usual) First career, back to back dropped quite a few rounds to Doug Jones and Henry Cooper. Throw Bonavena in there as well. Post career he might be the number one candidate of close calls with an ATG. All three Ken Norton fights, vs Jimmy Young and Earnie Shavers. Against Frazier in all three fights. Trailing against Lyle before rallying.
Arguello didn't seem to mind dropping rounds as he broke his oponents down. Danny Lopez didn't actually start fighting until he'd drop a few rounds and get decked.
Meldrick Taylor especially post Chavez....tactical ineptitude\lack of versatility and being an undersized while taking on decent to good opponents Chris Eubank..... Part stylistic issues, part **** stamina\weightdraining and just only occasionally seeming to have all his tools sharp at the same time. Felix Trinidad....stylistic issues and fighting with an eye for the eventual KO rather than building up points. Danny Lopez....slow start, not great overall ability, no pointsscoring side to his game etc there are a fair few of the pure punching fighters that could be mentioned really. Chavez...methodical workmanlike approach to going the full distance, plus struggles at the weight earlier in his career.If you looked at rounds won\lost with the top-tier he fought, he comes off surprisingly badly...Laporte, Lockridge, Ramirez, Pea, Taylor, Randall though simply doing that wouldn't tell the whole story of course. Toney....stylistic issues and laziness.Often seemed to have an "i'll do just enough" mentality. Azumah Nelson...laziness\aging at 130 and often didn't seem to have all of his skills sharp, similar to Eubank in that respect.Just needlessly sloppy at times. Arguello...methodical approach, stylistic issues and usually seemed to fight with an eye to the most efficient, least energy expended way to get a clean KO rather than guarantee a solid wide decision. Galindez...bit of a mix of Toney and Nelson i feel.Not inneficiently sloppy like Nelson though.He made punching with no thought to form work much better for him, but definitely had a just enough mentality about him and often gave up a lot of the workrate and pace dicatating he was capable of in favour of trying to draw perfect counters off the ropes. Most of the 70s light heavies weren't dominant round after round for various reasons, mostly being the high standard of contender of course, but Galindez was the one who seemed to outright give them away regardless of the opponent. Yuri Arbachakov....relatively low workrate for the division, methodical approach and often seemed to be caught in between being a more finesse orientated boxer-puncher and a straight out seek and destroy with great textbook punches type...ending up doing neither to it's full effect.Also was injury prone and seemed to lose a step physically fairly quickly. There's a lot of fighters you can name who were in deep era's just taking on lots of bouts with fighters of relatively close talent, but these ones stand out a bit for a wider variety of reasons i'd say.
Sanchez - usually slow starter, stylistic issues against technical fighters, adjusted during the fight.
