Johnny Nelson started career with 3 losses to become later a WBO cruiserweight champion of the world with 12 successful defences and retired as a reigning champion. Mike Weaver started his career with 1-3 record (with 2 KO losses), and went on to become the WBA heavyweight champion of the world. But I can't recall any greater career turnaround than Quirino Garcia's one. He lost his first 18 fights, but from complete hopeless bum he went on to become a dangerous fringe contender that scored 5 wins over former world champions - Frankie Randall, Meldrick Taylor, Simon Browne and Jorge Vaca (2 wins). Starting his career with 0-18 record he scored 40 wins (29 by KO), 4 draws and only 10 losses in his last 54 fights. Any other examples of great career turnarounds?
One of my favourite guys of all time, Victor Galindez. Only won half of his first twenty-odd fights, went on to amass a 12-2 record in WBA Light-Heavyweight title fights and go down as maybe the best 175 pounder in that period which separated the reigns of Foster and Spinks. Granted, the scoring system used in Argentina at the time meant that draws were a lot more common there than elsewhere, but even so, it wasn't the most promising of starts.
D1ck Tiger went from being something like 19-11 in Nigeria and the UK, where he was often outboxed to going down as a multiple fighter of the year, all-time great middleweight in a very challenging era in America. He did it at a fairly late age too he was about 30 when he first fought in New York.
Hector Lizarraga. He was 5-7-3 to start his career and went on to beat Welcome Ncita for the IBF world title.
Lionel Butler started out 6-11 I believe before he was found by Joe Gossen and went on a 10 straight ko run that included Tony Tubbs? Got his shot then went back to crack. So sad
I was thinking of this subject today and two fighters stuck in my head. The first was Fritzie Zivic. At one point of his career he lost 7 straight bouts. That's enough to deter anyone from the path, but Zivic was one of those fighters who fought often and hard, so 7 straight losses probably meant little to him. He kept plugging away and within two years of those 7 straight he was world champion. The second was Billy Backus. He turned pro and ran up an unimpressive 8-7-3 record before quitting the game. But what few knew was that Billy was trying to be fighter as well as working construction and his boxing suffered from being ill-trained. Something had to take priority and since he was trying to feed his young family he had to say bye to boxing. But two years later he was laid off and needing the money he asked his old manager for a few fights. With time on his hands now for training he went on a winning streak (and losing a few), but he was a full-time fighter now and within 3 years he was world champ.
After a 13-0 start, Antonio Cervantes went through a stretch where he went 2-5-1 ... won 7 of his next 10 to regain his footing ... then won like 28 in a row before losing his title to Wilfred Benitez. What an odd career. Rafael “Bazooka” Limon started 8-5 and became a world champ and longtime contender at 130 pounds.
