Heart Breaking Fights

Bruno v Witherspoon 1986

I listened to that on the radio and cried when Frank folded at the end.

 

Taylor/ChavezI

Chavez/de la HoyaII

Benn/CollinsI and II

Tyson/Spinks

Norton/Cooney

Duran/LeonardIII

Graham/Brewer

 

I have to be honest, me and the mate out here watched it live and were cheering the lovable Bruno on all the way. We actually thought he might get there at some stages. We deflated as much as he did at the end, given the way Witherspoon looked a Bruno upset would have been poetic justice.

 

The sad thing about this fight is for all his talent, this was probably (with hindsight) Whitherspoon's most impressive performance; what a waste of talent.

 

Personally i like the Holmes effort much better. I actually thought Witherspoon was a little vulnerable in this one to be honest. He did well tho to keep cool and come thru in the end.

 

Louis Marciano

I guess Louis was getting a long overdue dose of his own medcine but it is still sad to see the once invincible brown bomber falling helplesly through the ropes. In one moment going from believing that he can still be the best in the world to realising that he is an old man.

 

Yes, that would be the other Whitherspoon fight that could be argued was a peak performance. It might sound a bit wierd but I thought his revival in the mid 90s was impressive.

Sure it was only Cole and Gonzales, but he shut out a very confident Ice Cole who had shown domminance at 190lbs.

Gonzales still was considered as a lively fringe contender, who had beaten some fair fringe contenders himself, and only lost to Bowe (rather badly) yet Whitherspoon totally took him a part.

And maybe my madness will be comfirmed after the following statement, but I had Whitherspoon beating Mercer 6-4. :think

 

I find Johnson Willard a rather sad fight. He has asked for his wife to be taken away because he knows he is going to loose.

That moment when he is counted out, after all he has been through is the moment when his fall is complete.

 

Forgotten about that one - there was always something pathetic about Bruno when he got stopped, and that one was the worst, mouth open, legs gone, being helped back to his corner.

 

I've mentioned this before but in Sept. of 62 my dad and uncle went downtown to watch Patterson/Liston on closed circuit TV. He obviously got home early and sat on the side of my bed and told 9 year old me that Floyd had gotten blown out in the first. Being my hero, I just laid there and cried my eyes out...:verysad

 

Kim vs Mancini

Nobody thought Kim would do **** against Ray, but he battled with EVERYTHING he had for 14 rounds.... even as his brain was bleeding to death and he looked like a grotesque gargoyle.

 

I'm usually indifferent about this fight. Johnson, despite all his problems, allowed himself to enter that fight in horrible condition. He made Willard look like he was, a big tall galoot with a steel chin and little boxing skill, for almost 20 rounds and then ran out of gas. That's on him. The very thing that made him so great - arrogance - made him so poor in that fight.

 

For all that you are probably looking at the lowest point of his life here. The moment when he lost the one thing he had left in the world.

 

Bruno tyson 2 for me,was more like a execution then a title bout,he looked like he had been forced at gunpoint to fight tyson.

 

Certainly, but it doesn't break my heart. It's hard to feel a lot of empathy for Johnson, who was his own worst enemy all his life. I can't, anyways.