I purposefully chose this as the title of this thread to avoid the lame accusation of 'hate' - the whole point here is that anyone who has seen Joan Guzman fight knows full well that he is a great talent. However, let's look at the facts regarding his career : - Guzman is 32 years old, which given his style, means that he is probably already slightly past prime. - He has never held a WBC, WBA or IBF title. - He has held two world titles, the WBO superbantam and the WBO superfeather. - He has never breached the pound-for-pound top 10. - His resume cannot be said to be anything other than weak. His best 3 wins IMO are Agapito Sanchez, a split decision over Jorge Rodrigo Barrios, and a decision over Humberto Soto. - He has 17 stoppages in 28 wins, but NONE of these have come at superfeatherweight, which suggests he has not carried his power up from superbantamweight. Guzman has won his last 7 fights by decision, the last time he stopped anyone was Feb '04, over FOUR YEARS ago - If he has not arranged a fight by Christmas, he will have fought only once in TWO YEARS. Considering how good Guzman looks when he is fighting and on form, has his career been a total waste?? Do you think he can come back now and beat guys like Campbell, Diaz, Marquez and Pacquiao at aged 32 and at a weight where he surely doesn't carry much punchpower at all? (that's if any of them will even fight him after the Campbell call-off)
he made some money and instead of training he probably spent most of the time banging some fine dominican bitches. but no doubt hes a waste of talent.
TO ALL WHO HAVE COMMENTED: What about my last question in the thread-starter? Can he pull it back now? Can he beat those guys? Joe Calzaghe managed a similar thing when he, in his mid-30s and having won only 1 WBO title, eventually beat some quality opposition in Lacy and Kessler. Can Guzman do the same?
Guzman is done. Having seen a couple of his fights I think he is dangerous enough that people wouldn't want to go out of their ways to fight him in the first place--not that he's being out and out ducked, but that he certainly is a high risk-low reward fighter, which makes it tough to get fights in the first place--but he is also now box-office anathema; no one wants to touch him. You think Showtime was happy they had to cancel that? No way any of the big boys deals with him again, not after the $$$ and embarassment he cost Showtime.
he's backed out of fights now with 3 of the biggest threats he could have faced...he's the one that is ducking really
Yeah, I really liked him about 2 or 3 years ago. Theres a 3 year or so break in his career I think, so you can cut him a little slack, but I was disappointed with what he's done since. I know most or all of his UK fights werent his fault that they fell through, but he hasnt exactly thrown himself into making them most of his career. The campbell fight puts him in a really poor light because the only conclusion I can draw is that he expected Campbell to pull out because he came in overweight and didnt expect Campbell to call his bluff. He's as disappointing as Valero, but at elast Valero has decent excuses for why all his potential went down the shitter.
By the time Guzman is able to rebuild his reputation and begin to secure meaningful fights, his reflexes will begin to slip (if they haven't already) and since that's all he's got, he'll be f*cked. Stick a fork in him, he's done...
Great post. I mentioned in another thread that Guzman is one of the biggest wastes of talent i know when you compare his skills to his resume. As to whether he can compete with the big boys again i think all depends on if Guzman really wants it or not. He looked good in the Soto fight so he is still sharp and his skills are still there. The lay offs, blowing up in weight and his age may have effected him but not to a noticable degree like with Hatton. However it is all up to whether he has the desire or not. He can't just jump in to the ring with Pac, J Dian, JMM or maybe even Campbell right away. Due to his complete disrespect to boxing by pulling out of fights and the fact that, like someone else mentioned, he is high risk/low reward he will have to fight a lesser opponent to build up his reputation again. Will he want to do this? I don't know. If he does then maybe he could do something of note at lightweight. He has the skill but its hard to say how he will fare in this division even if he re-dedicates himself to boxing. Like PACFAN says, his best wins are Sanchez, Barrios and Soto. These fighters aren't as good as the top dogs in the lightweight division so we don't really know how Guzman would fare against a true world class fighter. It really is a strange thing to have a fighter at the age of 32 with the skill of Guzman and still say he is untested at the top level. His career is like the pre-Lacy career of Calzaghe in that respect.
