Kovalev - has any pfp fighter declined so rapidly?

I became a fan of the krusher during the Hopkins fight I thought he would be around for ages at the time but I had no idea about his alcoholism

His decline has been swift and terrible

 

Sorry I meant 29, Just go see his fights with Raheem and his rematch with Pacquiao especially the 3rd fight, Morales didn't had it anymore .

 

Some say he’s a full blown alcoholic others down play his drinking problem but it sure does explain his decline especially as I’ve heard the problem got worse after he lost to Ward

 

I don't think it was Pavlik-esque full blown alchoholism, but I'm not close enough to say for sure. I'm sure the cigarettes he was smoking didn't help his conditioning issues, though lol

 

Bowe? He was supposedly shot by Golota (I don't think so).

 

The guy was a half-step away from being a movie villain in an action flick. Heck (and part of me hates to make light of this for comedy), he actually killed a guy in the ring. All that material is a big reason I view Ward-Kovalev (both fights) as the biggest promotional missed opportunities I've seen in my years as a fan.

You couldn't come up with a more stereotypical Russian villain unless you sent him out with Soviet trunks on, vs the American Golden Boy (the last male U.S. Olympic gold medalist, in fact). Both unbeaten. Both with P4P chops. Ward was the darling of boxing media here. Kovalev was still the Krusher, taunting guys like Pascal like he was some second rate clown before finishing him off.

King and Arum in their primes could've turned that into million plus PPV buys without even trying. Instead we get two C-grade promoters (at best). One of them loses so much money on this easy sell that it essentially knocks them out of the boxing business altogether, and the other paid their man so poorly he barely made a ham sandwich for the rematch.

The events didn't do the material justice.

 

El Feroz?

 

He got knocked out by Eleider, a top LHW by all accounts, but how many rounds did he win in both of their fights? The vast majority. How many rounds did Yarde, prob a top 20ish LHW despite his level of opp being laughable, take off of him? Not many. Most people barely gave Canelo a round until the knockout.

His chin degraded. He started having trouble pulling the trigger on his rear hand. Those are pretty typical trajectories for older fighters. He still won the vast majority of rounds in those 4 fights I just named. If we can call him shot, and he can still outbox top fighters in his division, I think that's rather impressive. Honestly it seems like people are emphasizing this to detract from Canelo's victory.

 

Morales fought Chino he still wasn't done

 

There's nothing surprising really, he's not a young guy. He's not the most disciplined. He took a hard loss. **** like this is bound to happen.