Lesser Known Comebacks

Herol Graham's comeback was surprisingly successful considering he had looked an entirely shot fighter when he initially stopped fighting.

It did give us the truly appalling Pazienza fight though.

 

Lyle came back in 1995 at age 54, and went out a winner, going 4-0, albeit against mostly nondescript opposition. Still, he weighed 222 for that last bout, approximately matching the highest weight of his prime, suggesting that he'd managed to get himself in pretty decent shape. (Not too surprising, as he resides in one of the fittest regions of the US.) He was old enough to be the father of all four victims he knocked out.

 

Little Red was inspired by Foreman, and made an ill fated attempt.

 

He sure did. Horrible fight to watch and danny had nothing.

 

What the hell was he thinking, going in with an injured hand, and considering the two beatings Sanchez retired him with?

 

Jack Johnson campaigned for another title shot in the mid 1920's. He beat Jack Thompson, Homer Smith and Pat Lester, three decent opponents but his performances were extremely boring and killed any chance of him being taken seriously again.

 

Arguello's post Pryor II semi-retirement run I feel is underrated.

 

They were probably lower to 10 opponents at the time, and today, one or two may have even been alphabet title holders, so it was a pretty good comeback.

John L Sullivan is another good one. He campained for a shot at Jim Jeffries, with a win over another fringe top 10 contender in Jim McCormick by KO. At the time, Sullivan claimed (quite correctly) to be the the reigning LPR champion.

 

So do I. If I recall correctly, Pryor is the only 140 pounder who so much as made the distance with Alexis.

 

Bob Foster's comeback was barely covered at the time and nobody ever mentions it here or anywhere else. I'm still trying to figure out what he was trying to accomplish fighting Bob Hazelton twice.....

 

Which was different to his normal performances how??

 

Even more boring than his normal performances, let's put it that way.

"So bad was the bout that the boxing commissioner, sitting at the ringside, fined each fighter $500 for stalling. In the 10th round the referee left the ring (and replaced by promoter Sam Tolan), while a shower of cushions, pop bottles and other missiles were hurled at the boxers." Tacoma News Tribune

Also people were getting used to the likes of Dempsey putting away their opposition in the early rounds and the old Jack Johnson efforts just weren't enough to capture anyone's interest.

 

I respect Johnson but gee he's hard to watch.

Even in the Burns fight there's not a lot of excitement.

I watched a highlights package of that fight on youtube (I think) and the best the voice over guy could come up with was stuff like "wow look at how Johnson ties him up here" and "Johnson looks like he's going to attack here but backs off and ties Burns up again.Masterful".

He's one for the purists alright.:dead

 

I don't mind watching the highlights but 20 rounds of Johnson-Moran is enough to put anyone to sleep. Johnson vs Flynn was entertaining in its ridiculousness. Flynn's sole strategy seemed to be to rush Johnson and knock him out with leaping headbutts.