Livingstone Bramble, 24-1-1, big time and then....

It's well known in inside circles that he was a head case.

 

Agreed. Bramble will tell you himself if he didn't have that great jab , no one would have known who he was.

 

He wasn't totally shot after Rosario. It was too quick a KO to ruin him physically,

But I think there was quite a bit of psychological damage which affected his confidence.

He drew with Freddie Pendleton early in his comeback then was stopped on cuts in a rematch

Pendleton of course was much better than his record.

The bunches of loses later on can partly be attributed to the fact he was usually matched tough.

He definately fought on way too long

His defense regressed as well

 

I don't know Bramble was pretty strong and at his best had a pretty good defense and he could switch hit.
I think Chavez wins but it isn't exactly one sided.
I just think Bramble didn't really want to box anymore but didn't know what else to do to make that kind of money that boxing brings.
Camacho was in a pretty similar position.

 

Wow you're obviously a Mancini loyalist

Nobody thought Bramble was going to beat Mancini

It was a huge upset

Yes, Mancini was a nice guy and the Kim incident affected him

But if his head was not still in the game he would have quit straight away after the Bramble loss.

Mancini was very focused on the rematch and lost again.

 

The fact that “ nobody thought bramble was going to beat Mancini” is irrelevant. And no I’m not necessarily a Mancini loyalist. I just don’t think bramble was that good

 

As a kid, I trained at a gym Duva had, and Bramble trained there too. I didn't see him too many times though, this was right before the first Mancini fight.
He was a colorful character and I liked him and was a fan. As a kid you kind of look up to these guys.
In retrospect, he was in reality, probably an average fighter at best. He had his moment against Mancini and took advantage of it. I think after those fights and stopping Crawley, many, (including himself) rushed to rate him higher than he actually was. He got by against those opponents because they weren't big punchers. That changed real quick with Rosario, and I think the fast, devastating manner in which he lost messed his head up.

There can be lots of reasons why a fighter falls apart. Looking at it now, I think with him, he just failed to improve. He stopped growing. Despite having good height, and excellent reach for a lightweight, (I think he had the longest reach of any lightweight champ at one point), he failed to use those tools and improve upon them. He was stuck in one mode and was too predictable.

I also think his training and personal habits hindered him as well. I met him at an amateur boxing tournament after the Carr fight, great guy and loved the fan attention. I also remember him saying he trained at this local gym, but at 2 AM...? I thought that was a strange time to be training. To be on top of your game it's a huge time requirement and you have to eat, train properly, and surround yourself with people that can benefit you.