Most Visible Mean Streak in a Fighter

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Punching with bad intentions and pure hatred:

Tyson
McCellan
Benn

Long sustained beatings with a mean calculating rub it in your face intent:

Ali

 

Yea , i do think though, on the topic of 'the difference between aggressive and vicious fighters (in the ring)' , its Duran and Margarito, among some others aswell.

But yea, it was eviil how Monzon fought at times!!!!

 

I'll probably be debated to be wrong, but personally i thought Monzon was at his calmest in the boxing ring. I found him cool, calm and collected mostly. Some might say cold and calculating but i've seen him fouled and not even bat an eyelid let alone fire up. I reckon his calmness and clear head was one of his great strengths. I will however look again if multiple posters disagree.

 

Yes, those were bad. But he also held back on several occassions when he felt his opponent was out of it. Against Mathis, Al Lewis, Ellis, Quarry and Lyle he could have done a lot more damage for example. In the fights against Cooper (I) and Williams it also looks like he lets up before the ref steps in.

I think his treatement of Patterson and Terrell are anamolies really. It was during a period when he felt a lot of hostility from large parts of the mainly white american establishment and public. Patterson and Terrell denouncing his conversion to the Black Muslims probably felt like an unforgivable betrayal under these circumstances, and therefore his reprehensible behaviour.

Seen to his career overall I don't think it's fair to call him a mean spirited fighter, though.

 

Tyson is the fighter I've always felt conducted himself the worst in the ring. Not just that he butted, bit, hit opponents on breaks and when they were down, but also the fact that he complained like a little girl when the subject of rough treatment himself. A very good fighter in his prime, but maybe the most deplorable to ever step into a ring. For the same reasons I also have a lot of contempt for Duran.

There is absolutely nothing more pathetic on this earth than a mean badass who folds up and quit when things go against them.

 

Any examples of Monzon's in-ring cruelty?

 

Nah, it's mostly a myth.

 

Tony Ayala.
He fought with an intense, merciless rage and knocked opponents out in an even more brutal fashion than Tyson. Not to mention he spit on one (Epps), kept punching another(Baquedano) after the KO. The Jr. MW/MW divisions at the time were lucky that Tony went to prison.

As for outside the ring, that's an even worse story......

 

I think that after being shot in the arm and shoulder by his wife in 1973 (one bullet stayed in him), and bad hands, it affected his power somehat, so you didn't see the right hand bombs like he used to blow out Nino Benvenuti. After that the the beatdowns, and general punishment he meted out in the ring were more calculated and deliberate. That in itself, plus his generally nasty but controlled attitude could be considered cruel. Monzon was an odd sort of fighter, in that his style was somewhat cold, unlike most Latins, and he did disply sportsmanship like when an opponent lost his balance momentarily or something, he would step back and let him back in the fight, and as it has been noted, he didn't get too fired up when fouled. This is odd when you consider his out of the ring fury and temper against just about anybody at any time.

 

Ok, I guess I see what you mean. But wasn't alot of that just his style? You know, if you're not a one or two punch finisher like alot of heavyweights can be, you do tend to have to punish your guy like Ali did, jab after jab mostly from the outside. It may just be that Ali had to hit his guys more than alot of harder hitting heavyweights did, just to fight his fight.

 

correct red cobra...got there before i did with your post

 

People now don't know, and I was only a kid at this time, but Muhummad Ali's changing his name and religion, refusing to fight in a war he believed amoral(He would have just travelled around Nam, giving exhibitions; never even would have held a rifle in his hands in his tour of duty) made Ali a real trailblazer, a radical thinker ahead of his time, and someone who appeared to be hurt by the denouncements of his own people(blacks), people that probably weren't all that political, but were just taking a stance in contrast to his. "What's my name?" He repeatedly chastised in several fights, right after his conversion to Islam, a conversion that must have been heartfelt, considering what Ali had to give up not to fold up. I can see why he would have been hurt by that. Nobody can hurt us more than our own, right?

 

Good call, Holmes carried that huge chip on his shoulder not just outside the ring but also inside it. If not for the fact that he isn't a born puncher, he would have tons of knockouts. You could really see that vicious-intent look in his eyes, even when he jabbed.


Ali too, in the 60's he looked pretty mean but as he got older, he seemed to lose that and trade it for clowning. Holmes, on the other hand, will probably still push other people off their wheelchairs when he's in the retirement home

 

I somtimes think that the cruelest fighters in history have always been guys who played within the rules and had no concept that they were hurting another human being as long as it was by the queensbury rules.

Dirty fighters are often a little nervous.

 

Jack Dempsey had to have a pretty healthy mean streak. I've always known it, but recently I've read some old articles that pretty much confirm it. I still say that circa 1919-21 Dempsey is the meanest looking fighter I've ever seen. He'd probably have been in prison if he didn't have boxing. And he'd be the guy that NOBODY would have messed with.