Name fighters who were great in one division but looked ordinary when they moved up

He didn't do well against guys who would've beeen cruisers either.

 

Did anyone Foster's own size actually beat him? I don't have the time to dig through his record right now but I'm not so sure he ever was...

 

Jorge Ahumada drew with him on the last fight of his Lightheavy championship career (exclude those later "comeback" type fights).

Also, he lost to the much underrated Mauro Mina on Mina's home turf (in slightly over Ltheavy bout)
Foster was in his 13th pro fight. Mina was 45-2-2.

1963-11-07 : Bob Foster 176 lbs lost to Mauro Mina 180 lbs by UD in round 10 of 10

• Location: Estadio Nacional, Lima, Peru
• Referee: Jose Salardi

Foster was knocked down for a count of eight in the 9th round

 

Lomachenko's performance over Rigo is very overrated.

 

John Conteh was one of the few who when moving down in weight improved.
Conteh fought his first 18 fights at HW and Muhummad Ali told him he would
be a better LHW . Conteh listened and later went on to become WBC LHW
Champion.

 

Russell, I dug up Mauro Mina'a page on Boxrec (I know, consider the source)...and noticed two things...
1. What a record...only 3 losses...including a not ready for prime time Bob Foster....Mina was never stopped either. He never won a title, but still...53-3-3 ain't half bad.
2. Then I noticed that all but 4 of his fights were fought in his native Peru...mostly in Lima.
I bet that if you looked up "home cookin'" you'd find ol' Mauro's picture next to it.

 

Willie Pastrano is another example of improving when moving down in weight.

 

I disagree. Sure Rigo was old and undersized, but he DOMINATED a guy who scared everyone. A guy known for his beautiful defensive skills, and bone breaking power. But my god did lomachenko have every answer most guys would consider a nightmare. I put it on the level and perhaps even higher than Ali's performance over Cleveland Williams.

 

Gr

Great call on Moorer. I remember a young, hungry, angry 175 pound Moorer being a monster in every sense of the word.

 

The problem with Foster boils down to was size what he had trouble with, or quality?

From the beginning, he lost to Doug Jones, Mauro Mina, Ernie Terrell, Zora Folley, Joe Frazier, & Ali

But that also is a list of his best opponents except for D-ck Tiger, who was 39 and had moved up from the middleweight division, and was probably really more like a modern super-middleweight.

Bottom line is Foster also lost to 2 of the 3 best light-heavies (Jones & Mina) he fought.

Carlos Zarate is similar. His best three opponents were Gomez, Pintor, and Fenech. He lost to all of them, but Pinter was not a bigger man.

I guess the question I would ask is--if you lose to most of the best you fought, were you really great?

 

Meldrick Taylor.Moved up to welterweight looked great against Davis but wasn't as good at welterweight Lacked size and power plus he liked to go to war rather than use his speed .Getting destroyed by Norris didn't help ether.

 

David Haye was the best Cruiser in the world then he never did much at HW.

 

Broner looked great at 135, neither above nor below.