Sharpest Declines

Arroyo was in too many wars.

 

I think weight affected him against Honeyghan but he was walking back later in the fight against Mccallum and was going to pay for it eventually. He did have his moments early on.

 

He looked pretty impressive over Mike"Giant"White and Bernard Benton. Benton was too small for him but White was a tough guy who had beat Buster Douglas and gone the distance with Michael Moorer. Garcia just went right thru the 6-11 Mike White.:bbb He was a cool dude i use to train with him at Bennys Jet center and we used to eat lunch together alot, i was only a teen back then so i looked up to him, this was around the time he was getting ready to fight the great Teofilo Stevenson, who just had to much experience for Alex. Garcia had only been boxing a little over a year at the time. His nickname on the streets was "Jaws", a notorious kick ass street fighter.

I though he was cool in the movie Diggstown when he was taking it too Lou Gossett and James Woods gave him a thumbs down to take a dive. Garcia owed his buddy a favor and fell

 

Jeff Fenech.

Worked over Nelson in the first fight then got hammered in the rematch.No shame there but then he gets stopped with a single shot by the light punching Calvin Grove,retires,comes back beats a couple of nobodies and gets stopped early by Phillip Holliday.

He never looked anywere near as formidable after the first Nelson fight though.

 

Meldrick Taylor.




The sight of his physical and mental decline will forever break my heart....

 

Which automatically makes me think of Ray Mancini. In a wildly improbable twist of fate, Boom-Boom never won again after defeating Chacon, while Bobby went 7-0 over the remaining four years of his career (ditching Freddie Roach, Art Frias and Rafael Solis in the process). At the time Mancini-Chacon took place, Ray was still just 22 years old, while Schoolboy was 32. Boom-Boom was a dedicated trainer. He did not decline due to letting himself go. The Kim disaster had an effect on him which he was never able to shake, however.

 

A lot of that was due to matchmaking, Chacon was already past it when they fought where as Mancini was at or near his prime. Chacon beat Frias(faded),Roach (just barely) (he would have killed Roach if he was still in his prime) . The losses Mancini suffered were to elite fighters at or near their prime Bramble,Camacho,Haugen.

 

Jim Lampley was on point during the Espana fight when he said it was tough to watch.

Having Taylor fight Norris was a terrible managerial move.

I sort of parallel Taylor to Fernando Vargas, a young undefeated champ with a deep amateur background who went in there in a unification bout with a much more experienced, Latin champion. Both Chavez-Taylor 1 and Trinidad-Vargas were classics that ended in 12th round stoppage wins for the more experienced guys. Both Taylor and Vargas took too much punishment in general, never fully recovered after those brutal beatings although they were still formidable fighters and had some good performances (the Davis win for Taylor being better than any of Vargas's post-Tito wins).

I hope Vargas's path doesn't go the same way as Taylor, but unfortunately I've read stories about Vargas having financial problems and planning a return to boxing.

 

Gabriel Ruelas the man was a beast when he won the title against Leija and i thought was on his way to greatness, for a brief period i felt he was a legend in the making. After killing Garcia he went downhill big time, when he lost to Nelson he was just a shell i think he said something to the effect of seeing Garcias ghost in the ring. He had a war with Gatti but wasnt the same a prime Ruelas would have easily handled Gatti.

 

I liked that performance against Leija. Gabriel was a pretty agile fighter who got really low and had some slick moves in there. He was the better of the two brothers.

That uppercut in the 2nd round which scored the knockdown was a thing of beauty.


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IhfJVh82Tw[/ame]

 

Thanks good stuff:good One of my favorite performances by any fighter. I remember also being real high on Leija who had convincingly beat Azumah Nelson in the fight before this. This is what made Ruelas's win even more impressive,since Leijas was a much better fighter than the one some of the noobs here saw later in his career.


I heard Ruelas's got some of the moves off Michael Nunn back when they were stablemates, when Nunn was in his prime and the Ruelas brothers were up and comers under Goosen.

 

Gavilan post Saxton and Cuevas after Hearns

 

Morales - although it was due to the three wars with barrera and then diving head first in Pacquaio. He looked great in the first fight defeating Pacman and then lost to Raheem, 2 brutal loses to Pacqaio and another loss to David Diaz - has since returned but hasnt looked great aginst his two opponents so far although his quality has allowed him the victories i fear he may be on the end of a serious beating if he fights a high calibre opponent

 

Jimmy Young is the first one that comes to mind. Losing twice to Ossie Ocasio only one year after beating George Foreman,and running Ken Norton extremely close. Wilfred Benitez is another.

 

Yes indeed. We all know why that happened now,I think.