Funny to see people greet Teper loss as an exposure. 30-40 years ago it wouldn't really have been treated as anything significant. For instance, George Chuvalo would have welcomed that result. He had a similar standing to Teper. Chuvalo usually lost to semi contenders, rarely won. The difference is that contenders/fringe contenders fought more each other often back then. A loss was less surprising to a borderline contender. Now it's used to invalidate the contenders status. In reality, the only thing that's changed is the frequency in which contenders/fringe contenders face each other. Now it's invalidating for such a loss. In the past it was expected, because such matches happened much more often and the occasional loss was expected. Not really defending Teper or Hammer, I guess just defending the modern era.
That "0" is a really big deal days. But anyway, the thing that was exposed about Teper was his stamina, which was pretty good before the doping suspension. I remember how he took over the fight against Duhaupas in the second. Last night, he was too tired to throw punches in the last couple of rounds
In all fairness, I thought Hammer boxed brilliantly. Even though a lot of it had to do with Teper just being overrated/off the roids. Just go around to watching it and Hammer completely outboxed him from the backfoot, even looking slick at times. There was a couple of occasions where he moved out of the way and Teper ran head first into the ring post! Easily the most complete performance of his career - I'm impressed. Hammer definitely studied the Duhaupas fight, but did a better job at not sitting on the ropes for extended periods.
