Thank You For Not Boxing: retired on time, Vol 1: Joan "The Sycuan Warrior" Guzmán

For those who didn't know, the Dominican wunderkind retired at the age of 39, just five weeks ago. He spent thirty years in the ring, seventeen of them professional and thirteen amateur. For the bulk of both he was hailed as having all the potential in the world, but in both arenas he came up a bit short in actually proving the promise of his talent by way of deed.

In the amateurs he went a stupendous 310-10. Having over 300 matches and losing just 3% of them, competing with some of the best internationally, boggles the mind. Though few and far between, the losses came at inopportune moments, including one to future Omar Andrés Narváez that squashed his Olympic medal dreams after having been favored to go deep at flyweight based on his Pan-Am games performance. (those Olympic Games in Atlanta were, incidentally, stackedwith big names that would go on to become huge names and long-reigning and/or multiple-division titlists in the pros: Omar Andrés Narváez, Joan Guzmán, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Vasiliy Jirov, Antonio Tarver, Wladimir Klitschko, David Reid, Daniel Santos and Julio Pablo Chacón...along with amateur stars that didn't turn out so hot in the pros, like Tontcho Tontchev and István Kovács; and the mighty Félix Savón and Oleg Saitov, neither of whom ever turned over)

His punch for pay campaign would similarly follow a pattern of dazzling crowds and critics alike, only to have the hype go largely, bitterly unfulfilled. Guzmán had more big fights canceled than perhaps any other elite in a generation or two, due to injuries, stalled negotiations, missed weight limits, and what have you...on top of long periods of inactivity. At the end, he only managed to have secured a few dates with anyone noteworthy over 36 fights...but, tellingly, was still taken seriously enough as recently as last year when he began a comeback following a 23-month absence for it to dominate the boxing media with speculation on possible match-ups with some top 15 p4p types.

Guzmán threads on this forum used to be as prevalent as, say, Golovkin threads are now - and yet Golovkin has arguably faced as many top opponents already midway into his career as his fellow amateur legend did in twice as long. His name was thrown in the hat as, many felt, an inevitable Manny Pacquiao rival when he was still in the lighter weight classes, and one that many actually favored over Pac-Man outright. Even as late as 2012 he was floated as possibly facing Amir Khan and many felt Guzmán would finish what Danny Garcia had recently started by knocking him out and even retiring him - in spite of having fought nobody of note since the Ali Funeka rematch two years earlier. He was at various times favored outright by a majority of fans to, should they have met, defeat the likes of Vicente Mosquera, Nate Campbell, Joel Casamayor Edwin Valero, and even Marco Antonio Barrera and Juan Manuel Márquez! (the first half of those he was actually scheduled to meet, the latter were just presumptive eventual opponents swimming in the same waters...and to be fair, though I love Márquez, he did pretty much blatantly duck Guzmán for Rocky Juarez, not wanting to jeopardize the looming payday of Pacquiao II...)

In spite of all that faith & high regard, his best victories on paper were: Humberto Soto, Jorge Rodrigo Barrios, Ali Funeka, Agapito Sanchez, Terdsak Jandaeng, Ammeth Diaz, Antonio Davis, and Javier Jauregui. That's a very solid list of names, but it ends up weighing a bit light when you consider that his professional career spanned nearly two decades and he spent a good chunk of that on p4p lists and was long esteemed by many fans, journalists and fight game insiders as up there with the very best h2h. Then it becomes a very disappointing reflection of how infrequently he managed to get in the ring with fellow elites...whether due to politics (fights never getting signed in the first place), his inability to remain disciplined and make weight (fights getting canceled last minute), or whatever.

In any event, I'm comfortable putting him at #1 all-time from the Dominican Republic...or a close 2nd after Carlos Teo Cruz. His career sputtered and stalled and broke many a heart, but it ultimately wasn't a bad one and saw him both put on some very enjoyable clinics and participate in some entertaining tussles...sometimes even on the same night!

It would be easy to guess that he only returned last October to knock out the 11-65-1 Kevin Carter so as to not retire off a defeat (his only ever one, to Khabib Allakhverdiev). In truth, he was in fact attempting to mount a real comeback, to finally headline a big PPV event and make a killing while obtaining that elusive legacy-defining victory...but the comeback plans went about the same way the last several years had for him: struggling to find motivation, unwilling to 'get up' for going through a training camp for a mismatch anymore, or to climb his way up the ladder again, tacitly pricing himself out of anything short of a blockbuster deal which he was never going to get with his rate of risk to reward for anybody in his weight range. In hindsight, the smart thing would've been to use the last deal in his Acquinity Sports/Iron Mike Productions contract to go for an immediate Allakhverdiev rematch. He was fairly competitive in the loss and he was never, by that point, going to get a better opportunity to raise his profile up to its previous lofty heights. He really had nothing to lose, as there's little difference in losing once to a particular guy - and no slouch, at that - at the end of your career and losing to him twice. :conf

Retiring, in light of all that, was the smart move. Under-training and getting vanquished by a bum would make for a sad end to Guzmán's story. There's no shame in copping an L to Allakhverdiev. Besides, he was able to officially exit on a W, before Father Time could do a number on his legs and make him yet another punching bag that doesn't know when to quit chasing old (or never-found) glory. There are too many such walking tragedies in the sport already.

 

A defensive whiz in roughly the same class as Mayweather, Whitaker, or Rigondeaux, and yet relished being the effective aggressor... a technician surpassed by only the greats like Márquez or McCallum or Argüello... a physical specimen with speed and power, never delivered in a sloppy fashion (like countryman & wannabe Javier Fortuna, or Shawn Porter, or Andre Berto)...

Rarely do you see all of these rolled into one package. His alternate nickname "Little Tyson" was a bit silly, cringe-worthy and gimmicky (not to mention puzzling as their styles weren't ever that similar), but he was good enough on his own to not have to live in Mike's big shadow. For all the groans he elicited while active, Guzmán leaves behind far more enduring memories of a marvel that captured boxing fans' imaginations and earned him staying respect well beyond the merits of his tangible accomplishments. Tato, papi chulo!

 

More guys discussed over the years in earnest as Guzmán opponents/victims:

Yuriorkis Gamboa (man, what a dream come true at 126lb or 130lb...)
Zab Judah
Marcos Rene Maidana
Robert Guerrero
Rocky Juarez
Alex Arthur
Juan Urango
Érik Morales
Scott Harrison

He also regularly smacked the bejezus outta world champs and contenders on a regular basis in sparring (Celestino Caballero, Jorge Linares, Ashley Theophane, Argenis Mendez, Urbano Antillon, Jack Catterall, John Watson, John Murray, Diego Corrales - AFAIK he got the best of all of them and creamed many), adding to his legend.

 

Yeah, good defense, how annoying!

 

:good

I definitely agree that Judah and Naz have superior résumés, but you can definitely argue that he passes the eye test with a higher score of h2h value than either of them.