The Valiant Loss

Wlad Joshua springs to mind. After dominating for over a decade at 41 he goes to war with Joshua in a final fight performance for the ages. Silencing all the criticisms of his heart that should never have been an issue in the first place.

Kevin Kelly vs Hamed. Always liked Kelly but felt that he was just being set up to be a sacrificial lamb for the heavily hyped Prince’s American debut. Comes close to stopping Hamed and goes out blazing in an exciting war.

 

Pintor Gomez. Already a big Pintor fan befor but that fight took it up a few notches. Same with Escalera vs Arguello. Yaqui Lopez

 

Danny Williams

The fight was Williams vs Mark Potter. It had been a gutsy fight that he was losing and then this happened....

This content is protected

 

Vitali Klitschko against Lennox Lewis. While I have always messed with the Klit-lickers for whining about this fight, Vitali fought hard and gave a good effort in defeat.

Zeljko Mavrovic against Lennox Lewis. What the hell did Mohawk have in his chin?

This content is protected

 

Hector Camacho after being systematically beaten down and tortured by Chavez. He showed he balls as well as flash that night. He lost like a man.

 

Good pick. Yes ,Camacho proved that night he had heart .Something people said he lacked .A good few fighters may have just sat down and not come back out again ,against Chavez .But Hector went to the bitter end .

 

Ken Buchanan went out on his shield, and even moved to NYC seeking a rematch, but "no dice".

 

Probably Ricky Hatton , I thought he was a bit of a bum , but for 6 - 8 rounds he ran straight at Floyd and went in there to truly win.

Most other fighters Floyd has fought didn't go this way and just went the 12 and accepted the pay check.

 

If anybody ever deserved a rematch, it would be Buchanan....shame on Duran for not giving Ken another chance.

 

I always liked Camacho...thought he was the real deal before the Rosario fight, but he truly won my respect for manfully gutting it out the way he did vs Chavez.

 

Yeah well, I'm may be in the minority here but my overriding feeling about Wlad after that fight was not, what a fantastic effort he put in or showed what a great champion at 41 he is, to push Joshua so hard but disappointment in him because he should have won that if he had just stepped it up when Joshua was gassing instead of being his usual cautious self.

The fact that he turned down imo, a winnable rematch didn't exactly change my opinion of him either.

 

For me it was Vitali against Lewis.

 

Holyfield-Bowe I springs to mind.

It's easy to forget now how Holyfield was viewed at that point. He had struggled with ancient Foreman and Holmes, and late sub Cooper. To a certain extent these wins look better in retrospect, but at the time he was heavily criticised by a public and media who expected their heavyweight champs to be dominant wrecking balls like the guy he didn't beat for the title.

The gallant loss against the much larger Bowe helped solidify Holyfield's warrior reputation, and focused people on what he was rather than what he wasn't. Holyfield was often the underdog in many of his subsequent fights, but he was always respected and admired. Even when he was expected to get a hiding (like Holyfield-Tyson I) part of the concern was that he was so brave that you'd have to completely destroy him to keep him down.

 

Leonards loss to Duran was very respectable and showed he could gut it out and take it. Hearns loss to Hagler was valiant for mine. I thought Gomez showed great heart vs Sanchez. Witherspoon was excellent in his narrow loss vs Holmes. EMM showed fantastic heart under the late circumstances vs Spinks. Rosario took a flogging like a man vs Chavez then endlessly chased a rematch. Nelson vs Sanchez. Rosario vs Camacho. Arguello vs Pryor.