Was Vaughn Bean a good fighter

Average fighter at best. Never deserved a title shot.

 

He could at least make a claim for being the best "Bean" in boxing.

 

Bean did run Moorer close and took rounds off of Holyfield. He wasn't world champion material, but he wasn't that bad.

 

No, he wasn't anything special. Id place him below Alex Stewart, Bert Cooper, Frans Botha, Schultz, those sort of contenders.

 

He was a Scott Ledoux type except he spent most of his career crushing cans. He also showed that Holyfield was really starting to show his age.

 

Bean got a bad press for a variety of reasons, some justified and some not. The quality of opposition in the first part of his career was abysmal, and when you check his record it's difficult to find anything resembling a quality win. He somehow became a fixture in the alphabet rankings, and got completely undeserved title shots against Holyfield and Moorer. He wasn't an exciting fighter, and was obviously reluctant to fight competitive fights for most of his career.

Outside of his control was his ridiculous name, and a frame that looked nothing like that of a 1990s heavyweight. In a more glamourous cruiserweight division with a 200lbs limit he might have done well for himself down there and won a title at some point, but 190 was a big cut for him with little reward at the time. By the time it went up to 200 he was winding down.

To his credit, he did ok against elite opposition, pushing Moorer and Holyfield and lasting 11 with Vitali. He obviously wasn't a complete scrub or he wouldn't be able to do that. His close losses to Thompson, Diaz and Dimitrenko indicate that he was a decent fringe contender, but lacking a bit of weaponry to actually win fights rather than be competitive in them.

I don't think he was quite good enough to be a wasted talent, but he could have had a more credible career if he had took on competitive fights earlier on rather than playing the ratings game.

 

This. He took a good punch ( only stopped once in 46 fight by V Klitschko ) , and had some movement to him. You could say he was competitive with Holyfield and Moorer, and with a top ten talent in Thompson. Decent fringe contender type.

 

No, he decent at best.

 

A disinterested Moorer.

 

Maybe...But Bean didn't do any worse than Botha or Schulz, which were the other fights Moorer had around this time.

 

And an aging Holyfield.

 

Vaughn Bean was a classic spoiler. Nobody looked good against him. And he could basically compete with anyone because he'd slow the fights WAY DOWN.

Bean arguably decisioned Moorer. Probably should've won the IBF heavyweight title that night. Teddy Atlas was so convinced Moorer lost, he quit as Moorer's trainer after the fight. And it was a totally frustrating fight to watch.

And when Bean fought Holyfield, the same thing was shaping up. It wasn't until Holyfield finally floored Bean late in the fight that I was relieved that Evander was going to win. And then Bean seemed to finish stronger. Without the knockdown, and if he hadn't been fighting in his hometown (where he was never going to lose a decision) Evander would've been in the same position as Moorer. That fight was awful. And Evander was just as awful as Bean was.

Sometimes fans embrace spoilers - like Jimmy Young - and sometimes they don't - see Mike 'The Bounty' Hunter (the dad) - and they did not embrace Vaughn Bean.

So, yes, I'd say Bean could fight. You just didn't want to watch him fight, because it wasn't entertaining in the least. Bean was nearly 40 by the time 'names' could comfortably beat him. And I don't know why that was, because he just didn't seem to have anything that should've bothered people so much. But, still, he did.

Classic spoiler.

 

Good post. Bean was the type of fighter that if he did better than expected, it would be attributed almost 100% to there being an issue with the other guy rather than anything positive he did. Even on this thread any "good" Bean performances are given a disclaimer - disinterested Moorer, aging Holyfield etc.

I think "spoiler" sums him up, as he was better at making other people look bad than he was at making himself look good.

Hunter is a good comparison, and I think Bean would have had a similar kind of record if he had fought better opposition throughout his career.