Which Boxers surprised you?

I don't know, mate. Early in Fury's career, he was a bit of a clutz. People always bring up the time he uppercut himself, and that was bad, but his overall game and technique was not what it would become.

I was never that impressed with his footwork early on. He was constantly getting himself squared up when coming forward, always backing up in a straight line, and there were a few occasions when he was literally running backwards when being closed down.

I had heard the rumours that he was a beast in sparring and was doing things there that he wasn't doing in an actual fight. I just wrote them off as sparring stories. Turned out it was true. I'm not sure why Fury didn't show his whole skillset early on. Maybe he thought his opponents weren't good enough and he could just trundle forward and wear them down with his size. The step up in competition certainly brought out the best in Fury.

 

ok the self uppercut was pretty funny. I give you that.

 

It's ok baby girl, here have a hug from me.

 

Andrew Selby. He was class but lost interest in boxing. Then he came back and they sent him to fight away from home in Mexico. He could have done really well but his mentality let him down. I don't know exactly what his problems were, so I could be being harsh. Very good amateur as well.

 

It's not beyond the realms of possibility. England has not been particularly good at diagnosis, and it can often require a frustrated parent fighting in the child's corner to push one through. Some studies estimate anywhere between 150,000-500,000 adults under 40 are likely undiagnosed.

 

The US I think does better on this issue because schools can take a role in diagnosis. My wife is a public school teacher and is able to refer kids up the chain for evaluation. When she does that, guidance counselors get involved, bring the parents in, etc.

Teach enough kids, you learn to spot the ones on the spectrum real quick I guess.

 

Real quick one for me is Sabastian Fundora. Kid is freakishly tall and long but is susceptible to a clean shot to the mouth quite often. He needs to work on using his size and length to his fullest potential. If he could keep someone off him thru 8 rounds he can cruise or look for the KO. He definitely has skills and can throw a good 1-2, but make some adjustments on the feet use the length he could be champion for alil while

 

Joe calzaghe surprised the hell outta me.

 

Just a case where safety first paid off imo. Not much to split Hatton and Calzaghe up until the point Hatton lost to Mayweather. I think Calzaghe turned it around with the Lacy win tbf. Followed up with a great win against Kessler.

Ricky was unfortunate that he ended up facing 2 generational greats in their prime whereas Joe faced two generational greats far past their primes. I think if you take them fights out Joe still probably has the slightly better cv. But Ricky should have bettered it. He was never beating mayweather or pacman but he could have and should have beat some other really good names. Combination of Warren holding him back and protecting his cash cow lead to him probably underachieving in terms of names on his cv. I agree that calzaghe gets slightly overrated. He was careful and it ended up paying off for him. But the way i remember it Hatton was seen as the better of the two up until Lacy/kessler/mayweather defeat. Then it flipped. But Joe would have went the same way against say a Roy Jones in his prime and Ricky would have beat a comparable level Lacy in his division and possibly a comparable level Kessler.