Which Heavyweight Champ Suffered The Most, AFTER retiring?

Discussion in 'Classic Boxing Forum' started by Fergy, Jul 27, 2025 at 8:30 AM.


  1. Fergy

    Fergy Walking Dead Full Member

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    Which champ had the worst time of it, after hanging up the gloves?
     
  2. McGrain

    McGrain Diamond Dog Staff Member

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    Ezzard Charles. Joe Louis second I guess. Marital ruin, financial ruin, mental ill health, heroin addiction, a wheelchair. Bad jam.
     
  3. Reinhardt

    Reinhardt Boxing Junkie Full Member

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    Ali by a mile, Ali was in such poor condition he made Joe Biden look like an Olympic swimmer
     
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  4. Fergy

    Fergy Walking Dead Full Member

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    First one I thought of was Louis.
    But yes,poor Charles.
     
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  5. Fergy

    Fergy Walking Dead Full Member

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    Ali was looking like an old man by his mid 40 s
    Growing up i saw Ali then as actually old, now I'm in my fifty s I realize... **** that' wasn't OLD!
     
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  6. Reinhardt

    Reinhardt Boxing Junkie Full Member

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    I recall a video of Ali with a little mustache training for the Holmes fight, he was wiping off sweat when he spoke to a reporter for a short interview and it was frightening, you could barely understand every 3rd word he was slurring so badly. He made James Toney sound like a British poet. A local boxing trainer saw that and said he ain't got no business fighting, if a local boxing trainer in a small town could see that, there's no way the people around Ali ,who were supposed to look out for his well being , didn't see it either. That's why my opinion of Dundee, and Budini Brown over this incident is very low.
     
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  7. Dempsey1238

    Dempsey1238 Boxing Junkie Full Member

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    Look Ali suffered a lot in his retirement, but I can't put that on the level of Charles.

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  8. salsanchezfan

    salsanchezfan Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

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    First one I thought of was Charles. Unlike Louis and especially Ali, he enjoyed no lasting love from the general public. Ali had the means for a very comfortable life and the adoration of millions to ease his physical ailments. Louis had drug addiction, mental health and money issues but was still adored worldwide and to some extent taken care of. Charles had none of any of that.
     
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  9. Mandela2039

    Mandela2039 Philippians 2:10-11 Full Member

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    I don't remember the details exactly but Joe Frazier was left behind by his hometown Philly
     
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  10. META5

    META5 Active Member Full Member

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    They put up a flipping statue of Balboa - doesn't get much worse than that for me.
     
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  11. Dempsey1238

    Dempsey1238 Boxing Junkie Full Member

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    The statue was a movie prop for Rocky 3, and when filming was over, they were stuck with a statue with having no idea what to do with it.
     
  12. Chuck Norris

    Chuck Norris Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

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    Greg Page. Most of the 80's heavyweights didn't have it easy after they retired.
     
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  13. META5

    META5 Active Member Full Member

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    Melt it down and make some bracelets or fire hydrsnts or something or realise that Philly already had a fighting champ and give Joe his due credit by creating one for him too.

    I know it was for the film but years later, Frazier was Frazier and I ain't ever seen Joe get beat down by no fighter named Clubber.
    Unless, Clubber is supposed to be Foreman and Rocco beating him fighting like the King of Sting(Ali) is poetic license - hey, wait a a minute ...
     
  14. Dempsey1238

    Dempsey1238 Boxing Junkie Full Member

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    Sly did say he took the Rocky Clubber rematch from Ali Foreman of wearing em down, but again both Sly and Mister T know nothing of the art of boxing, as you saw Mister T just swinging lol. And Sly has no defense as his plan is to take as many shots to the head lol. But again they were stuck with a statue and Rocky was a popular movie series, so yeah why not used the Rocky statue to bring in tourism and make money, Does Turkey I think?? Use the horse from the movie Troy with Brad Pitt, don't they do the samething?? Look Frazier is one of my all-time favorite fighters, but for the causal guy that knows nothing about the history of the sport, a statue of Rocky will draw him in, more than a statue of Joe and yes that hurt saying that.
     
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  15. Fergy

    Fergy Walking Dead Full Member

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    I know,when we look back at Ali, fading against Spinks then coming back two years later, to meet a guy like Holmes .
    Like, what the **** was happening in the mind's of the people around him!!