Who had the most potential?

Witherspoon

 

From what I've seen, Page had a kind of awkward style. I watched his fight with Marty Monroe & he dropped his right hand everytime he jabbed. Did his style evolve & improve? He doesn't really come off as an Ali clone the way I thought he would. Good body puncher but an awkward offensive attack.

 

I would go with Tommy Morrison, he turned pro in 1988, so i guess he's technically an 80's fighter:huh

He had talent, speed, athleticism, power, strength, size 6-2 225, and he was likeable, and as Gerry ****ey would say the right skin tone..

His downfall was booze and *****s which led to a career shut down for obvious reasons, then death, the meaning of the word PROTECT YOURSELF AT ALL TIMES, is more important outside the ring then inside..

If he could have stayed healthy he would have had the biggest payday in the history of the sport around 1997, against Tyson a winnable fight for him, but it everything crashed and burned..

 

Damiani had lots of potential.

 

it didn't improve a great deal, but if he had put his body behind those shots in the Monroe fight, he would have kayoed Marty by the end of the third round.Definitely would've beaten Gerry ****ey, for sure.

 

Weak Chin. That greatly lowered his potential. See Ray Mercer and Michael Bentt Fights.

 

Disagree.

First off, if we're talking 80's a must is to have signed with DKP. If you weren't signed to him, you were never ever going to make the big paydays.

His ability to absorb punches and fatigue factor were a major liability. Then you had his numerous surgeries & he had them throughout his career.


Burial Bill Cayton had all of his young guys get impressive ko's on the way up.

 

People talk about the 1980s heavyweights "wasting" their talent, and being out of condition and indulging in cocaine binges, but actually the 'problem' with many of these fighters was the fact that they were all tied to the same promoter.

This meant that they were not given the same "favourable" treatment that many of the legends were given. They were pretty much matched with whoever suited the promoter, and the promoter had it set up usually so that it didn't matter to him who won.

It was often the case that the best fought the best, and the losers would be relegated to the next undercard and having to fight another tough fight but for increasingly poor paydays.

In many ways, that's a fair system. But "great" fighters are usually given a more calculated career path, and the schedule that Don King put those guys through - with low rewards - ground them down pretty quick. It would be hard to build them up into great fighters on that schedule.

I dare say, if Tyson had come along under Don King's banner from the start, he might have burned out even quicker than he did.

 

Some of them(i.e Greg Page and Mitch Green) had no business of being promoted by Don King in the first place.And they suffered the worse.

 

Good post. I touched on this in this thread earlier or another thread. Don King had a conflict of interest in many of these heavyweight championship fights of the mid 80s. In fact, Tim Witherspoon eventually sued him and this is one of the points his lawyers made. When Tim Witherspoon fought Tony Tubbs in Jan. 1986 Carl King managed both fighters.

Tyson was incredibly dumb to sign with King. I'm sure Cayton informed him of King's shenanigans but Don probably played the race card with Mike and won him over.

Tyson could have remained independent ala Sugar Ray Leonard. He was becoming that kind of star. King needed Tyson more that Tyson needed King.

 

Witherspoon but I can't argue Tucker. Dokes very early on was scary.

Drugs the knockout king of the 80's.