Worst waste of talent in the history of boxing?

Tyson and Quarry and i have to say Johansson,if he had trained right and disiplined himself he could have done better...
Sonny Liston, damn shame he took dives against Ali

 

How is Quarry "wasted talent?"

 

By not sticking to his greatness as an counterpuncher and followed his instinct to brawl instead

 

well, after the patterson fight, which he ran out of steam rather than be badly ko'd...and the zora folley fight...he went on a 'normal' type of run of wins...he had 15 or so fights before he ran back into the likes of doug jones, archie moore and mildenberger...so, if you ignore his first two fights, did he really rush his pro career to the level it could be called a waste ?

i'm always respectful of your opinion john...just asking fella :good

 

one i should mention now that we have come this far into the thread is our own darren sutherland

 

Bernard Mays and Billy Bello were by most accounts huge talents.

If consensus greats like Benitez, Tyson etc count then throw in Chang as well.Chan-Hee Park and Jiro Watanabe would be better choices though.

Conteh and to a lesser extent Camacho as well.The original Gato Gonzalez had an unfortunate career left struggling to secure meaningful fights for far too long.

 

Two excellent choices :good

 

He would be my first choice :good
Lew Jenkins?

 

WOW! No Buster Douglas mention? One beautiful performance that displayed great talent and then off to obscurity....

 

the max baer one confuses me a little....i have read he lost his killer instinct after the frankie campbell fight where campbell died in 1930...but, in his next fight he knocked ernie schaff out, and ko'd him badly, he was out unconscious for three minutes..he gave him a savage beating from what i read.

all the clowning he is supposed to have done during fights and in training....is that exaggerated or did it really have such a big effect on his performances ?

 

A lot of people thought he was robbed against Holyfield in the trials and that Holy got the benefit of the doubt because his size and style would be better suited to winning gold than Ricky's. Holyfield was scared shitless of Womack and actually cried in the locker room before facing him in one of their six amateur bouts. I have three of those bouts on tape and they are all good. Recently when Tyson and Holyfield appeared together on Oprah Mike was talking about knowing Holyfield in the amateurs and he said that he had heard about this quiet country boy who must have been good because he beat this guy everyone was afraid of named... Ricky Womack.

 

Have you every seen Baer losing to Braddock - that was just awful - just terrible - never seen such a lackluster careless attitude to everything - Braddock shoulda been pummelled out - Baer had huge potential and arguably the best physical attributes of any heavyweight champion ever too

 

Putting aside a hard right hand , good size for 1934 and a soild chin, can anyone tell me about all this skill Baer wasted ? He was not fast of hand or foot. He showed zero defensive ability. He showed zero ring intellect. He never showed a huge heart, in fact he was a front runner. I like him as a terrific, fun colorful character and a good puncher but somehow all this talent escapes me ... did I miss glimpses of boxing ability like a great jab or combination punching or footwork somewhere ?