That's the essence of a great journeyman. Not everyone can be a world champion but being able to give the touted talent a real work out and still lose is what journeymen do. I remember reading an article with Peter Buckley where he talked about this and what his role was. He said there were some of those A-side guys he knew he could beat if he went all out but that wasn't what he was being paid for.
A Few more that need to be mentioned are Ralph (Tiger) Jones, Tommy Tibbs, Teddy (Red Top) Davis and Eddie (Red Top) Owens. None of them have exceptionally pretty records as they fought the best out there and gave their best. But every so often each of them would take out the favorite who got complacent or didn't train especially hard because of who may have been in front of them. Bad mistake.
Buck Smith he was a great journey man. James Quick Tillis tough guy to beat. Joe Baski very dangerous.
He was sort of in that gang life as much as boxing. Hector had been a silver medalist in the 84 games at a lighter weight. Went to prison for assault and lost about 4 years which is alot for an athlete. I don't know if a different manager was all that it would take but a different focus from the fighter himself. Put that life down. I saw him Northern Cal knock a guy out. He grabbed the arena Mic. And said "thats how we do it in the south!" He was talking to the Northern Mexicans in a taunt. That was where his head was. He could fight.
Yes, the fallback of ‘blame the manager’ is easy and lazy if you don’t know anything. Certain people are unmanageable. You can say ‘well if Ike Ibeabuchi had been managed better he never would have ended up in prison,’ but I don’t think that’s true. Nobody could manage that guy because he was literally mental. This is a guy who before one of his fights told his manager (or maybe promoter) he couldn’t fight because the spirits were coming into his hotel room through the vents. The guy went over to the thermostat control and turned the air conditioning off and said, ‘See, it’s fixed, they can’t get in anymore.’ And Ike was fine after that. How the hell do you manage someone who isn’t all there? Hector was a gang-banger and nobody was going to coach that out of him or plot a career course that was going to change that facet of who he was. If jail didn’t convince him to change, no manager was going to do that. It’s like saying ‘If Tyson had stuck with Kevin Rooney ...’ but there’s a reason Tyson didn’t stick with Kevin Rooney or submit himself to any other trainer. He didn’t want to be trained. He didn’t want to live right and work hard. He would fire Rooney or any other trainer who didn’t do what Mike wanted to do. He had walked through the opposition and convinced himself that he didn’t have to follow the rules to keep winning, and after he lost he didn’t care enough to say ‘OK, I guess I do have to train like every other fighter if I want to win’ and wanted to do his own thing to run his own show.
