"Great Expectations" - Fights that should have been great !!... but were poooooey

Douglas v Holyfield
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Douglas owned Tyson and future champ Oliver McCall with probably the best left jab since Liston......6ft 4 and two inches taller than the Real deal, Douglas had a height and reach advantage over Holy and like Hearns v leonard it should have been enough to make a superior all round fighter have a 'Real' problem (see what I did there ).....But sadly there were always two Buster Douglas.....the guy that half heartedly slapped TNT Tucker about until he couldn't be bothered and quit and Tokyo Joe....

The fight was pushed back from September to October 1990 because Buster had been pigging himself and he eventually came in at 245 instead of the 231 against Tyson....

The odds went from 8/11 Holy and near pickem to 4/1...and Buster did Bo diddly and quit on his backside....

Probably one of the greatest Heavy battles was robbed from us by a loser mentality who fulfilled his potential when he had severe Family disasters and probably wanted Tyson's head to take out his frustration on....


Bramble v Rosario
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Bramble was a top class pressure fighter and Rosario was the biggest hitter since Duran....Tasty fight if ever there was one....Called the "Preamble to Bramble" because everybody expected Camacho v Bramble to follow soon and as they were both nutters it was eagerly awaited to see the hype and whether Bramble's voodoo witch would come out of temporary retirement to put a spell on the Macho Man...(Mancini was nearly turned into a lizard )

Alas after an even first round...Bramble backed off to the ropes and let Rosario beat him up (No attempt at holding)..He swore he was thumbed later but it was still amateur night.....could have gotten up as well but he didn't want to know...

Would have been a great fight had Bramble applied himself like he did in the opening round but maybe banging the drums outside Rosario's hotel room at 2am the day before the fight took his concentration away from the job....

Good question, Truss.

I'm struggling to think of a highly-anticipated mega fight which should have been a classic, but which ended up being a damp squib to top Trinidad-De La Hoya, though.

It was being talked about as the Hearns-Leonard of its time. Talk about having all the ingredients: the Puerto Rico versus Mexico rivalry; both in their prime and undefeated; both known for having flashy and exciting styles, and on top of that it was seen as the fight which would define the winner forevermore.

In the end, two of the best and usually most enjoyable fighters in the world somehow contrived to serve up an absolute stinker. And even the verdict wasn't all that popular, just to put the tin hat on it. Annoyingly, both of them were back to having Fight of the Year contenders soon after against Vargas and Mosley.

88Chris05 wrote:Good question, Truss.

I'm struggling to think of a highly-anticipated mega fight which should have been a classic, but which ended up being a damp squib to top Trinidad-De La Hoya, though.

It was being talked about as the Hearns-Leonard of its time. Talk about having all the ingredients: the Puerto Rico versus Mexico rivalry; both in their prime and undefeated; both known for having flashy and exciting styles, and on top of that it was seen as the fight which would define the winner forevermore.

In the end, two of the best and usually most enjoyable fighters in the world somehow contrived to serve up an absolute stinker. And even the verdict wasn't all that popular, just to put the tin hat on it. Annoyingly, both of them were back to having Fight of the Year contenders soon after against Vargas and Mosley.

Good call....Oscar and Tito was a snore.

Suppose Bonecrusher smashing Witherspoon in one round lulled us all in to thinking Tyson would be a shoot out....

I disagreed to a certain extent but I think People got spoiled by Froch v Groves 1 and didn't see the chess match coming for the return...A great ko probably saved a relative stinker.

Wlad vs Haye.

Haye had talked himself up SO much during the build-up. I think most people were expecting something at least half exciting. Perhaps even a changing of the guard - Haye was exciting to watch and always talked a good fight.

Instead we got a jab, jab grab lesson from Wlad and the occasional attempt to throw something from the outclassed and classless Haye, who then blamed his toe. Prick.

Mr Bounce wrote:Wlad vs Haye.

Haye had talked himself up SO much during the build-up. I think most people were expecting something at least half exciting. Perhaps even a changing of the guard - Haye was exciting to watch and always talked a good fight.

Instead we got a jab, jab grab lesson from Wlad and the occasional attempt to throw something from the outclassed and classless Haye, who then blamed his toe. Prick.

Great choice there, even when we lost the feed noone cared :-)

Can't believe noones jumped on with Mayweather/Pacman, a great show by Mayweather who never seemed to step out of 2nd gear and made Pacman look as ordinary as any have done. I know the excuses are abound but Pac just seemed to wilt under it all.

I loved it as see it as a defensive masterclass but a lot of people expected a massive barnstormer.

a personal one for me and not a massive fight but John Wayne Hibbert Vs Dave Ryan 3.

JWH had said he'd quit if he lost and he just didn't look at the races at all, 3/4's of the way through Ryan got a back injury and JWH caught him right in the sweet spot and DR couldn't get up. A win all the same saw the popular JWH carry on and DR seemingly went quietly. We never did get the rematch and I thought it could have been a main event on it's own after 2 absolute barn stormers.

Both guys fanatastic ambassadors for the sport imo.

Mayweather/Pacquiao I think depends on how you thought the fight would go beforehand. It played out exactly as I thought and even now I wonder why people expected anything other than Floyd cruising to a points victory, that reach is very difficult to get inside when you don't have the speed advantage. Maidana showed the way to an extent, just maul your way in but Pacquiao was never capable of doing that, inside he couldn't win and he couldn't win from the outside either.

On domestic level i'd go for Burns/Mitchell, expected a barnstormer but instead got a one sided beatdown.

Soul Requiem wrote:Mayweather/Pacquiao I think depends on how you thought the fight would go beforehand. It played out exactly as I thought and even now I wonder why people expected anything other than Floyd cruising to a points victory, that reach is very difficult to get inside when you don't have the speed advantage. Maidana showed the way to an extent, just maul your way in but Pacquiao was never capable of doing that, inside he couldn't win and he couldn't win from the outside either.

On domestic level i'd go for Burns/Mitchell, expected a barnstormer but instead got a one sided beatdown.

Any of Burns last few fights on sky were just depressing, I like the guy and he was a great boxer but time seemed to catch up to him very quickly.

Quigg Frampton - That was supposed to be a huge fight, 2 guys close in skill (allegedly) going all out to show who's number 1. And then Quigg came in with the completely wrong game plan and just couldn't turn it around.

Harrison Haye - Okay we knew how it was gonna go but really that bad with the ref having to tell them to actually box.

Any of the youtube 'stars' boxing bouts.

Hattons comeback fight (the first time)

Calzaghe vs Lacy - Great for the Calzaghe fans obviously but was supposed to be a lot closer and a real danger for Joe.


Edit - Sorry i forgot to address Souly's points - I think we all got dragged up into the hype, we should have known that Mayweather would fight like that, it wouldn't be quite as easy as the Pac fans would have us believe but still we thought it would be competitive. Manny really let himself down imo with it and then the excuses afterwards. Should have known he would get 1 shot at May. And was gonna say Maidana ran him closer too. Good shout there bud.

Good shout on Mitchell-Burns there, Soul. Mitchell really let himself down with that performance, because to me there's no doubt he was the bigger talent of the pair. Losing is one thing, but getting blown out like that? I guess that fight was reflective of their careers overall. Mitchell the gifted but complacent slacker who couldn't keep it on the straight and narrow outside the ring, and Burns the gritty, determined competitor who gave absolutely everything he had, was always trying to improve and squeezed every last drop out of himself, from (relatively) unimpressive raw material.

Mr Bounce wrote:Wlad vs Haye.

Haye had talked himself up SO much during the build-up. I think most people were expecting something at least half exciting. Perhaps even a changing of the guard - Haye was exciting to watch and always talked a good fight.

Instead we got a jab, jab grab lesson from Wlad and the occasional attempt to throw something from the outclassed and classless Haye, who then blamed his toe. Prick.

Great shout... Haye with the t-shirt...The disgusting R**e comments and then ran like a thief..

The UK public gave Haye far too much time...

Imagine insulting thousands of Brits that made the effort to go to Germany by saying he was injured and couldn't plant his feet..

Certainly No class...

Terry Norris against Paul Vaden was supposed to be a thriller but ended up disappointing, too. Norris was still pound for pound material at the time and was looking to unify against Vaden, unbeaten as a pro and with a brilliant amateur career behind him.

The bad blood between the pair was palpable as Norris had confirmed that Vaden had been having it away with his ex-wife, and their gym mates had told tales about how they couldn't be anywhere near each other because of the disdain which boiled over whenever their paths crossed.

Norris even went so far as to say that, for the only time in his career, he wanted to kill his opponent and inflict absolutely as much damage as he could.

In the end, Vaden completely froze on the night and performed so poorly and with such little ambition that the Pennsylvania Commission said they'd be withholding his purse. Norris, for all his talk, never really looked like getting a stoppage despite having a guy in front of him with barely any intentions of hitting back. Maybe a sign that, despite still bring a young man, he was fading a little already.

But a pathetic way to meekly surrender a title by Vaden.

Bramble v Crawley.......The butterfly was a quality technician and the fight was pickem....But he fought as if he didn't believe and got a one sided slap....

Tate v Olajide....Bought the Olajide hype and if you gave him more than two rounds of this 15 round fight you need to see a Doctor....

Norris v Taylor.....Wasn't sold on Terry back then....Old Curry and Leonard...caught the beast cold and Taylor had the fastest hands in Boxing.....When Norris was just as quick at 150 it was all over..

Hagler vs Duran............Roberto couldn't hurt Marv so we all expected Marv to pressure him and force a resolution early against the game Panamanian......Instead he wanted to show the World he could box and nearly lost to a wily over matched opponent in a pretty much stinker....

Nunn v Kalambay.......The crafty Italian veteran had already outboxed Graham... McCallum and Barkley....But forgot to explain he was hopeless against Southpaws....