your favorite boxing myth?

thread title says it all really what is your favourite myth which has built up around a fighter or an event over the years?

my personal favourites:
Tyson was never the same after Cus died(despite the fact he he died early in his career and before he won the title against Berbick)
and
MAB knocked out Naz(which of course didn't happen but ive lost count of the amount of times I've heard it)

Pep won a round without throwing a punch.

Just because I think it'd be great if it were true, an utter humiliation of his opponenent.

Never heard that one about Cus..Wheelchair..

Tyson was an 8 round fighter when Cus died beating Sammy Scaff types and two years down the road from losing to the great Henry Tillman...

Wasn't the same when Rooney left for sure !!.I've heard that one..

Always been fond of the myth ....Fitz Wife shouting "Hit him in the slats Bob"...

She could have been the female Eddie Futch !!

That all boxer's have big red hands.

ive heard the Cus excuse several times, for example my uncle who is a massive Tyson fan always uses it as to why he didn't fulfil his potential etc I just think its garbage.
Can anyone tell me if its true or a myth that Ali was about to quit before Frazier did in their third fight? I heard conflicting reports so just wondered if that was myth

No, I think Ali himself pretty much confirmed that.

Though I think it is a myth that Ali asked for the ropes to be loosened for 'rope-a-dope'.

Yeah, I've heard the Gus Tomato excuse many times too, Wheelchair. Or little bits of misinformation regarding his death (such as it being right before the Douglas fight etc). Also linked to the myth that Tyson had apparently become a really balanced, kind, level-headed and content individual under Cus' guidance and only reverted back to being a horrible, cretinous thug once he'd passed away. He was always that same thug - D'Amato just went along in covering it up.

With regards to Ali in the third Frazier fight, I suspect it's six of one half a dozen of the other. Most things I've read or seen about it suggest that Ali may have been mumbling lines such as "I can't take anymore of this", or "I've got nothing left" and so on....So when Futch kept Frazier on his stool, a few people naturally get caught up in the idea that had Futch delayed his decision for just a few seconds longer, the course of boxing history would have been greatly changed. makes for a good story and 'what if?' scenario.

When you look at the state Frazier was in throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth rounds, and how much punishment he took in them, Ali and Dundee would have known that all they had to do was stay upright in the fifteenth to get the win. I can't imagine either of them were seriously considering chucking the towel in at that stage....But of course, you can never know for sure.

Ali did definitely ask Dundee to cut his gloves off and call the fight at the end of the fourth round against Liston, though, when he was temporarily blinded by that mystery substance. Ali suspected a stitch up and wanted to make it known to the world, but Dundee yelled at him that if the fight ended there he'd never get another shot regardless of whether it was a stitch up or not, drenched his eyes and gave him one simple instruction to get through round five: "Run!"

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Never heard that one about Cus..Wheelchair..

Tyson was an 8 round fighter when Cus died beating Sammy Scaff types and two years down the road from losing to the great Henry Tillman...

Wasn't the same when Rooney left for sure !!.I've heard that one..

Always been fond of the myth ....Fitz Wife shouting "Hit him in the slats Bob"...

She could have been the female Eddie Futch !!

I'd agree with the Rooney point Truss, and Chris I think Teddy Atlas tried to get Cus to let Tyson go and one point but I forget the incident which kicked it off, Teddy also predicted that Tyson would get DQ'd against Evander before the fight

Least favorite myths

That the black bottle had any impact on the Pryor-Arguello fight.....

That Steele didn't see the red lights flashing behind Taylor when he stopped him...

That Lennox Lewis decision to be British had nothing to do with the bigger British market...

That Vital would have beaten Lewis by a stretch, one of the silliest statements I've ever heard.

I wasn't going to go into the Vitali Lennox debate again after all the debates about it on here recently

That Curry was weight drained before the Honey fight!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That catchweights make no difference

Another myth is that Pacquiao has juiced his way through the weight divisions. Unfortunately as we get older, some humans put weight on. Its the metabolic rate slowing down. Some people refuse to believe this and think he should have been a Flyweight his entire career.

That Floyd is Top10 p4p ATG........

to be fair Jabby Manny was connected for a while to Ariza so you can see how he was suspected

A good one, is that after Ali was knocked down by Cooper in their first fight, Ali's glove had to be replaced causing a delay to the start of fifth round which was supposedly minutes while they looked for a replacement glove. All the while, Ali was recovering and being saved from a certain knock out defeat when the next round started.

The glove was not replaced, and the delay to start the fifth round was only five seconds. Which considering the fight was back in the sixties, could just have been a mistake on the timekeepers part.

I've heard that JuanMa Marquez has never lost a fight in his career, the record is an aberration caused by dodgy officiating.

Also heard that Lewis fought Lewis looked like Buterbean's distance brother in the Vitali fight. Unconfirmed reports give him a fight night weight of 525lbs.

One I particularly like, I think it was posted by Dave, is that the only reason he doesn't like Froch is because he suspects Carl is mistreating Rachel.

kingraf wrote:I've heard that JuanMa Marquez has never lost a fight in his career, the record is an aberration caused by dodgy officiating.

Also heard that Lewis fought Lewis looked like Buterbean's distance brother in the Vitali fight. Unconfirmed reports give him a fight night weight of 525lbs.

One I particularly like, I think it was posted by Dave, is that the only reason he doesn't like Froch is because he suspects Carl is mistreating Rachel.

To quote your namesake Mr Benitez, these are not rumours, these are FACTS. Carl is just not very nice to Rachel at all and abuses her in the bedroom. She is forced to call him her "four time World Champion trench fighting warrior" whilst looking at his nose a NOT laughing herself silly otherwise he tells her in great detail how he would have beaten Joe Calzaghe had they fought and that he's due more respect than Joe and that he's a better dancer than him (although in fairness, he's not wrong on that last bit.)

I just think Rachel could do better and find someone who will treat her like a Goddess and a bloody good start would be for her to join the forum and PM me naked pictures of herself....I'm just saying!

Completely agree with the 'Cus' death caused Tyson's decline' and 'Ali got a few minutes extra for the glove debacle against Cooper' which seem to be gospel according to the typical casual fan.

Also - that your favourite stars of the past weren't juicing     

Anytime Mayweather or Pacquiao won a fight it was a 'masterclass', that's one that irks me.

Especially from American commentators, if they win a few opening rounds you can hear the commentators dusting off their thesauruses (is that the plural of thesaurus?) to lay on the superlatives.

Sometimes it's okay to call a performance 'very good', isn't always a master class

Thesaurï?

Funny thing about Manny...

1. He's from one of the poorest and corrupt places on the planet..

2. He's hung out with renowned dubious types during his career.

3. I can't think of any other 21 yr old Flyweights that cracked 140 pound heads open..

Yet it's a done deal JMM is dodgy on here and yet the same posters give Manny a pass...

"But I like Manny"..

When I picture Sot Chitalada hurting Pryor with every punch..

I'll start buying into this guy..

There is a legitimate real concern about any top boxer using banned substances. Its just the nature of sports now. Naïve to think otherwise.

I agree Mate...When the prize is big people will always look for an edge..

Another myth is Hagler hammered Minter....First round was even...Hagler shaded the second but got hurt..Only have to look at Minter's reaction to know he hurt him..

Minter was blind in the 3rd..

Isn't the biggest myth that the substance abuse problems is boxing is by a small minority???

I'm always at odds with peeople over Minter-Hagler, Truss. He was blind because Hagler was beating the hell out of him! He landed a very good shot, but I don't see how one shot alone makes it a competitive fight when Hagler was landing dozens of them per round. Never thought either of the first two rounds were close at all really. Minter was just getting systematically taken apart, for me.

He was blind because he cut easy like Albert Davila..

Aye, Minter definitely had fragile skin, but the way some people talk you'd think that was the only area where he was second best on the night. Right from the first bell he was getting outclassed, I thought. All the clean work and effective aggression was coming from Hagler who was bossing the jab exchanges and outlanding Minter by a large amount.

As far as world title fights go, it was pretty one-sided and while I don't want to look like I'm being dismissive of Minter, to be honest I think he was lucky it got stopped as early as it did, otherwise he'd have been on the end of one serious, sustained beat down.

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Funny thing about Manny...

1. He's from one of the poorest and corrupt places on the planet..

2. He's hung out with renowned dubious types during his career.

3. I can't think of any other 21 yr old Flyweights that cracked 140 pound heads open..

Yet it's a done deal JMM is dodgy on here and yet the same posters give Manny a pass...

"But I like Manny"..

When I picture Sot Chitalada hurting Pryor with every punch..

I'll start buying into this guy..

1. He comes from one of the roughest dogiest towns in the country.

2. He's hung out with shady characters and has paid big money to avoid having his drug test results released.

3. Despite starting out at c.112 at 16/17 he's now winning world titles as a LMW.

I agree, suspicious as hell.


Oh, wait, that's all Floyd......

Never said he wasn't dodgy..

The way a former Super-Featherweight was able to spark the 7 foot tall, 35 stone Bigshow at Wrestlemania a few years back was very suspicious, I must say (it would have been a peak, unbeaten Cotto, but they don't call hm Money May for nothing and the Bigshow had better PPV numbers!).

Back to the myths....Anyone else think that it gets overplayed how badly Marciano was supposedly getting hammered by Walcott before landing THAT punch? Agree that Walcott was deservedly ahead, but not by all that much, for me. He'd been sitting down on his shots less and less in the rounds just before the knockout and Marciano had been closing the gap.

Interesting one Chris...

With the knockdown...Marciano needed a Ko for me...But it wasn't a schooling...

Liston threw any fight against Ali
First time he was outboxed by the greatest....Nothing to be ashamed of..

Like all bullies second time around he lost his bollox and heart in the face of extreme confidence and talent..

I don’t know about the first Liston fight although I have read conflicting views. There is a lot of smoke. Did Liston quit? Was he injured? Was Ali blinded deliberately? Was it fixed?

Theres no way in hell that punch in the second fight knocked out a tank like Liston though. Even Ali was stunned Liston went down.

With all the mob links and radical groups at the time its impossible to know what went down. Liston wound also wound up dead in suspicious circumstances. You consign that fight to a myth status either way. There are plenty of plausible factors.

If you're looking to quit..Doesn't have to be a good shot.

Yes but why was he looking to quit? That is the question that remains unanswered.

I think it's a question that's never going to be answered, a bit like who killed Jimmy Hoffa :-)

There's enough shady going's on to say it could have been a fix and I doubt it would have been beneath Liston to do it.

On the other hand it is an anomolous result and like Trussy said Liston might have just had enough, took that punch and thought 'screw this for a lark, I ain't going through this again'

I like the one about Duran punching a unicorn.

1 of the oldest boxing myths has to be the interesting life of Charles ''Kid'' Mccoy.

Born Norman Selby Mccoy in 1872 was a hard hitting middleweight he put together a record of 81 fights 55 ko's and 6 losses..

Inventor of the cork screw punch. Made famous by fighters like Nigal Benn and Prince Nazeem. According to Mccoy he learnt this technique......from a CAT!

The term ''The real McCoy'' derives from Kid McCoy

apparently

ONETWOFOREVER wrote:1 of the oldest boxing myths has to be the interesting life of Charles ''Kid'' Mccoy.

Born Norman Selby Mccoy in 1872 was a hard hitting middleweight he put together a record of 81 fights 55 ko's and 6 losses..

Inventor of the cork screw punch. Made famous by fighters like Nigal Benn and Prince Nazeem. According to Mccoy he learnt this technique......from a CAT!

The term ''The real McCoy'' derives from Kid McCoy

apparently

How is that a myth? Did he not really exist?

haha

Dictionary for ONETWO please.......

When people say that Barrera did not completely and utterly humiliate Naseen and that Naz wasn't out classed. That's a myth that has permeated around here.

I have the fight recorded and I watch it every now and then to see Naz sneer, jeer and goad Barrera to which MAB responds by driving leather into Hamed's face. Naz was so humiliated it finished him.

1)Joe Louis would lose to any man who weighed more than 190lbs and stood over 6 feet tall.

2)Boxing has improved in the same development as Track & Field , yet in head to head matches, a fighter who peaked nearly 50 years ago is untouchable.

Cheers Rodders

The notion that Naz Hamed's fight with Barerra was close that is sometimes propagated on this forum.


Every time I watch it(not often mind,) I only see Naz getting schooled and outclassed. I only having him winning about one minute of the fight.


Some people suggest the reason he took so long before making his ringwalk was because he realised that in about an hour, he'd never be looked at in the same light again, never be regarded as highly again, never be the centre of attention again- that he knew deep down he wasn't as good as he claimed he was, that he'd ruled only a middling division, that his whole aura was about to be lost forever, that he was about to lose his favourite toy- being 'Naz.' He didn't want to let go.


Brilliant reflexes Naz and brought excitement whenever he was fighting but can't help but think any proper legend like Azumah Nelson for example, would have done the same thing to him.

What a load of complete bollox..

Never seems to be much middle ground with the Naz-Barrera fight, really. If you're a Hamed critic, you'll say he got the tanning of a lifetime. If you're a fanatic, you'll say it was close and decided more by Naz's lacklustre approach rather than any technical failings on his part. Neither really applies, for me. Hamed didn't take a beat down or get completely chased out the ring - there were a lot of turgid, slow burning rounds in which not much happened and Hamed basically conceded them by trundling after Barrera without throwing anything, getting hit with a few jabs which he was making no attempt to slip and essentially losing the round by default. But at the same time, all of the worthwhile punches / exchanges did come from Barrera and it wasn't in any way a close fight. Barrera's performance wasn't really spectacular, but you got the impression that if Naz became a little more lively and interested he could raise his game.

As an offshoot of that, the myth (maybe not the right term as it's speculation, but you get my drift) that Hamed only lost to Barrera solely becasue he was out of love with the sport, not training and preparing etc, and would definitely have beaten Marco had they met three or four years earlier, grinds my gears a bit. Don't get me wrong, there's a chance that the Hamed who was still with Ingle could have done a lot better against Barrera and possibly beaten him, but it gets passed off as almost fact by some. Just as possible that Barrera would have done the same against a younger, more dedicated Hamed in my opinion.

Whilst Naz was humiliated I bet Strongy thought Magee gave Kessler the fight of his life !!!

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:What a load of complete bollox..

Couldn't agree more truss  



I think he may have sensed though that the fall was going to be steep the day he lost. From the great entertainer and best in the world to the braggart and narcissist with a hair fixation etc.  He should have have made the fight closer though considering how good he said he was.

Anybody really think hamed thought he was going to lose to Barrera?

I'm from the school that believes ingle hamed probably does beat Barrera, but lest it grinds Chris' gears I'll concede that it's just an opinion and most definitely not a fact!

Likewise I think the honeyghan that beat curry, gives starling a much better fight... Stylistically he might never have beaten him, but the boxer fighter that fought curry was a different beast to the out and out slugger he became when champion.