My Top 10 British disappointments of the last 30 years!!

1. Herol Graham - one of the most talented middles of the last fifty years.....Saw him on the undercard of Mcguigan-Cruz......

Special...very special........A tragedy he was never a champ....

2. Howard Eastman - As above!!!

3. Barry Mcguigan - Loved his style......shocking loss to the distinctly average Texan...and then blew it all by staying out for too long!!! Could have been so much more.....Antonio Rivera was IBF!!!!!! even If he didn't fancy Stevie again...

4. Naseem Hamed - Strange that he's a Brit alltime great and yet he's a disappointment....Probably because he turned out to be the one track bully I always thought he was....Didn't like it up him....

5. Kirkland Laing -

6. Tony Sibson - Not sure what more he could have done but I enjoyed watching this guy who was around at the wrong time!! Remember him against Collins and his epic war with Lee!!! Shhhhh but part of me wanted him to take Tate!!!

7. Ryan Rhodes - Thought he had it all..............

8. Scott Harrison - Had that Starling like shell and looked the business.....In fairness he had an excuse...he had an illness..

9. Junior Witter - Suffered from Ingle-itis too...

10. Johnny Nelson - Disappointed that Boxing's greatest stinker (watch Warring-Nelson) ever got to be called World champion......

11) My life over here

Thought your missus would be top 10 Truss?

Success is relative Tino...

No doubt you'd be very happy with my life over here..

Some of us though aim higher!!

so in a way you are right!!

Howard Eastman was the first one to come to mind to me too. Never quite made it over that final hurdle

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Success is relative Tino...

No doubt you'd be very happy with my life over here..

Some of us though aim higher!!

If I aimed over your 52" moobs I would definitely be aiming for the sky.



I always thought Alex Arthur should have achieved more than he did. He had loads of skill but always seemed too nice to really push himself.

did think about him.....disappointment for sure...should have beat Gomez...

51" ...........

Only objection is to Tony Sibson. You really said he lived up to his expectations and I agree. Great fighter in a very demanding time.

Different kind of disappointment for Sibson bhb......

More disappointed for him......a most deserving guy..

Can open...worms everywhere....but for me, Calzaghe's refusal to step up in class much MUCH sooner will always rile me (and others). To me, Hatton's defeats at the hands of two of the planets best fighters will always have him higher on my personal favourites list than Calzaghe who was never really willing to risk his precious "0". So in that respect, I consider Calzaghe a disappointment.

Not sure if I consider Michael Brodie a disappointment per se or if I'm just disappointed that he never got the breaks he deserved (bit like Sibson in that respect). Thought Brodie was robbed against Jorrin and then came up against the super tough In Jin Chi who was still riding the wave from his terrific fight with Morrales and at the time, he was a bit of a monster. Chi faded a few years later and I think Brodie may have just been around at the wrong time.

Can say enough times how much Eastman frustrated me. It makes me question Robert McCracken to some degree as I feel Howard was infinitely more gifted that the likes of Froch yet Carl is the one who has made it. McCracken did wonders with the Olympic Boxing Team yet couldn't get the best out of the extremely gifted Eastman. maybe Howard was too much of an enigma.

I have to agree with you DAVE. At one point I turned off Calzaghe's career as he faced the Viets and Sabots of this world.

His later fighters showed what he could do but it was far too late.

Interesting that nobody has mentioned Audley yet.

Agree with Calzaghe criticsm.
Audley is just beyond disappointing I think Sean. He has moved into a whole new stratosphere.

Pat Barratt for me, in the early 90s really looked the part, balanced technique with real zip and nastiness in his punches with an absolute leveller of a left hand. Remember him crushing the Euro champ on ITV fight night and thought he would be a future proper world champ, unfortunately ran into Manning Galloway very wily American, just had too much know how and Pat was never that same man.

Cheers Rodders

Not really surprising. Anyone who watched Audley in the World Championships or even in the Olympic semi finals would have surmised he wasn't going to cut it at the top. Lazy in the Worlds and was luck to get to the Olympic Finals in the fist place.

Anthony Joshua looks like he has the potential to follow in the footsteps of Bruno and Audley. Lots of media attention but ultimately not great. He makes far too many mistakes that a fighter at this stage of his career shouldn't be making. If he's just won the ABA's I could just about forgive him but he's just won the Olympics and all those bad habits should have been trained out of him now.

Somewtimes fighters have enough in their arsenal to get away with certain flaws but it's always best to have as few as possible.

Totally agree with Super Joe, if he'd stepped up years earlier he would be ranked infinitely much higher than he is now.

Not necessarily..he may have lost some of those 'big' fights

Thing is with hindsight of his career, knowing how good he was, realistically he could have stayed unbeaten.

I don't think he would have beaten roy but probably everyone else.

When you say "how good he was" what do you mean? He was unbeaten against a whole host of mediocre fighters that he shouldn't have lost to in a months of Sundays anyway. He fought a few decent fringe fighters, some decent but not exceptional domestic fighters, some faded names and some utter dross.

At very few points in his career did Calzaghe ever step up to the plate. He put on a masterclass against Lacy without ever being troubled and showed his mettle against Kessler but outside of those, he never showed how good he was. Had he taken on the likes of Jones and aquitted himself admirably (even stepping out of his weight class to do so) I believe people would have thought more highly of him and he'd have HAD to pull out all the stops.

I'm actually surprised these days by how well Calzaghe's career is viewed and received, to be honest. Considering how thin his record is in the grand scheme of things, he does seem to be given 'all-time great' status fairly easily. There even seems to be an idea growing that all and sundry avoided him at all costs, and that he was frozen out of the big picture rather than just being happy to remain on the edges of it.

Had Calzaghe had the same attitude as Hatton, I think his career would have followed a similar path; too good for the majority of men between 160 and 175 lb, but falling short against the very elite. He only just edged past an old Hopkins (still a very good win, of course) and it was only Bernard's failing engine which let Joe back in to that fight; from a technical point of view, Hopkins had him beaten all ends up. Against the Hopkins of, say, 2001 or 2002, I'm not sure he'd have been given that chance.

Suffice to say, I'm of the opinion that Roy would have out-classed, never mind just beaten, him had they clashed any time before Roy's move up to Heavyweight.

I think there's a real argument to be made that Calzaghe has benefitted in the long run from his careful attitude. Like a certain other fighter of Italian heritage, his '0' will always paper over the cracks in his record and guarantee him a favourable place in boxing history - even if it is, to some degree, by default in Calzaghe's case.

Hmm not sure I agree totally with your assessment of the Hopkins win. To claim he only picked up the win due to Bernard's failing engine does a discredit to Calzaghe.

The fight was of course by no means a classic but it never was going to be given the Americans will to turn fights into, well i would say a chess match but even they can be more exciting.

Many believe the fight was very close because Calzaghe wasn't his usual buzzsaw, mega output self that he usually was but he did more than enough to win a comfortable decision in my eyes.

Hopkins went on to dominate Pavlik, win a light heavyweight Championship over Pascal (who he should be 2-0 against) before dropping a decision in a far from lop sided fight against most people's number 1 light heavyweight Chad Dawson.

If that isn't enough to show that a fighter is far from over the hill i'm not sure what is.

I will agree though that he should have done more early on in his career. Why he never went over to the states during those peak years will be something which is argued till the cows come home. I don't like getting into the reasons because to be honest only those involved will ever really know the true answer...but I do think it harms Calzaghe's legacy somewhat.

For me that is a shame because I don't think he would have had too many troubles with anyone who is mentioned as someone he avoided early on.

I think Roy would have held the slight advantage over him and probably would have picked up the victory 6 or 7 times out of 10 but I wouldn't say Joe would ever have been outclassed.

I'm not sure sure Chris, many say Hopkins gassed but one thing Bernard never had was a great engine, let's remember Calzaghe had fought in a higher weight class most of his career and I'd still pick him over Hopkins in a similar manner regardless of what time in their perspective careers they met.


I think it's only nature that Calzaghe's stock will rise as time goes on he was the man who kind of brought the Super middleweight division altogether, in the 40s Charles, Maxim, Moore and Lloyd Marshall weren't held in the same esteem as they are today and what happens many will remember Calzaghe's latter career rather than the forgettable defences early on.

Cheers Rodders

As I said, Owen, Hopkins was still a fine win for Calzaghe. He deserved the decision and Hopkins still had something, as shown by his subsequent performances against Pavlik and Pascal.

But there's no way that the 2008 version of Hopkins can be considered the best one, in my eyes. Work rate had never been his USP, I agree, but he had been capable of big finishes in the past (the Joppy fight being a prime example). From round six / seven onwards against Joe, he looked spent. And as others have alluded to, that wasn't really down to the brilliance of Calzaghe, either, as Joe's performance was more manful than anything else.

Had they fought for Calzaghe's 168 lb title in 2003, as they were close to doing, Hopkins wins for me. Not a slight against Calzaghe, however, who I do rate. Just not quite as highly as others, it seems.

Can't really see how Calzaghe beats Jones before he turned in to a shell, personally. With Hopkins, it's perfectly valid to point out that he didn't like high workers and that he was always liable to lose early rounds. The was also the argument that he didn't have the speed to deal with a quick one like Joe. But what angle is there for Calzaghe to get a look in against Jones anywhere between 1997 and 2003? I just can't see it myself.

Similarly to Michalczewski, Calzaghe was a good fighter. But Jones was an absolutely exceptional one.

Herol Graham I never particularly rated. I think his performances were a lot of style and not enough substance. He only ever looked impressive in short bursts and he was always going to lose at world level due to poor defence, terrible concentration and an inability to keep it up. I never thought of him as world class at the time and still don't. Although these days he'd be more than worthy of a trinket with his name on it even for a short while.

Graham was an outstanding fighter. McCallum termed him the chairman of the "who needs him?" club, and he could give anyone a tough time, even towards the end of his career. My biggest regret with Bomber was the move to Eastwood and Shaw, who promptly tried to turn him into a KO artist and lost him his unbeaten record against Kalambay as a result. Any fighter who can go that close against McCallum and make Jackson look helpless for three and a half rounds before Julian found the genuine lottery-winning ticket punch, eyes closed and all, has to have something going for him.

Graham-Benn in the late 80s, for example would have been one-way traffic, in my opinion, none of it in Benn's favour. I'm not sure that I could call him a disappointment, though. That would be reserved for John Conteh, a hero of mine, who could have become Britain's greatest ever fighter and one of the elite light-heavyweights in history if he had put his mind to it. Such a talent, such a killer instinct and such a waste.

Super, whilst he had his faults and wasn't everyone's cup of tea, the one thing he didn't have was a terrible defence. At his best he was as elusive as any fighter you can name. An exasperated Kaylor famously said to his corner that he couldn't beat a man he couldn't hit. Eubank also admitted that he could barely lay a glove on him in sparring. As Captain said, Jackson only landed one decent shot on him in four rounds. I implore you watch his fight with Rod Douglas as again you count the number of times Douglas hit him on one hand. If you could combine Benn's attitude, Eubank's chin and Graham's skill you would have the making of one of the best middle weights ever, in my humble opinion

As Captain said, Jackson only landed one decent shot on him in four rounds.
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Sadly it was the only shot in the fight that mattered...Mind you, Herol should have been KO'd for no other reason than those horrid shorts he was wearing.

Not a bad list. Herol has to be number one. I must have seen every fight of his from about his 13th on. I even met him in a DIY superstore in Sheffield once.

It is a crime he didn't win a title. There were rumours Hagler "avoided" him. I don't want to get into the ridiculous "ducking" debate as it is rare quality fighters actively avoid other fighters but there is no doubt he was high risk with little reward.

He outboxed McCallum for the first 6 rounds and decided to showboat for the next 6 and lost because he misjudged it. Was giving Jackson a pasting when he got caught himself. It all started to go wrong when he got Eastward involved. He will look back and regret his career. Like Audley only in a tougher division and with greater achievments. In short, not as big a disappointment in some ways but more in others.

Laing, Sibson, McGuigan and Nelson I would debate but not so hard. Despite his fan club on here, Laing never really had the chin and his commitment was poor. Even with commitment he may have struggled against the big boys. Jones handled him easily, twice.

My memories of Sibson was he did too much weights and became to "muscle bound", increasing his power but losing mobility and reflexes. That said, he was in a division, arguably, in its hayday... he was just unlucky.

Personally, I think Nelson and McGuigan more or less achieved their level.

Missing are fighters like Christie, Collins etc.

I was a huge fan of Hamed's inate natural ability. He had such natural power, reflexes and balance it meant he could ignore fundamentals and training. It was his downfall in the end and, as Truss points out, his lack of real heart ultimately the reason we down rate him. Despite what he achieved he is still on the list as a reflection of how he never really fulfilled his potential. Still a great just not as great as he could have been.

Alma - JC's camp can take criticism for not promoting him as well as they should. Like Witter, Graham etc. he also got himself into the position of being too much risk for not enough reward. When a fighter gets himself into that position he has to take a risk. JC's camp never did that. But there is no doubt it was not all their fault.

This UK centric view is too common. There is no doubt RJJ, Hopkins et al didn't actively pursue JC as they knew there was easier money to be made out there. They are the other side of the equation and just as culpable.

Sadly, that's the business and it always has been.

Hopkins avoided Calzaghe - that much was true - or the evidence points that way. I think Calzaghe ought to have gone over and torn apart a well regarded fighter though i'm not sure who. Jones Jr usually faced off with the fighters the broadcaster offered him. I don't think he had any fear as he was that far ahead of his opponents.

Wasn't Jones jr fighting at lhw for most of the time Joe was champion or at least most of it? I remember there being talk about the possibility of Joe moving up to fight Dariuz M as both were wbo champs, european & both having good fan bases in their home country's. Hopkins did pull out of the first talked about fight but Joe never once mentioned wanting to fight Jones jr & the onus was more on him to move up in weight & challenge Jones rather than Jones dropping weight & challenging Joe.

hard to really accuse anyone of ducking a Warren fighter!

There is never much value in arguing the who "ducked" who debate.

IMHO I think exremely few fighter actually "duck" anybody. Its just a risk vs benefit analysis and timing. RJJ was only briefly at SMW. But it could be levelled he didn't actively seek out the best and fight them... you can make what ever argument you feel like.

They are all trying to do their best to make the most out of their careers, financially and otherwise.

In hindsight, JCs camp should have done more but we could say that about many others. Levelling accusations at one camp for avoiding fights and not acknowledging the other also didn't push the issue isn't very constructive.