Time to fess up - hype jobs!

We are all understand what a hype job is. Sometimes we label fighters as such when its not fair and I am aware that a few on here dislike the word all together.

That being said hype jobs do exist in this sport we love. Some are hyped up by promoters to generate enough money out of them and then are disgarded as soon as they step up and get ''found out''.

My question is are there any hype jobs past or present that you have fallen for hook line and sinker?

Its time to admit its ok where only human. I will admit that I fell for the hype of Canadian middleweight David Lemieux.

Lemieux went on a 26 unbeaten winning streak since turning pro all knockouts and he made a lot of noise. To some he was the future of the middleweight division. And this was at a time when GGG was hardly mentioned.
I believed the hype but then Lemieux lost a shock defeat to veteran Marco Antonio Rubio who was just demolished easily by GGG.

Have to admit I was shocked and gutted as I was following the guy on social media and watching EVERY video on youtube. He then lost his return fight to Joachim Alcine and has gone of the radar since. Lemieux has won his last 7 since Alcine but against below par opposition.

How about you guys?

Audley was veey hyped and we all know what happened

Mark Breland....Thought he'd be an ATG....

Rafael Pineda.......

Tyrone Crawley......

John Meekins......

Jimmy Paul....

Anthony Maynard....

Brits
-----

Herol Graham..Thought he'd school McCallum..

Ryan Rhodes....Thought he was class.....

Graham was never a hype job TRUSS just unlucky

I'll state the obvious, David Price. I thought he'd be a cert to fight, and probably beat one of the K brothers by now. I now wonder if he'd be a favourite against one of the chuckle brothers.

Agree on Rhodes, thought he'd be world class.

I feared for Joe going in against Lacy, really no need.

To some extent, early on in his career I thought Cleverly would be the new Calzaghe. Won some accolades early on and then fought nurses before getting his arse handed to him.

I thought "Champagne" Charlie Magri was the real deal back in the early 80's. Watched him knock out guys and make it look easy for the longest time, then he gets ko'd by Juan Diaz and picks up a further 4 KO defeats before his career was over.

Yeah Price was a massive hypo.

Just the look of the man convinced you that he was going to smash everyone in his way. I even picked him to beat Fury a couple of years ago. Now he is re-building his career and good luck to him but he has gone off the radar.

Like you, ONETWO, I fully bought in to the Lemieux hype. I thought he would be a quality champ, his power looked truly chilling, like he had rocks in his gloves!

Aside from him, too many to mention, but a brief list would include; JuanMa Lopez, Matt Korobov, Erislandy Lara, and Yuri Gamboa.

I appreciate that some of the above have had good careers, and others may well accomplish good things, but I tipped all 4 to be dominant champions and, at the time of writing, none look as though they will be.

Gentleman01 wrote:Like you, ONETWO, I fully bought in to the Lemieux hype. I thought he would be a quality champ, his power looked truly chilling, like he had rocks in his gloves!

Aside from him, too many to mention, but a brief list would include; JuanMa Lopez, Matt Korobov, Erislandy Lara, and Yuri Gamboa.

I appreciate that some of the above have had good careers, and others may well accomplish good things, but I tipped all 4 to be dominant champions and, at the time of writing, none look as though they will be.

Great shout with JuanMa and Gamboa

You're right not all careers were bad but certain fighters like JuanMa were meant to really shake up the boxing world. When this does not develop they become the shadow of their former selves. Its like how do you package them? Flawed but still dangerous? shot to pieces? I am sure the hype that helped propell these fighters will also hinder their careers.

Another name comes to mind in Kermit Cintron. I can remember when this kid was a special addition on transatlantic sports. He seemed to be koing guys in brutal fashion a real one for the future. Fast forward and Cintron is a bit of a joke in boxing baring in mind how he jumped out of the ring against Paul Williams lol.

Acelino Freitas...bowling 'em over for fun and something of a crowd pleaser then lost all heart and quit on us when the going got tough

Gamboa wasn't a hype job.....

Peter Jackson was......Windy in his pink dress said Corbett made him look like a club fighter.

F**K YOU Beefster, Corbett was the sissy who couldn't beat a one legged man and ran like a b!tch when it came time to offer Jackson a rematch for the HW title.

....or so the history books claim...and you can't argue with that can you?

ODLH complete hype job.

DDGO2 wrote:ODLH complete hype job.

Yeah, to think that people predicted big things for him when he turned professional!

Think its a bit harsh to list Gamboa as a hype job - Alright didn't exactly achieve what was expected more due to not actually fighting very often than his talent. Only loss is at a weight that he just isn't big enough for.

Think if he had of stayed where he was and actually fought once in a while he would probably still be ing everyones P4P lists.... More under achieved than hype job for me.

That being said I thought JuanMa was gonna wipe out all before him and dominate for the foreseeable future. Went to great lengths to tell friends, family, random people on the bus that he was gonna be the greatest fighter of the decade. Well didn't I look like an idiot thanks Salido.

Similar with Price thought there was nobody outside the K bros who would even reach the 6th round let alone beat him before the Thompson fights.

Oscar Hype Job? Ok he lost some of his biggest fights but isn't Oscar like a 10 times champion in about 6 weight classes?

If Oscar is a hype job then what is Amir Khan??

lions heart but the talent did not match the PR job. Fought anyone though, but then again, so do taxi drivers looking for a pay day and name drop...

Believe it or not most of us rated Johnny Bump City Bumphus back in the day.....

The white stuff claimed a lot of careers back then....Never more so than in his case.

Amir Khan
Roy Jones Jr
Naseem Hamed
and....
Tyson Fury, a man likely to be on most people's lists

Oh and Mike Tyson, the biggest of them all!

See, this is my problem with the way De la Hoya is often viewed these days.

Coming out of Barcelona '92, he was being branded 'the next Ray Leonard,' a tag which stuck with him and got referenced more and more as he eased his way in to the pro ranks and won his first couple of world titles at 130 and 135. In the end, despite looking for a while as if he might just have it in him, he fell short of that kind of standard. So all of a sudden he's a hype job? For not being as good as Ray Leonard? The relativism angle works against De la Hoya badly here.

He had the kind of career that 99.9% of professionals who've ever stepped through the ropes can only dream of. If he'd have come in to the pro ranks with less expectation on his shoulders and wasn't a marketing man's dream with his looks and crossover appeal, we'd all be saying what brilliant achievements he has to his name and applauding what he did, rather than focussing on what he failed to do which seems to be the norm for De la Hoya, unfortunately.

There have been plenty of fighters greater than Oscar, but that doesn't mean he wasn't great in his own right (I'm one of those who believes there are different levels of greatness, rather than just thinking there's great, not great and that's it). If he were British he'd arguably be inside our top three greatest fighters ever, and let's remember we've got a pretty decent history in the sweet science. Easier to do this kind of stuff in his era than in past ones, granted, but titles across six weights, about twenty belt holders defeated, a contender for the pound for pound top spot for a while, wins over the likes of Ruelas, Whitaker, Quartey, Vargas etc (yep, a couple of debated verdicts in there, but he lost a couple of that nature, too) are achievements not to be sniffed at.

As for the Roy Jones suggestion, even more ridiculous.

Which fighters would be higher than him over here Chris

ONETWOFOREVER wrote:

Gentleman01 wrote:Like you, ONETWO, I fully bought in to the Lemieux hype. I thought he would be a quality champ, his power looked truly chilling, like he had rocks in his gloves!

Aside from him, too many to mention, but a brief list would include; JuanMa Lopez, Matt Korobov, Erislandy Lara, and Yuri Gamboa.

I appreciate that some of the above have had good careers, and others may well accomplish good things, but I tipped all 4 to be dominant champions and, at the time of writing, none look as though they will be.

Great shout with JuanMa and Gamboa

Think you're both very harsh re Gamboa. Below LW he looked sensational and was never really exposed there, he just gets beaten up by bigger boys now.

It's certainly harsh to label Gamboa a hype job, what I meant was; I tipped Gamboa to go on and become a p4p rated, multiple weight world champion, which he hasn't done. Although, as this is a thread for hype jobs, I really should have excluded him in my response.

Still, it's not as harsh as labelling Oscar DLH, Roy Jones Jr., and Mike Tyson as hype jobs!

TopHat24/7 wrote:

ONETWOFOREVER wrote:

Gentleman01 wrote:Like you, ONETWO, I fully bought in to the Lemieux hype. I thought he would be a quality champ, his power looked truly chilling, like he had rocks in his gloves!

Aside from him, too many to mention, but a brief list would include; JuanMa Lopez, Matt Korobov, Erislandy Lara, and Yuri Gamboa.

I appreciate that some of the above have had good careers, and others may well accomplish good things, but I tipped all 4 to be dominant champions and, at the time of writing, none look as though they will be.

Great shout with JuanMa and Gamboa

Think you're both very harsh re Gamboa. Below LW he looked sensational and was never really exposed there, he just gets beaten up by bigger boys now.

Still pisshes me off that Arum spent so long "hyping" the fight between Gamboa and Juanma that both grew out of the smaller weightclasses then proceeded to get their heads kicked in. Would have been an epic fight a few years back.

Like I said some fighters have had good careers. Gamboa has done well but we was told that he would be the next boxing superstar and at the moment a man who was in contention for the p4p best tag back in 2005 is STILL boxing's superstar.

Gamboa is not as big a name he was ''destined'' to be.

There's a Ring Magazine cover with Audley, Dominick Guinn and Joe Mesi on asking "who will replace Lewis, Tyson and Holyfield?" These 3 failed pretty spectacularly. Guinn never became more than a gate keeper who's best win might actually be against Audley, not sure what happened to Mesi, just seemed to disappear.

Captain Kirk wrote:Amir Khan
Roy Jones Jr
Naseem Hamed
and....
Tyson Fury, a man likely to be on most people's lists

What about Tancy Lee, Coxy?

Nas unified the belts Coxy...

RJJ was P4P number 1

Tyson fury is not being hyped... By anyone

Also the question is are there any hype jobs you have fallen for hook line and sinker. Does this mean you were a fully on board believer in Tyson Fury, but are now unconvinced? If so what convinced you of your mistake? Was it his career best performance this weekend?

I imagine it happened early on Fury's career, Geoff. When he was landing potentially career ending howitzers on his own jaw.

superflyweight wrote:

Captain Kirk wrote:Amir Khan
Roy Jones Jr
Naseem Hamed
and....
Tyson Fury, a man likely to be on most people's lists

What about Tancy Lee, Coxy?

Enterprising detective work super. Would coxy have had time to be a Trekkie, whilst being a scratch golfer and an international opening bat?

And if kirk is coxy... Then who is ddg02?


Back to hyped fighters. Back in the day, I was a first class passenger on the errol Christie hype train. That was a sudden and nasty crash.