How one attribute could change your career

During the Dirrell Degree fight I got thinking about how different Andre's career could have been had he a stronger mindset. I wanted to know what examples you had in mind for how changing just one attribute could change an entire career for the better.

My suggestion was if Pause Malignaggi had power he could be talked abouts possibly one of the best fighters of his generation.

If Khan had a good solid chin he'd be seriously difficult to take on for most in history.

If Mayweather had power at Welterweight I don't think anyone could beat him.

If Froch had fast hands. Think most world class fighters that just aren't quite elite are just missing something to stop them being elite, but are majorly dangerous in other areas.

Don't think Khan's chin has held him back too much..........The Garcia shot decks anybody...............Petersen couldn't hurt him and Maidana landed his best shots and couldn't finish him....

Khan's problem is what he does after being hit..............

Mayweather has enough power to stop people taking liberties...........

Agreed. I think it's lazy when people suggest that a gust of wind blows Khan over, like Truss implies his biggest problem is the macho red mist after he takes a dig!

If Floyd had serious punch power he'd probably take more liberties himself. He's aware of his limitations (don't mean that as a dig, everyone has limitations) and fights accordingly. Always makes it his fight, brilliant attribute to have.

If Hearns could adjust during fights and box more, when required.

He could of been the best ever.

So... Khan has a good chin is what we're all getting at now?

Dipper Brown wrote:Agreed. I think it's lazy when people suggest that a gust of wind blows Khan over, like Truss implies his biggest problem is the macho red mist after he takes a dig!

If Floyd had serious punch power he'd probably take more liberties himself. He's aware of his limitations (don't mean that as a dig, everyone has limitations) and fights accordingly. Always makes it his fight, brilliant attribute to have.

Mayweather can dig, his hands let him down

If Holyfield had birth control he could have retired years ago.

If wladamir had Vitalis chin

If baby jake matlala had Klitchkos dimensions (except weight)

Herol Graham - concentration..

If a fighter can dig except their hands let them down then they can't dig. Unless they get a hand transplant I suppose

Good shout mobile master. Both brothers are very similar size but have different strengths and weaknesses.

Wladimir the more natural boxer with perhaps better punch power. Vitali more awkward and tough.

AdamT wrote:Good shout mobile master. Both brothers are very similar size but have different strengths and weaknesses.

Wladimir the more natural boxer with perhaps better punch power. Vitali more awkward and tough.

Put them together and you'll get a decent technician..

Would be good though. Wladamir is a better boxer with weaker chin, Vitali is tough or was tough as boots with a chin of granite bit was very unorthodox in his technique.

Would also Andre Ward with Golovkins Power...

These discussions are always a bit silly, you give Ward or Malignaggi one punch power and they would change how they fight, it's the same with Wlad if he had a strong chin.

Wlad would be more gung ho.

Perhaps his weak chin has made him a better boxer, if a bit on the cautious side.

Odlanier Solis had many attributes to be a top class boxer. His love of eating was not one of them.

Exactly Adam. If Wlad had a great chin he may be more aggressive and not "bore" the casual fans with his safety first style.

Ward is an epic fighter but is very dull because again he holds and headbutts constantly. If he had power, his shots would be more effective and he wouldn't need to be dirty or hold. Same goes for The Magic Man, good shout Hammer.

mobilemaster8 wrote:Exactly Adam. If Wlad had a great chin he may be more aggressive and not "bore" the casual fans with his safety first style.

Ward is an epic fighter but is very dull because again he holds and headbutts constantly. If he had power, his shots would be more effective and he wouldn't need to be dirty or hold. Same goes for The Magic Man, good shout Hammer.

I think Ward and Wlad have styles they are comfortable with... that work and they fight that way regardless of one's power or chin.........

I mean why take risks If you don't have to ???

They are both smart fighters......

Ward holds to smother his opponents offence..........Can't see how him having more power changes that...

Both very smart but is that only because Wlad has been caught in the past and stopped when he went through a crisis for a couple of years? If he had the chin of granite he would never have know his weaknes and may have not changed his style to something more conservative like it is today. Not sure but you never know.

Not sure about Ward, would be interesting to see him with a good punch though.

Wlad has improved.............

What kind of fighter takes punches because he has a good chin or power when he doesn't have to ??

A stupid one..

If Wlad had a better chin there's a good chance he never ends up with Stewart which would lessen him as a boxer dramatically.

ill throw in if Earnie Shavers had better stamina
If so I think he would have had won a world title at some point, not saying he would have been a all time great or anything just would have been nice to see him win a big one

I always felt that if Wayne McCullough had punch power I think he'd have been a multi time world champion at Super Bantam/ Featherweight.

He had a granite chin and incredible workrate - with heavier hands he'd have turned some of his brave defeats into loses imo and achieved more than he did.

Yeah, Shavers is definitely one of those 'if he only had the chin / stamina' cases, Motty. To be fair, if he'd been fighting (almost) any other Heavyweight ever born aside from Holmes in that rematch he'd have won the title with that right hand he landed to put Larry down in the seventh. Holmes had unbelievable powers of recovery and recuperation, but even by his standards that recovery was nigh-on miraculous.

Anyone else remember that two-fisted, swinging double-armed punch Holmes threw at Shavers as he tried to finish him off in the corner later in the fight, while we're on it? Think Larry just wanted the fight over so desperately that he was trying anything at that point.

Diosbelys Hurtado is one I think of quite a bit when it comes to those kind of problems, too. Not so much stamina, just his chin.

What a talent. Actually outboxed Whitaker for ten rounds at a time when Pea, despite having slid past his absolute best, was still possibly the best pure boxer in the game. Had it snatched away from him when Whitaker went brawler late on and has the dubious honour of being one of only two men to be stopped by Whitaker in Welterweight title fights.

Got too giddy from his first-round success against Tszyu which convinced him that he was a master brawler and to totally ignore Duva's instructions in the corner in that fight (great scrap, mind you) but I love his performance against Bailey, which was actually seen as a cracking win at the time. Got decked (predictably) by a relatively harmless looking shot (albeit Bailey was unquestionably one of the hardest punchers going at the time) early but came back to take Bailey out with a brilliant display of speed and devastating body punching.

It's one of the ironies of his career that his career-best showing came against the biggest puncher he faced, I suppose.

Should have gone on to big things after that, but then finds a way to get himself stopped from another average-looking punch which he actually caught most of on his gloves (!) against Harris and his career never recovered. Can't remember too many world title holders of any kind who looked quite as brittle around the whiskers as he did, which is a double shame as there weren't many around at that time who had as much obvious skill and ability, either.

Know what you mean about hurtado, Chris. Two of his 'rivals' in that respect fighting this weekend in khan and linares. Two standouts of their generation if they had the whiskers.

Had Errol Christie been able to stand up in a gentle breeze it would have been interesting to see where he went.

Fairly common lament in the fight game, lack of punch resistance.

Wlad and vitali combined would be unquestionably the greatest heavy who ever lived but waingros career in philosophical circles would have never taken off ..just flopped to the ground at our feet...oh.

I think Mathis without his titties would have been something special. An assertive Bugner would be competing in the top 20 possible top 15.

Then there's a whole host. Give Leonard or Ali a big punch and they'd be unbeatable.

Nigel Benn - punch resistance. Would love to see how the first Eubank fight pans out if Benn takes those punches a little better

Lennox Lewis - consistency. Unable/unwilling to fight with the same intensity from one opponent to the next

Winky Wright - Killer instinct. Boxing's answer to Arsenal. Technical and skillful but where's the coup de grace?

Interesting shout on Mathis, Shah. It's crazy to look at him in action - before the bell rings you'd think, with all that jiggly fat on him, that he's going to be some plodder who goes at the pace of a snail, and then when it sounds he's up on his toes and moving with the grace of a ballerina. Mathis with a couple of stone less on him could have gone further as he had very impressive balance and athleticism.

I rate Winky a lot, Dave. Think he was a bit unfortunate not to break in to the big time a bit earlier which he would have done had it not been for that dubious verdict he was on the wrong end of against Vargas - and Vargas was a cracking young fighter at that point.

I think the Vasquez fight probably set him back a long way in terms of his cutting edge, or lack of it. As you know the younger Winky on his way up had a more fan-friendly style as a more aggressive boxer-puncher and he took that to the ring with him against Vasquez for his first title fight. As it turned out Vasquez was way too tough, nasty and grizzled for him at that point and he ended up taking a real beatdown in the last four rounds. Pretty remarkable that he went the distance and I can understand why his corner were getting some stick in the aftermath for not pulling him out.

The Vasquez fight showed that Winky needed to smarten himself up a bit in terms of being less tactically naive and having more respect for the other guy's power but it possibly dented his confidence to the point of overdoing it in that respect, hence why he let fights that he probably should have won against Simon and Vargas (albeit the latter one was a bit questionable) get away from him. A real shame for him that by the time he'd matured in to an absolute all-round beast of a fighter a lot of his big-name contemporaries who he should have been fighting a few years earlier were either faded or gone from the picture. He was already a bit long in the tooth himself by the time he started to command the big money and attention.

At least he got his moments in the sun with his shutouts over Mosley and Tito though, I guess. The Trinidad fight might be a record for the lowest connect percentage in history for a great fighter, if we accept Tito as great in any case.

Tommy Morrison with a chin would be a dangerous man!

The Winky/Tito fight is the one I'd have on a list of fights to convert non-fight fans. Had Winky delivered the KO stoppage it would be higher up on this list. Absolutely masterful performance that just lacked the stoppage (for me, at least)