Worst performances by a defending champion??

You think that you struggle so hard to get the belt that you would do anything to keep it!!...However some fighters either through fear...or lack of application or general ineptitude just seem to throw it away.....

Here are my worst performances by defending champions..........

BRAMBLE VS Rosario....Bramble was no1 in the lights and a near p4p top 10er..on his way to a major unification with Camacho..when he seemed to just decide tolie on the ropes and let Rosario punch the garbage out of him...Weak surrender and part of my horror month as my other favorite Curry lost his crown too..

BRUNO VS Tyson.....Wet his pants.

BAER VS Braddock.Clowned the title away against a guy who wasn't fit to lae his boots...Had he tried harder there wouldn't have been a disgraceful hollywood movie about it many years later..

WILLARD VS Dempsey..Just plain inept

JACQUOT VS Mugabi.....A joke champion losing his title like a joke...still it stopped him getting a pounding..

GOMEZ VS Layne...Layne was terrible and even a half dead great should have had enough...

BERBICK VS Tyson.....Ineptitude..

THOMAS VS Berbick....One of Romero's zombies could have beat Thomas that night..Probably been more entertaining too..

Any better ones??

Hatton vs Pacquaio? Fought the wrong fight, but I suppose he was always going to get beat by Manny anyway, just a different class. Played right into Manny's hands though with his tactics....

By the way Truss, weightlifting forum is on the front page now, get contributing fella!

Seldon v Tyson?

Might just do that......Forgot that Hatton was defending a title???..

Certainly never seen anyone so inept against the southpaw style..

Dreadful..good call.

Seldon vs Tyson is another good one...love the little leg jig when the referee asks if he's okay... so he can stop the fight..

Rock-less.

Yeah he was defending the IBO, just checked.

Douglas vs Holyfield deserves consideration. Hard to believe it was the same guy who had given Tyson such hell last time out

$25 million off Steve lott the Mirage owner made Douglas want to live long enough to spend it Rowley....Quit like a dog..

Douglas was always jekyll and Hyde.....

Hyde showed up that night.

Lewis v Rahman 2.

Lazy and underprepared Champion equals a legacy damaging loss to a guy several levels below him.

Herbie Hide v Vitali.

Agreed Truss but still a real pity because irrespective of Tyson's preparation, or lack of, Buster showed in Toyko that if he could have got it all together on a regular basis he could have been one heck of a heavyweight.

Don't know about Hide-Vitali tino..Hide was giving away a lot to Vitali.....

In many ways his defeat to Bowe was probably worse..at least Vitali hit him to put him down.

A 230 pound Douglas with that jab could've given Holy a great fight Rowley....

However the reason Holy was such a favorite was that we'd all seen Buster flop against guys like Jaco etc and quit against Tucker....and we knew what he was capable of...

Shame..you can give a guy talent.. but you can't give him pride..

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Don't know about Hide-Vitali tino..Hide was giving away a lot to Vitali.....

In many ways his defeat to Bowe was probably worse..at least Vitali hit him to put him down.

Fair point Truss. I just have an abiding memory of his terrified face before and during the fight. At least he has the consolation that Vitali went on to become a dominant champion and not a nobody.

Bowe sure did bounce Herbie around for a bit.

Ali v Jimmy Young was a stinker, though he got the nod and kept his title. Jack Sharkey v Primo Carnera would be in the mix among those who surrendered their titles, and George Chip's loss of the middleweight crown to Al McCoy was bizarre.

haye vs harrison.

fail to see why it took 3 rounds for haye to take him out when not one punch was thrown.

Think he was just looking for the opening..

Like I have been with my Wife for the last 15/20 years..

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Think he was just looking for the opening..

Like I have been with my Wife for the last 15/20 years..

Think you found the opening one too many times actually, if your recent complaints are anything to go by.

Assuming the kid looks like you.

Wouldn't have minded an open marriage.....

But she never would have let anybody else touch her "catch" of the century..

How about Michael Sphinx aginst Mike Tyson? Frightened walking into the ring

Spinks wasn't really a champ.....The ring belt wasn't that important back then..

bhb001 wrote:How about Michael Sphinx aginst Mike Tyson? Frightened walking into the ring

He only held the Egyptian National Title.

Scottrf wrote:

bhb001 wrote:How about Michael Sphinx aginst Mike Tyson? Frightened walking into the ring

He only held the Egyptian National Title.

And he won that in a pyramid scheme.

HumanWindmill wrote:

Scottrf wrote:

bhb001 wrote:How about Michael Sphinx aginst Mike Tyson? Frightened walking into the ring

He only held the Egyptian National Title.

And he won that in a pyramid scheme.

Doh!! Alright Spinks

HumanWindmill wrote:

Scottrf wrote:

bhb001 wrote:How about Michael Sphinx aginst Mike Tyson? Frightened walking into the ring

He only held the Egyptian National Title.

And he won that in a pyramid scheme.

Had a sand blasted finish, didn't it?

HumanWindmill wrote:

Scottrf wrote:

bhb001 wrote:How about Michael Sphinx aginst Mike Tyson? Frightened walking into the ring

He only held the Egyptian National Title.

And he won that in a pyramid scheme.

A fine jest sir.

I wouldn't put Hatton in there. Even though he was blown away - it wasn't ineptitude - it was more the other guy was much much better than him. Can't blame Ricky for that surely?

Whilst the other guy clearly was far superior Oxy, it was also a terrible gameplan. Hatton wasn't alone in thinking that he could walk through Pacquaio I suppose, so it could be a case of hindsight affecting our judgement.

Wlad v Sanders was poor. Clueless against the southpaw stance. Sanders couldnt miss.

What he didn't understand was that where as conventional fighters comeback with the left after they throw the one two....southpaws come back with the right..

poor stuff.

Some of the 80s merry go round had some pretty appalling performances.

Witherspoon v Smith was right up there.

What about Malignaggi vs Hatton? Malignaggi technically vacated the IBF title before the fight but it was an absolutely awful performance from him that cannot go without mention. Also Ruiz vs Jones should be worth a shout. Ruiz really was inept even by his low standards that night.

Bernard Dunne.

Bless him.

Curry vs jacquot....

losing to the worst fighter to hold a belt after greg richardson...even though he was spent.

Payakaroon vs Fenech...Poor old samart got battered and then was forced to have his hair cut off..... and banished to a monastery by the thai authorities..in disgrace

Witter v Bradley

Junior didn't really seem interested to me.

These ones exposed good domestic level fighters against world level:

Cook V Martinez.
Rees V Kotelnik

It was for a vacant title - but Witter-Alexander. Witter was awful.

Dagenham lad vs Katsidis was pretty poor. Although Katsidis the champion and thingummyface the challenger - his performance was so inept I'd like it mentioned for posterity.

If David Diaz could last 9 rounds with pacquiao 10 months beforehand, then it really shows how inept hattons performance was. Was utterly useless against the southpaw stance, walked into every single right hand manny threw - presumably he thought those shots would just bounce off him? Madness.

Sugar Boy Sweetie wrote:If David Diaz could last 9 rounds with pacquiao 10 months beforehand, then it really shows how inept hattons performance was. Was utterly useless against the southpaw stance, walked into every single right hand manny threw - presumably he thought those shots would just bounce off him? Madness.

True - but Manny looked a bit better at 140. If Diaz had been caught with those bombs he'd have gone in 2. Lets not forget - Hatton was down in about a minute and never cleared his head. Do we class every time a champion got knocked out early as an "inept" performance?

I'd say it wasn't as bad as Lewis-Rahman - where Lewis let a guy who shouldn't have been lacing up his boxing shoes beat him.

Tyson v Douglas sticks in my mind, absolutely battered and outboxed, outspeeded for long spells before being KOd.

Hatton vs Pacquaio? Fought the wrong fight, but I suppose he was always going to get beat by Manny anyway, just a different class. Played right into Manny's hands though with his tactics....

By the way Truss, weightlifting forum is on the front page now, get contributing fella!
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The worrying thing was how low his hands where, a good finisher like Pacquiao will always capitalise, he lasted 10 rounds with Mayweather doing the same thing, he should of learned and put his hands up, Pacquiao's relentless so the dumb tactics were baffling

Yeah understandable but Haton was never going to truly change, as soon as Ricky got hit with a decent shot hands went down and charged in to catch him straight back, only he didn't see the threes and fours coming it was too much.
The power in the shots were the thing that suprised me most, it literally was unbelievable. The knockout well, that left would have taken Diaz straight out...

Also am I alone in this little train of thought whilst we are on this subject that MP uses slightly different types of punches on different guys?
Such as Diaz and De La Hoya also Cotto and Margarito etc. he used peppering style of punches whereas with Mosley and Hatton he was just trying to set up the venomous punches.
He got through to Mosley with one but he had enough to stand and survive and not allow the shots to land but didn't do ANYTHING else, however Hatton just got back up for more hence 2nd round KO.
Anyone else think this or am I alone?
Please no one respond with a single comment saying you are alone

Will openly admit I expected Hatton to walk through Pacquiao with ease and have to imagine Ricky himself believed the same thing, hindsight is a wonderful thing