One Hit Wonders

[Willow The Wisp]

Among the others, Big John Tate.

Wins the title vs Coetzee in October 1979, loses it against Weaver five months later in a shocker, gets knocked out by Berbick aftre three more months. Right there his slide to oblivion begins, culminating with a tragic end of life.

Interestingly, after the defeat against Berbick, Tate won all his next fights except the last - in 1988. Granted, not against stellar opposition. But usually we witness former champs getting beaten up by journeymen in the final segment of their career.

Still, Tate is a quintessential one-hit wonder.

Tate never, ever recovered from the Weaver knockout. Sad story.

[billeau2]

Nash nails it. Undisputed, Lineal Heavyweight Champion of the world, 7th fight, outside of a great performance against a pretty darned good Evangelista, ol' Leon never again threatened. I want to say here that Leon Spinks was about the nicest person you'd ever care to meet. In his day, brief as it was, he was an honest to God cultural Icon. Sure, he was the fodder for jokes on Saturday Night Live skits, but that never bothered him as far as I could tell. When he had good fortune, he was a person well intuned with that good fortune. No tears for Leon either. The gross majority of his youth companions in the Pruitt Igoe had passed away long before Neon Leon Spinks did, and they never, ever had Their season.

Neon Leon Amen...

[billeau2]

Forget steroids, boxer need to start smoking crack

In our present society that would be considered almost as bad, almost, as using a substance that someone can go to their doctor for to help heal an injury. Toney was able because of Cortisone the cheater!!! lol.

[mrbig1]

Lucian Bute. one baby win against Miranda. it was a mistake to match him against Froch. I said so before the fight. Bute was a favorite over Froch. Everyone believed Bute was a champ in the making.

[JAB5239]

Lucian Bute. one baby win against Miranda. it was a mistake to match him against Froch. I said so before the fight. Bute was a favorite over Froch. Everyone believed Bute was a champ in the making.

Bute certainly looked the part for awhile there and did have some decent wins. Not sure he falls into the one hit wonder category and more into the overhyped category. Miranda was a good win, I'm just not sure it qualifies for the purpose of this thread. Of course that is only my opinion.

[markusmod]

Bute certainly looked the part for awhile there and did have some decent wins. Not sure he falls into the one hit wonder category and more into the overhyped category. Miranda was a good win, I'm just not sure it qualifies for the purpose of this thread. Of course that is only my opinion.

Outside of the Froch bout, he did rather well in his career, made a fortune in Canada.

[QueensburyRules]

Lucian Bute. one baby win against Miranda. it was a mistake to match him against Froch. I said so before the fight. Bute was a favorite over Froch. Everyone believed Bute was a champ in the making.

- - Bute was making a fortune as the Big Star in Montreal. Ignored by the ******Six, ie he was priced out of that slapstick, misbegotten tourney that had more fall outs than a balding man has in his last year of hair.

#1 @168 and top 5 P4P, he was unbeaten. When Wart won his Hometown ******Six title, he couldn't draw flies if he fought in a stockyard, so Bute offered him Montreal $$$ that he turned down, preferring to call out l'l floydy in a 162lb catchweight.

Yeah, right!!!

[Willow The Wisp]

Bute certainly looked the part for awhile there and did have some decent wins. Not sure he falls into the one hit wonder category and more into the overhyped category. Miranda was a good win, I'm just not sure it qualifies for the purpose of this thread. Of course that is only my opinion.

Bute was good. I agree. As a matter of fact I guess the term "One hit Wonder" itself is pretty open to interpretation. My pick was Tomas Molinares who illegally "KO'D" Marlon Starling a second or two after the bell, ******ity was not disqualified and outrageously got to win the title, and then dissappeared into the jungle. But taking a queue from Nash I revised my pick to Neon Leon Spinks, the flash in the pan to end all flashes in the pan! For what seems now like a single season, Leon was one of the most talked about and written about people on the planet. But in truth, was he really a "One Hit" athlete? We all know that the elder Spinks brother won a gold medal as part of the fabled 1976 Team USA along with his brother Michael. (What are the odds of that??!). But do we recall that he earned an amateur record of 178-7 with a mind blowing 133 KO's? ASTONISHING. ASTONISHING.
In the amateurs, he held wins over Michael Dokes, Eddie Davis, Tom Prater, Woody Clark, Johnny Davis. In the Olympic Games he brutalized Soviet champion Anatoliy Klimanov, and steam rolled over the Legendary Cuban Sixto Soria. Big deal stuff, when Amateur boxing was peaking.
So...I suppose the moral of the story is that in actuality, this is not a sport where people commonly can jump out of nowhere to become big time (Unless your last name is Paul).

[mrbig1]

Let me add Mark Breland. Could have been great but had a China chin.