Fighters Who Were Never The Same After Their First Loss

[JK1700]

Which examples can you remember?

The main one that sticks out in my mind is Ricky Hatton. Before he fought Floyd Mayweather, he was on top of the world, he was undefeated, he was rated #1 in his division, he was also ranked in the p4p Top Ten and he was a national icon and hero in the UK. After being dominated and brutally knocked out by Floyd, he was just a broken man and a ruined fighter, mentally and physically, and his personal life and general health also deteriorated to a worrying extent following the loss with him cheating on his wife and kids and spiralling into depression and drug addiction. In the ring following the Mayweather fight, Hatton was almost knocked out by Juan Lazcano in his comeback fight and soon afterwards was brutally knocked out by Manny Pacquiao. However, Hatton has said that the Pacquiao fight only hurt his ego and that the Mayweather fight impacted him a lot more because he worked his whole career to get to that point and had no answer for the man in front of him. Hatton admitted to "crying for months" after the Mayweather loss. I think it also hurt him a lot because there was thousands of people in that arena and millions in his home country cheering for him and he would have felt like he let them all down. Some fighters can get over a loss and still have a good career, some fighters even get better due to a loss and use it as inspiration, but I think that fight just took it all out of Ricky Hatton. He pushed himself to the limit and came up short, and his confidence and aura of invincibility that we saw before that fight never appeared again. I really don't think much of Pacquiao's win over Hatton because I think Hatton was just a completely ruined fighter, he also had to go down even further in weight to 140. Which is even more wear and tear on the body and helps explain why he just couldn't cope with Pacquiao's speed and power. Pacquiao fans will disagree but I honestly think that the Hatton that fought Tszyu would have had a great chance to beat Manny.

Mayweather said of Hatton - "I think he should have stopped fighting after our fight. In our fight he took a lot of huge shots, and he's been in a lot of gruelling fights, which is a lot of wear and tear on your body. With him taking all of those big shots by me, it was extremely wear and tear on his body, so what Pacquiao had done I wasn't suprised. He (Hatton) can't keep balooning up in weight and coming down, balooning up in weight and coming down. You know, he balooned up in weight and came down to welterweight but then for the Pacquiao fight he had to go down 7 more pounds. That's wear and tear on the body. I beat Ricky Hatton when he was undefeated, and once I beat him he was never the same"

I really can't come up with many other examples. I guess Acelino Freitas is one. He was a really spirited and exciting fighter when he was undefeated, but once Diego Corrales beat him, he just never had that same aura and confidence that he had before. He struggled badly against Zahir Raheem in a fight that he could easily have lost and then quit again when he fought Juan Diaz. I think one could also argue that Zab Judah has never quite looked the same after losing to Kostya Tszyu. Yes he has won world titles since that fight but before that fight he looked like he could become something special, and since that fight we have seen him look very weak mentally in several fights (Baldomir, Mayweather, Cotto, Clottey and Khan to name a few). Some people even say that he quit against Khan because he just didn't think he could win. Zab Judah is a very talented boxer, but I think that the Kostya Tszyu fight ruined him to a certain extent.

Please give me your choices and let me know what you think of mine.

[Barn]

Mike Tyson.
Roy Jones Jr after his first proper loss.

[JK1700]

Mike Tyson.
Roy Jones Jr after his first proper loss.

The Griffin fight was a proper loss in my eyes. Your not supposed to hit a guy when he is down and if you do you deserve to be DQ'd. It's not as if Roy was completely dominating the fight and just did something ****** either, you can easily make the argument that he was losing prior to him being DQ'd.

Your right though. He never looked quite the same after being stopped by Tarver.

[scottishwhiskey]

Fernando Vargas

[JK1700]

I don't buy that Hatton "ruined" thing. He would never,ever beat Pacquiao with his style anyway and he didn't look like "ruined" fighter against Malignaggi. Zab Judah also isn't best example to me, he looked as good as ever against Floyd after not even one loss.
Jeff Lacy comes to my mind, he was never nothing special, but when he additionally lost that confidence that he previously had, he was finished.
Naseem Hamed, I guess his world fall apart with that lost. He fought only one more time, but I think you could see that. Before he didn't seem to believe that loss is an option.

Watch his fight with Juan Lazcano. Where he was nearly knocked out again by the same kind of "check hook" that Mayweather stopped him with. He looked absolutley terrible in that fight. He didn't look anything like the man who made Kostya Tszyu quit and the man who absolutley destroyed Jose Luis Castillo in 4 one sided rounds less than a year earlier. Hatton said himself that the Floyd fight really hurt him mentally and that it impacted him a lot more than the Pacquiao fight did. That first loss just killed his confidence and the damage that he took also had a major impact, he took a lot of clean, hard punches in the Mayweather fight. He didn't just lose, he got almost completely dominated and brutally knocked out in front of thousands of his adoring fans and millions who were watching at home. I think that fight just wrecked him, mentally and physically.

Zab Judah did look pretty good in the early rounds against Floyd, but Floyd was on the verge of stopping him late in that fight and Judah literally low blowed his way out of trouble in a desperate attempt to avoid it, which to me was his way of looking for a way out and something that could easily be considered quitting. I think Floyd dominates any version of Judah, but I think that Tszyu fight just hurt Judah's confidence alot. He loses focus very easily now and when things aren't going his way he looks for a way out. His confidence in himself is very limited.

Naseem Hamed and Jeff Lacy are definitely good examples though.

[JK1700]

Fernando Vargas

I think the problem with Vargas is he got put in too many big fights too quickly. I don't think the fight with Trinidad completely ruined him, I still think he could have had a very good career after that fight. The fights with Oscar De La Hoya and Shane Mosley are what really destroyed him in my opinion. Combined with the fact that he was draining his body down to an unnaturally small weight class that he didn't belong in. Vargas' first real loss was to Winky Wright, if were being honest. He lost that fight clearly. The Trinidad fight took a lot out of him though.

[scottishwhiskey]

I think the problem with Vargas is he got put in too many big fights too quickly. I don't think the fight with Trinidad completely ruined him, I still think he could have had a very good career after that fight. The fights with Oscar De La Hoya and Shane Mosley are what really destroyed him in my opinion. Combined with the fact that he was draining his body down to an unnaturally small weight class that he didn't belong in. Vargas' first real loss was to Winky Wright, if were being honest. He lost that fight clearly. The Trinidad fight took a lot out of him though.

this is true, vargas was always game and a tough fight for anybody.

also, jeff lacy comes to mind, although one can argue that he would never be able to beat elite fighters.

and eventhough this wasnt a loss, hector camacho after his fight with edwin rosario, he became less aggressive and a bit gunshy. some feel he lost so thats why i mention it, it was a close fight.

and charlie Z!!! after losing his first pro fight, he was never the same, becoming even greater by knocking out 59 heavyweights in a row with his 5000psi pausing hook.

[RubenSonny]

Ricky Hatton was heavily overrated before the Mayweather fight and had been given a status he never really earned, but he was definitely effected by that first loss.

[JK1700]

I guess I need to refresh myself those 2 Hatton fights inbetween those losses, it was a while since I saw them and maybe it's just bad memory.
Speaking of Judah, he was never that untouchable on the first place, he just fought weaker opposition before he met Tszyu, thus he looked more dominant. But still I think he was really much better fighter couple years after, when he fought Spinks and Floyd. I'd never agree that lost ruined him, it ruined the hype, definitely not him as a fighter.

There's a lot of things that need to be considered when it comes to the Mayweather-Hatton situation. The main things are the amount of damage he took in the Mayweather fight and his awful performance against Lazcano. Yes he won clearly on the scorecards but Lazcano was coming off a loss and had been inactive for 15 months, and Malignaggi doesn't punch hard enough to hurt him, and was working with a trainer who he wasn't comfortable with so of course Hatton won those two fights dominantly, he was supposed to. However he still nearly got knocked out by Lazcano and looked very sluggish and un-coordinated in that fight. He looked much, much better before the Mayweather fight.

The knock out that he suffered from Floyd had a big impact on that, I think. His balance and footspeed just weren't the same and his punches were wild and inaccurate. When you get hit, that cleanly, that hard, that many times and then get knocked out, it is bound to hurt your ability to take shots and also your speed and co-ordination a lot, in addition to the mental trauma that comes with being brutally KO'd like that, especially when you were going in undefeated with thousands of people cheering you on. Combine that with the fact that he cried for months after the Mayweather fight and I think it is easy to see that the loss to Floyd completely ruined him. Include the facts that he had to go down even further in weight and that he dumped his career long trainer since he was 17 to work with Floyd Mayweather Sr, which was a terrible move, and you quickly arrive at the conclusion that Manny Pacquiao doesn't deserve much credit at all for beating Hatton. All he did was beat a ruined, drained fighter. I doubt that he wouldve beaten an undefeated Hatton. He would definitely have given Pacquiao a run for his money regardless of whether he would have beaten him or not.

As far as Judah, I kind of agree. I'm not stating that the loss to Tszyu ruined him totally, but I definitely think it hurt his confidence which has never really recovered since. Before the Spinks fight, he was dominating guys, and although none of them were really world class, since then he has struggled with and lost to several guys who aren't world class either (DeMarcus Corley, although he was actually a champion back then, Rafael Pineda, Carlos Baldomir and Joshua Clottey to name a few). He beat Spinks, but Spinks was never really that good despite being unified champion, and Judah lost once to Spinks, and the other fight I had even before the stoppage. Let's just put it this way, before the Tszyu fight, Judah looked like he was on par with Mayweather. After that fight, it became clear that he wasn't. Top Rank only had Floyd fight him because he was a big name. As apposed to other guys like Antonio Margarito who nobody had ever heard of and Carlos Baldomir (who despite beating Judah still wasn't as big of or a bigger name and therefore those fights wouldn't make as much money for Arum).

[goblin213]

Donald Curry
Meldrick Taylor