Boxing Supernovas, Sudden Exposure

[yngwie]

I think we can add David Reid to the mix. There was a lot of hype about him after his gold medal win in the Olympics. I recall him being touted as the next De La Hoya. A loss to Trinidad took all of the air out of that balloon.

No, his eye was injured during the 1995 pan am games and their team knew that, they rushed him and was already permanently injured even before turning pro.

[The Old LefHook]

Monroe Brooks looked like a welterweight who would go somewhere...until he met up with the weight-climbing Roberto Duran early in his ascent. Goodnight Monroe, and goodnight career. Not quite a supernova, just a red giant.

[Sugar Adam Ali]

Fernando Vargas....

Wilfredo Benitez

[Sugar Adam Ali]

Samuel Peter

Rid**** bowe

Ricky hatton

Pauly Ayala

[Sugar Adam Ali]

Lucas mattyse

Juanma Lopez

James Kirkland

Alfredo Angelo

Paul Williams

Juan Diaz

[The Old LefHook]

Well, there were some novas in those batches, but no supernovas, unless it be Benitez. None of the others ever quite made the cut in my mind when they were fighting, though all reached a decent level. For instance, I knew from the beginning that Ricky Hatton was a KO waiting to happen whenever he stepped up to first class. He only had a busy style with a lot of clinching when he could, but no big punch at all, despite a British article once claiming he had enough measured punch to fell a bull.

Your lists point out an important feature of this phenomenon, i.e., it is quite common in boxing. In other sports failures are weeded out a different way. Times in track are easy to rank. A basketball player does not make the cut. Boxers are weeded out by taking beatings, pure and simple.

Where this phenomenon stands out in bold highlight is when a big puncher KO's some early victims, for nothing whets the public's appetite like a big puncher. Fans will flock back after a spectacular KO. No slick boxer with a small punch ever generated the primitive excitement of a Dempsey or a Tyson. A few Jacksonesque KO's can really jumpstart a career toward the big money.

However------almost all big punchers are exposed somewhere in their journey, indeed almost all boxers are. With big punchers used to dominating, the turnaround is more dramatic in our eyes than with a normal puncher who has only been winning fights.

The exposure, when it comes, runs so strongly against our expectations that the flame out is spectacular in our eyes and accompanied by a host of unexpected, unprepared-for emotions. It is one of the thrills of boxing when a monster puncher flames out. From that point onward he may become just "an opponent," heading mostly downhill now that the blueprint for defeating him is published and his confidence is decimated as well. Such fighters who have supernovaed, can usually handle "opponents," well enough, but fail ever afterward at the elite level.