Unprotected fighters

[SN!PER]

Pete rademacher fighting for the heavyweight crown in his first profight.

Holy crap, his first pro fight was against Floyd Patterson?? Yeah this is more the type of boxer I was thinking about. Fighters without much recognition who were thrown into deep waters very early and didn't belong there.

Guys like Rigondeaux don't count because of so much amateur experience.

[ottocon860]

David Reid for me. He was brought up quick and his career was over before 20 fights. Even Lacy to some extent. Going on the road to fight Calzaghe was way more than he was ready for. Not sure if his team overrated him or underestimated Calzaghe.

[SN!PER]

The kid started boxing basically by accident at the age of (off the top of my head) 19 or so, when there was no-one else to take his kid brother to the boxing gym. He had some ability as a streetfighter, and decided to give the sport a tryout when he got to the gym. Apparently his first (or one of his first) spars was Kell Pavlik - he got beat up, but also fought well enough to grab the attention of the gyms coaches.

He's since fought a who's who of top prospects all the way from LMW to LHW with a reasonable degree of success, usually taking fights on at just a week or twos notice.

That's a really good example. Naturally gifted athlete with a lot of heart but poor training/ management. He's only been stopped or dropped in 4 fights out of 44. Split decision against Kovalev. Wow..

[BattleAxePurist]

Most of the lower weight Asian fighters , generally fight tough comp. very early on.

[bigcursedawg]

Rey Megino. His record looks like that of a ordinary journeyman but he's ranked as the #8 flyweight by boxrec. Hes put together a good string of wins recently and is definitely one the the best active fighters with 20 losses. He's faces the who's who at 112 in Asia. He's 2-6 (2kos) against current or former champs and fought Wonjongkam 3 times. A lot of his losses came when he traveled to Thailand as well. He lost a MD to a another Thai prospect that could've daily gone his way had the fight not happened in Thailand.

He's a good fighter but I doubt he ever gets his shot at a title. But he's one of the first fighters hat comes to mind when I think of a unprotected fighter. He's in a tough spot. Because of his record, to stay relevant he has to consistently face top prospects and contenders. His handlers haven't exactly been bring him along easily.

[285Kid]

Vasyl Lomachenko

[bigcursedawg]

Most of the lower weight Asian fighters , generally fight tough comp. very early on.

Very good point. Rey megrino is the epitome of what your talking about.

Another great example is Srisaket Sor Rungvisai. Now he's the wbc superfly champ. But he started his career 1-3-1 in his first 5 fights. His first 2 fights were stoppage losses in Japan and his pro debut was against none other than Akira Yaegashi. Since then he's gone 22-0 with 20 ko's and established himself as one of the best 115lb fighters in the world. I'd love to see him fight Narvaez. To bad it won't happen.

[I.R.I.E]

First one that came to mind was Abner Mares.

[Grimgash]

We know who these guys are, fighters that will fight anyone and are usually most ducked

Guys like Kovalev, Golovkin, Ruslan, Molina, Maidana, Bradley, Donaire, Salido, etc

A lot of those aren't unprotected. GGG stands out big time as not being unprotected. He still hasn't fought anyone really...so he wasn't in against top overmatched guys....one guy who does sorta stand out from recent times is Fernando Vargas. He was fed to the top too early IMO and paid dearly.

[way2strong]

josesito lopez should come to everyones mind when something like this is mentioned ... I'll root for that guy Vs anybody hes a bad azz fighter in my eyes