If You Could Have Managed Any 3 Fighters In History.......

[keithmoonhangover]

....two from history and one current - who would they be and what would you change? (apart from the obvious retire sooner)

Stanley Ketchel - Keep him off the opium, liquor and girls and get him to save some of the £250,000 he earned and spent. Also stop him flirting with Goldie Smith and get him to duck that punch from Jack Johnson.

Thomas Hearns - Stop him overtraining for the first SRL fight and weighing 145. Then offer Leonard a rematch at 154.

Tyson Fury (stop laughing)- Send him to Manny Stewart, make him live in the gym, build him up slowly and in five years time, when he's nearing his prime, get him a world title shot.

[Idisagree]

Sugar Ray Leonard, Oscar De La Hoya, and Manny Pacquiao.

[yancey]

The 3 that would make me the the most $$$$$$$$.

[raylawpc]

This is a very interesting topic for me! When I figured out in the early 1970s that I sucked as a boxer, the plan was to become a manager. That's one reason I went to law school - figuring that a law degree would give me a leg up on the other managers. But, of course, real life and a family intervened and I never did it. Had I stayed single and done it right out of law school in 1980, I would have had the experience (and, hopefully, the success) to attract the top drawer fighters to my stable by the late 1980s. The three I would have liked to manage would have been: Felix Trinidad, Oscar de la Hoya (but, of course, no superfight if I managed both - sorry), and for my heavyweight, the resurgent George Foreman. Managing Trinidad and de la Hoya would have meant $$$$$$, and managing Big George would have been fun.

[kikibalt]

I already had my three fighters, my son sons Frankie, Tony and Bobby. If I take them out of the picture and putting money aside, it would be Art Argon, Keeny Teran and Enrique Bolanos.

[zojo]

The 3 that would make me the the most $$$$$$$$.

ARRRRR...beat me to it.

[Rocky Balboa]

Mike Tyson: We will now never know, but I think he had the ability & the hunger to become THE best HW ever, head & shoulders above the rest! If I was managing him, I'd have doe ALL I possibly could to keep him on the straight & narrow!

Marvin Hagler: Just being around him, even as his manager, seeing the sacrifices he made when training, what he put himself through in preparation for fights, that would have been an eye opener! A man with Immense Discipline!

Ray Robinson: To witness him as a Welter, in his prime, the greatest fighter ever!

[kidbazooka1]

Leonard, DLH and Tyson in there primes all cash cows.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

The 3 that would make me the the most $$$$$$$$.

In relation to time, nobody would make more money than Dempsey.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

It's almost impossible to narrow down to three fighters. I could probably say decade wise or division wise, but, any three out of the entire history is mind-boggling.

Money Wise:

Oscar De La Hoya
Mike Tyson
Evander Holyfield

To Try & Take Them To Greater Heights:
Herol Graham (Incredible boxer that I would have liked to see around better training if possible, set him up with better sparring & more funds. It's a shame he just never quite "made it").
Tim Witherspoon (See: Herol Graham).
Zab Judah (A guy that had all the natural talent to be one of the better fighters of the best two decades - yes, I said it, but was misguided by poor training physically & mentally).

For The "Love Of The Game":
Sugar Ray Robinson
Ricardo Lopez
Henry Armstrong/Jim Jeffries

Ha, it really is difficult to limit it just to three. I could have said : "Louis/Holmes/Dempsey" for my last section or "Greb/Langford/Charles". Etc., solid thread though.

Good call on Witherspoon. I think you would be shocked to find that Judah made the most of his career. His talents are severely overrated imo. Always have been.

[romerojesus_2010]

Julian Jackson, Mike tyson and Edwin Valero

[Nile4000]

Greg Page, Mitch Green, and Zab Judah.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Hand speed he has, he lacks toughness and has mediocre instincts and Ring IQ. His weaknesses are not things that a trainer can help. I know it's a wide spread opinion, I find it to be a myth. I don't think a different trainer changes a thing.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

You can't change instincts, they are what they are. The same goes for a Ring IQ. I mean you can tell a fighter what to do and what the proper response is but Eddie Futch isn't going to make a Zab Judah intelligent enough to carry it into the ring with him. Mike Tyson & Oscar delaHoya had many different trainers that get lauded for their brilliance and not one of them could help those guys with their low ring IQ. What makes you think Zab would be more adaptable than either of those fighters?

My last sentence was Zab specific, I don't think he would have been any better under Ray Arcel.

[Goodnight, Irene]

I'm not so sure De La Hoya couldn't improve significantly under the right coaching regimen. He was excellent at following advice from the corner, right throughout his career. He had some decent trainers during his career, but none on the level of a Futch, Arcel, or Blackburn.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

His ring IQ is as low as Judah's. He was just significantly more talented and tougher to begin with.

I'm not trying to diminish the significance of a great trainer. I'm just saying that Judah's gifts are overrated as all hell.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

His speed was impossible not to notice. The deadly left hand is one of the exaggerations. he had solid power, but nothing wicked. I'm not trying to say I never fell for it. I thought Zab was going to own Kostya. But through the years I came to the realization that his talent had gotten overrated to the point that his accomplishments may well be underrated.

[Ezzard]

I think I like the idea of managing guys where you could see errors were made.

Audley Harrison would be a definite for me. Olympic Gold for a country who will get behind a guy with the right attitude rather than necessarily the right talent. Audley needed to have a softer persona and be more dedicated and he could have made a lot more money than he did. He had the golden goose: a contract on the BBC (free to watch and no adverts).

I’d love to say Kirkland Laing and Lloyd Honeyghan but I’m not sure those characters were controllable. I think they’d have been hard gentlemen to manage no matter who was looking after them.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

I never even answered the question, LOL.

Jesse Burnett- Tremendous talent, horribly mismanaged to the point where his record dictated that he had to take fights on short notice and in hostile terriotory. His break through came late when he thrashed Galindez on a couple days notice. He could have been special.

Razor Ruddock- Watching him out-box Mike Weaver behind his jab seems like a dream. Incorporating that into the bone crushing punching would have been interesting. I guess I just want to get into his head. The talent was there and he just stopped using it.

Thomas Hearns- Just for a ringside seat. I wouldn't change a thing.

[Bricks]

With my accounting qualifications and intimate knowledge of taxation and the fight game Id have loved to have managed:


Lloyd Honeyghan: I would meet Lloyd in a late night casino while Mickey Duff is on one of his one week Concorde trips to New York. Id say "champ what you doing in here at 4am and whys that shcyster in New York travelling on concorde on your money"? Id get Lloyd to leave Mickey Duff and base himself in the states, this would be just after the second Vaca win. Id have got him trained by eddie Futch and got him rededicated and away from the temptations in London.I guarantee Lloyd would have stayed at the level he was at in 1988 until 1993 and retired than in much better shape than he did eventually in 1995

Thomas Hearns in 1993: Just after he knocked out Maynard Tommy would approach me to manage him. Id manouever Tommy to fight Mike Mccallum in 1994 and win the LH title again than after 2-3 years of Tommy at the top in 1996 we would condescend to making a cruiser matchup with Iran Barkley so Tommy could beat him and retire. And we would achieve all that.

James Toney in 1995: James would be down and he would be hating on Jackie Kallen. I would get james motivated again. I would tell him that skinny biitch was keeping James down at 160lbs to line her own shcyster pockets. I would take james up to cruiser immediately and up to heavyweight earlier when he was still young back in 1998.

[Bricks]

I never even answered the question, LOL.

Jesse Burnett- Tremendous talent, horribly mismanaged to the point where his record dictated that he had to take fights on short notice and in hostile terriotory. His break through came late when he thrashed Galindez on a couple days notice. He could have been special.

Razor Ruddock- Watching him out-box Mike Weaver behind his jab seems like a dream. Incorporating that into the bone crushing punching would have been interesting. I guess I just want to get into his head. The talent was there and he just stopped using it.

Thomas Hearns- Just for a ringside seat. I wouldn't change a thing.

Well put about Razor. Very well put.

[Ezzard]

With my accounting qualifications and intimate knowledge of taxation and the fight game Id have loved to have managed:


Lloyd Honeyghan: I would meet Lloyd in a late night casino while Mickey Duff is on one of his one week Concorde trips to New York. Id say "champ what you doing in here at 4am and whys that shcyster in New York travelling on concorde on your money"? Id get Lloyd to leave Mickey Duff and base himself in the states, this would be just after the second Vaca win. Id have got him trained by eddie Futch and got him rededicated and away from the temptations in London.I guarantee Lloyd would have stayed at the level he was at in 1988 until 1993 and retired than in much better shape than he did eventually in 1995

Thomas Hearns in 1993: Just after he knocked out Maynard Tommy would approach me to manage him. Id manouever Tommy to fight Mike Mccallum in 1994 and win the LH title again than after 2-3 years of Tommy at the top in 1996 we would condescend to making a cruiser matchup with Iran Barkley so Tommy could beat him and retire. And we would achieve all that.

James Toney in 1995: James would be down and he would be hating on Jackie Kallen. I would get james motivated again. I would tell him that skinny biitch was keeping James down at 160lbs to line her own shcyster pockets. I would take james up to cruiser immediately and up to heavyweight earlier when he was still young back in 1998.

Love the Honeyghan scenario.

[Ezzard]

Saad, Mugabi...

You guys shouldn't even fantasise about managing Hearns. What a dream it would be.

Steward said that Hearns was a real team guy and even took some acreer decisons in order to help other fighters at Kronk.