Fighters improved by their first loss?

[mickey1975]

I’ll start with Sugar Ray Leonard.

[Fray Bentos]

Johnny Nelson!

[Ruthless-RKO]

Did James DeGale actually improve after his loss to Groves?

[KiwiRider]

Did James DeGale actually improve after his loss to Groves?

If you mean by lowering his punch output, then yes! Exponentially!

[Ruthless-RKO]

Did James DeGale actually improve after his loss to Groves?

If you mean by lowering his punch output, then yes! Exponentially!

It was a close fight to be fair..

[DrDuke]

Lomachenko.

[bigjack]

Nigel Benn

[maverick23]

Haye losing to Carl Thompson was a great learning experience for him. Taught him that he couldn’t blow everyone away, not to be so reckless, focus more on conditioning and he needed to put boxing before being a party boy.

[Coco]

Not losses but Fury getting away with the first McDermott result def helped him, as did knockdowns against Cunningham and Fircha(sp)

[Steveh583]

Nigel Benn

great example.

David Haye

[BigGar]

Bernard Hopkins

[Ruthless-RKO]

Bernard Hopkins

JMM

[(craig)]

Canelo

[ThereByTheGrace]

Lennox lewis

[Foggy]

Matthew Mackilin, may seem a strange choice but I remember him losing to Andrew Facey and he did pretty well for his self after that, apart from the world championship.

[oogiebe]

Kenny Norton seemed to learn a few things after losing to Garcia.

[THEBUTCH]

Beat me to it Foggy. Macklin became a better fighter after his first loss and an even better fighter after his second defeat, this time to Jamie Moore.

Although I'm not a huge fan of switching trainers regularly, it can also massively improve a boxer. For example, Takaloo might have learnt from his first defeat, but he improved drastically when he hooked up with Jim McDonnel.

[Foggy]

Boxing needs to change its stance on losing the 0 (it seems to be in its own little bubble) Theres too push pressure on fighters to be perfect and we all know in the real world a defeat, losing, making mistakes is the only way to learn and move forward.

Tbh boxing isn’t my number 1 sport to follow anymore I’m more into strongman and
Snooker (polar opposites i know)but I still hang around here because I find boxrec a great way to catch up on results etc. Losing in these sports isn’t frowned upon and many other sports it isn’t golf, tennis, football, MMA etc, but boxing will never change I suppose

[THEBUTCH]

I blame the media personally. How many times do they present a fight as "must win" or "the loser has no where to go" ? Its absolute b0ll0cks more often than not !

[Foggy]

Gone are the days when world champions would would fight non title bouts, lose, then go on To defend their world titles in a fight or 2 times, it didn’t affect their legacy did it

[mickey1975]

Gone are the days when world champions would would fight non title bouts, lose, then go on To defend their world titles in a fight or 2 times, it didn’t affect their legacy did it

Graham Earl to Ricky Burns last I can think of.

[THEBUTCH]

I think the arrival of the WBO eventually put paid to World champions taking part in non title fights.

When you look at some of Chris Eubank's or Herbie Hide's title defences they were no better, or even worse, that some of those excellent world champions would square off with in between actual world title defences.

[margaret thatcher]

the fans suck at it too tbh, even tons of the 'hardcore' fans who say that 0s dont matter and that guys shouldnt worry about a loss, and that fighters need to challenge themselves more etc......will then bash a guy an say he's finished if he loses

[Switch hitter]

Alex Arther improved after Gomez fight

[JC]

Joe Louis