BoxRec

Have there been many fighters who have had good careers after turning professional at a late age?

ray mercer i think may of been 29 -32??

matt skelton fought for a world title he must of turnt over at 36

just thought of one! john davison never turned professional til he was 30, he won the british featherweight title, wbc internaional and boxed steve robinson for the wbo world title

Hopkins took up the sport late and went on to be great.

Antonio Tarver turned over fairly late And went on to win a title

alexpaterson wrote:Antonio Tarver turned over fairly late And went on to win a title

...all after battling crack addiction if I remember rightly?

TerribleTerry wrote:

alexpaterson wrote:Antonio Tarver turned over fairly late And went on to win a title

...all after battling crack addiction if I remember rightly?

Bloody hell I never knew that!

alexpaterson wrote:

TerribleTerry wrote:

alexpaterson wrote:Antonio Tarver turned over fairly late And went on to win a title

...all after battling crack addiction if I remember rightly?

Bloody hell I never knew that!

Yeah it was before he went pro (prior to the Olympics even).

Just checked on google and whilst it isn't often mentioned these days in relation to his career, a comeback of that magnitude is worthy of note in my book.

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/04/21/sport ... lanta.html

The Cat

pinklon thomas was also a crack addict who went on to become world champ.

hurlock wrote:pinklon thomas was also a crack addict who went on to become world champ.

Dokes, Tubbs and a good few more of the 80s 'lost generation' of heavies squandered their talent in this manner..

Sven Ottke

On this theme, why did Willie Casey turn pro so late?

I just wondered because he is 28 and Kiko Martinez is 24.

Martin Rogan turned over really late, not sure if he had a long Am career or not

bennie wrote:On this theme, why did Willie Casey turn pro so late?

I hear that he is one of 42 brothers and sisters. That is unbelievable. Surely he cannot remember all of their names and birthdays?

He's a traveller from the toughest town in the country. He's as hard as a coffin nail, as they say in Snatch.

alexpaterson wrote:Martin Rogan turned over really late, not sure if he had a long Am career or not

Apparently he has quite a good am pedigree.

Audley hay froch

froch..25 ?

Nate Campbell was about 30. I think James Bonecrusher Smith was about the same.

Talking of lunatics, can anyone name the heavyweight who went from Tom McNeeley to Trevor Berbick?

Nobody? It was Bobby Halpern, a frightening individual who turned pro, had a few fights, one of them against Tom McNeeley, got sent to jail for about 20 years, came out and fought Berbick and a few more, and finally wound up dead in a New York 'hit'.


Leroy Jones missed out on the mysterious quality known as a little bit of luck on a cold night 30 years ago. Leroy took a thumb in the eye from Larry Holmes in the eighth round of their Las Vegas encounter in March 1980 and, while he bravely stayed on his feet, he had to be rescued as the spiteful Holmes teed off on him in a corner. That was it; Leroy’s challenge for the world heavyweight title was over, along with the very rest of his boxing career. Jones, at the age of 30, had suffered a detached retina.
Nobody seems to know what the big Denver man did in his post-boxing years. Leroy certainly kept his nose clean, probably raised a family, probably held down a job. You want to think he was happy; you want to think he did good things. He was “big, strong, tough”, said Holmes in 2003. “He was bigger than me. He was 245 pounds, 6ft 5ins or 6ft 6ins, but I was quicker and punched harder.” In fact, Jones was surprisingly fluid for such a big man, with surprising ability, but Holmes is one of the greatest heavyweights of all time and he pounded on Jones as he would pound on Muhammad Ali just a few months later. (Forget those who say Holmes held back against Ali, he didn’t.)
You know, Leroy only ever lost to Holmes in 27 fights, which only exarcebates the way his career came to such a sudden end. His best win was a 12-round decision over Mike Weaver in 1978 in Las Vegas, a year before Weaver took Holmes to the well in a fantastic battle at Madison Square Garden. He also scored decent wins over Jody Ballard, Larry Frazier and Harry Terrell.
Nobody seems to know how he lived or even how he died earlier this year at the age of 60. We do know that he boxed between 1973 and 1980 and went all the way to a shot at the world heavyweight title. We also know Leroy joined the masses thinking over and over, 'if only'.

Dewey Bosell

James bonecrusher smith turned pro at 28

I think carl froch was 24 when he turned over