BoxRec

The Gifted One, its often said he was the most talented British boxer of all time, the best fighter to never win a world title, a genius in the ring yet one of the biggest waste of talents in British boxing and totally inconsistent.

http://boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_ ... &cat=boxer

For those who know about him they will know of the stories about him not training for fights, drinking, smoking weed and disappearing off the radar for weeks at a time.

So was he really as great as many boxing pundits would have you believe? He beat a 31 year old Roberto Duran in 1982 (Ring Magazine upset of the year), Duran a peak fighter who would fight Moore, Hagler and Hearns a few fights later.

Duran was obviously the biggest win of Laings career but Laing never really beat any other world class fighters and had his fair share of losses and stinkers.

So was Laing as great as you would be lead to believe or were his abilities hyped up? If he was a disciplined fighter, trained hard and looked after himself would he have achieved greatness or not?

Quite a sad film of him a few years ago if anyone is interested.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY_1iNtpb1E

Only seen bits and pieces of him. He was clearly very talented, but even if he was totally dedicated that style of fighting is clearly going to get you KO'd at some point.

Talented but erratic just about sums him up.

He clearly had natural talent but you never knew which Kirkland was going to turn up, if indeed he did turn up at all.

Colin Jones scored a brace of stoppage wins over him and he was arguably at his peak so it's clear than he wasn't invincible by any stretch.

The Duran win is probably a career high point for him but this is a Duran that hit easily his worst patch of his career under 40 years of age and this is also a Duran that was notorious by this point for a. not training b. not taking things too seriously c. blowing up between fights. Sports Illustrated were asking if he was finished around this point, not "can he come back" but "he's finished, isn't he?".

A million dollar talent, with a ten cents brain.

The night he beat Duran, he would have beaten the Duran that beat Moore.