BoxRec

https://www.boxing247.com/boxing-news/h ... s-no/65588

This past Saturday night HBO hoped they had one a candidate for “fight of the year” (FOTY). What they got was another “no mas.” Everyone alive at the time of the second Leonard vs Duran fight knows “Hands of Stone” quit by saying “no mas” to referee Richard Steele. He had no choice but to call a halt to the festivities. But wait, Duran now claims he never said, “no mas.” He claims he said, “No sigo” which, according to Roberto means, “I’m not going any further.” He blames Howard Cossell for claiming he said, “no mas.” Duran further explains he lost the fight because he got too fat celebrating after his victory over Leonard in the first fight. In other words, he didn’t have enough time to prepare. The truth is he had exactly the same amount of time as Sugar Ray Leonard.

After Nicolas “The Axe” Walters quit after the 7th round against Vasyl “Hi-Tech” Lomachenko, he too attempted to avoid blaming himself. Inexplicably, he blamed his failure on promoters and HBO. According to him, they didn’t get him into the ring often enough in preparation for this big fight against his toughest opponent. As a result, “The Axe” was not sharp. As far as quitting goes, he more or less said that he was getting tagged hard, and it would have been foolish for him to continue taking punishment. Was he injured? No. Was he hurt? No. It was the fear of what might happen that made him quit. The possibility of that happening was too much for him. So, “no mas.” was his way out.

Now it would seem Nicolas Walters, the former undefeated warrior, is no mas. His “0” is gone, and fans have been left in shock. HBO is scrambling to pick up the pieces. Their hopes for a FOTY turned into a mess of mistrust. Their hopes were dashed by a quitter who refused to except the blame. Instead, he pointed the finger of responsibility right back at them. He had the audacity to scold Max, saying something like, “My poor showing is your fault because you didn’t get me into the ring often enough”. In other words he blames his ring rust on them. From this point on HBO might be looking upon him as a Jonah, a bringer of bad luck. It’s two weeks in a row now for the bedeviled HBO. You can bet they don’t want the bad luck to persist.

Walters is a jacker, got no heart, disgraceful, specially with fighters like Tommy Martin who'd love to box again

Some axe man he was

There's a case to be made to have his purse suspended.

There's absolutely no way he was soaking up too much punishment.
He looked fresh as a daisy at the post fight interviews.

Ruthless-RKO wrote:Duran further explains he lost the fight because he got too fat celebrating after his victory over Leonard in the first fight. In other words, he didn’t have enough time to prepare. The truth is he had exactly the same amount of time as Sugar Ray Leonard.

This is not exactly true. Leonard knew Duran was partying hard following his win and had gotten out of shape. Therefore, Leonard began his training camp and began putting a contract together unbeknownst to Team Duran. It was good gamesmanship by SRL, if you want to call it that, to put Duran at a disadvantage by not giving him ample time to prepare. Duran's whole training camp was geared towards making the weight which contributed to his sluggish performance in which he got frustrated and ended up quitting.

Duran should've been a professional and not allowed himself to get as out of shape as he got. However, unlike Walters, Duran had carved out a first ballot Hall of Fame career heading into the Leonard rematch and was regarded as a living legend. I can see how someone like Duran can lose the fire and motivation. In Walter's case, he hasn't made HUGE money yet and by quitting in a fight where he still had the proverbial puncher's chance (as slim as it may have been) his marketability took a huge hit and he may not get another big money assignment.