BoxRec

A word banded about a lot when it comes to boxing forums, in his prime or not in his prime. So what do you mean when you say it and how long does someones prime last for, of course it depends from fighter to fighter? Using Ali as an example, many people think his best years were before his exile from boxing, he was a lot quicker and more mobile, he slowed down after his return but arguably had the better wins.

Prime and Tyson is another common debate, for me Tyson's light burned quickly as it often does with a toe to toe fighter. For me Tyson was at his best 1986-1988 but even then I think his lifestyle was impacting a lot even at that time but he was just heads and shoulders above everyone else without having to try too hard. Physically Tyson probably hadn't reached his physical prime as he was only 20-22 years old.

So what's your thoughts on someones prime?

Its when the combination of skill, will, genetics and training reach a peak that's visible in the athletes performance. It's not an age thing as some have a long prime and some have shorter ones. I agree a fighter with Tysons style can burn out fast but really Tyson was his own worst enemy.

I think with today's drugs for sport that a prime can be extended or sometimes temporarily rekindled unlike in say Joe Louis day...once it went you were on the way down and nothing stopped it.

There are fighters who buck the trend, like Jersey Joe.

Prime and peak are different... Peak is at you absolute zenith... Prime is when you reach professional competence, and extends until you start losing professional competence... Mayweather had an extended prime because he learned how to box from the age of 3 -- and reach his prime less than a year into his pro career... And he never fell below a very high level of performance through the rest of his 20-year pro career.

A more typical fighter will reach his prime 3 to 6 years into his pro career ... and is able to maintain that level for about 10 to 12 years.

golden oldie wrote:A fighters prime is up until the point he loses. You only need to ask his more fanatical followers to verify that observation. Particularly if that fighter is called either Mike Tyson, or Manny Pacquioa.

What's wrong with you? The bitterness is in almost every post you make

Tomasino wrote:

golden oldie wrote:A fighters prime is up until the point he loses. You only need to ask his more fanatical followers to verify that observation. Particularly if that fighter is called either Mike Tyson, or Manny Pacquioa.

What's wrong with you? The bitterness is in almost every post you make

you can imagine him "HARRRRRUMPH"ing at the screen

golden oldie wrote:

Counter-puncher wrote:

Tomasino wrote:

What's wrong with you? The bitterness is in almost every post you make

you can imagine him "HARRRRRUMPH"ing at the screen

Aaah look, the resident parrot has had its cage rattled.

rather a parrot than a cock

golden oldie wrote:

Tomasino wrote:

golden oldie wrote:A fighters prime is up until the point he loses. You only need to ask his more fanatical followers to verify that observation. Particularly if that fighter is called either Mike Tyson, or Manny Pacquioa.

What's wrong with you? The bitterness is in almost every post you make

Are you American by any chance?

Only they are not much on irony and wouldn't have " got " the LOL icons at the end of the post. By the way, I am flattered that you spend time reading my posts when I barely even notice yours.

I'm glad you managed an erection over me reading your posts, your care home nurse will be most impressed.

I'm from the UK. Please, stop being a petty, racist, bitter pudendum.

I think some fighters become more complete once they have suffered a loss, it gives them a different perspective and encourages them to improve their ring smarts, doesn't apply to everyone mind you as some guys are just confidence fighters and struggle after losing

Kalan wrote:Prime and peak are different... Peak is at you absolute zenith... Prime is when you reach professional competence, and extends until you start losing professional competence... Mayweather had an extended prime because he learned how to box from the age of 3 -- and reach his prime less than a year into his pro career... And he never fell below a very high level of performance through the rest of his 20-year pro career.

A more typical fighter will reach his prime 3 to 6 years into his pro career ... and is able to maintain that level for about 10 to 12 years.

This is more or less my take on it.

Many seem to think it's a fighter at his very best.
Frazier in his first fight against Ali for instance. Some will tell you Joe's prime lasted for 45 minutes in the ring.

Prime for me is ordinarily a 6-10 year spell when a fighter has developed beyond his early inexperienced years and up till he fades with age or wear and tear.

A loss doesn't always tell the whole story either.

David Haye was in his prime when he lost to Klitschko, he just came up against a task that was too big for him at the time.
He is now past his prime and has visibly slowed through age and injuries. But he might still have the skills and savvy to lift a world title. Heck you never know, he might have the beating of a slower Wlad now. But his best years are behind him IMO

Its interesting that Foreman who is highly rated by most only fought for 7 years in his 'first' career so his prime was relatively short.

Controversial wrote:Its interesting that Foreman who is highly rated by most only fought for 7 years in his 'first' career so his prime was relatively short.

Foreman arguably had 3 pro careers. 1969-1974, 1976-77, and the last one.

1976-77 he had a half dozen fights and was trying to throw straight punches under the tooteledge of Gil Clancy.

littlepug wrote:I think some fighters become more complete once they have suffered a loss, it gives them a different perspective and encourages them to improve their ring smarts, doesn't apply to everyone mind you as some guys are just confidence fighters and struggle after losing

golden oldie wrote:A fighters prime is up until the point he loses.

I agree with littlepug here, losses have a knack of ruining some fighters, their confidence goes. Prince Hamed, Jeff Lacy, Don Curry, Meldrick Taylor, Michael Grant, Ricky Hatton, Roy Jones Jnr are a few names off the top of my head that seem to have lost something after their first defeat. Tyson too.

Tony1244 wrote:

Controversial wrote:Its interesting that Foreman who is highly rated by most only fought for 7 years in his 'first' career so his prime was relatively short.

Foreman arguably had 3 pro careers. 1969-1974, 1976-77, and the last one.

1976-77 he had a half dozen fights and was trying to throw straight punches under the tooteledge of Gil Clancy.

Yes after the Ali loss he was out the game for 15 months and didn't look so impressive afterwards, had a life and death fight with Lyle and was beaten by Young before retiring.

Controversial wrote:

Tony1244 wrote:

Controversial wrote:Its interesting that Foreman who is highly rated by most only fought for 7 years in his 'first' career so his prime was relatively short.

Foreman arguably had 3 pro careers. 1969-1974, 1976-77, and the last one.

1976-77 he had a half dozen fights and was trying to throw straight punches under the tooteledge of Gil Clancy.

Yes after the Ali loss he was out the game for 15 months and didn't look so impressive afterwards, had a life and death fight with Lyle and was beaten by Young before retiring.

He looked good against an aging Frazier, LeDoux, Dennis, and Agosto. Against Young, he stopped jabbing and couldn't relax. The Lyle fight was very strange and telling.

Tony1244 wrote:

Controversial wrote:

Tony1244 wrote:

Foreman arguably had 3 pro careers. 1969-1974, 1976-77, and the last one.

1976-77 he had a half dozen fights and was trying to throw straight punches under the tooteledge of Gil Clancy.

Yes after the Ali loss he was out the game for 15 months and didn't look so impressive afterwards, had a life and death fight with Lyle and was beaten by Young before retiring.

He looked good against an aging Frazier, LeDoux, Dennis, and Agosto. Against Young, he stopped jabbing and couldn't relax. The Lyle fight was very strange and telling.

Yeah but to be fair Frazier, LeDoux, Dennis and Agosto weren't much cop, the two decent guys he fought he struggled with.

Controversial wrote:

Tony1244 wrote:

Controversial wrote:
Yes after the Ali loss he was out the game for 15 months and didn't look so impressive afterwards, had a life and death fight with Lyle and was beaten by Young before retiring.

He looked good against an aging Frazier, LeDoux, Dennis, and Agosto. Against Young, he stopped jabbing and couldn't relax. The Lyle fight was very strange and telling.

Yeah but to be fair Frazier, LeDoux, Dennis and Agosto weren't much cop, the two decent guys he fought he struggled with.

All true, hard for my head to get around because I was such a huge GF fan back then. I have him all time top 10 HW but he was terrible against Lyle and Young. Lyle was a good puncher but Jimmy Ellis, Jerry Quarry, and others managed not to get too badly hurt by him.

Tony1244 wrote:

Controversial wrote:

Tony1244 wrote:

He looked good against an aging Frazier, LeDoux, Dennis, and Agosto. Against Young, he stopped jabbing and couldn't relax. The Lyle fight was very strange and telling.

Yeah but to be fair Frazier, LeDoux, Dennis and Agosto weren't much cop, the two decent guys he fought he struggled with.

All true, hard for my head to get around because I was such a huge GF fan back then. I have him all time top 10 HW but he was terrible against Lyle and Young. Lyle was a good puncher but Jimmy Ellis, Jerry Quarry, and others managed not to get too badly hurt by him.

I think the Ali loss screwed with his head. In some ways he was like Tyson, was told he was unbeatable. He was destroying everyone then he got beat, I'm not sure he could cope with it. Foreman fought a lot of small guys in his first career, at least 15 opponents were under 200lbs, some just over 200lbs. Foreman was rarely the smaller and lighter fighter. Lyle was close in size and strength to him which might have explained why he struggled in that fight.


.

A prime fighter is when he reached his highest potential no matter the age. Some had prime years early and some others like the greats Bernard Hopkins and Carlos Monzon had LATE PRIMES way into their 30s. It depends on the fighter.

But, the boxing rule is that boxing is a young man's sport. After 30 years of age, many fighters start losing something whether be speed or reflexes or motivation. At 30 is the time where most fighters gotta start thinking about retirement. That's not to say all the time, but, most of the time.

golden oldie wrote:

Controversial wrote:

littlepug wrote:I think some fighters become more complete once they have suffered a loss, it gives them a different perspective and encourages them to improve their ring smarts, doesn't apply to everyone mind you as some guys are just confidence fighters and struggle after losing

golden oldie wrote:A fighters prime is up until the point he loses.

I agree with littlepug here, losses have a knack of ruining some fighters, their confidence goes. Prince Hamed, Jeff Lacy, Don Curry, Meldrick Taylor, Michael Grant, Ricky Hatton, Roy Jones Jnr are a few names off the top of my head that seem to have lost something after their first defeat. Tyson too.

I was having a pop at what I consider to be fanboys, NOT the fighters. Just trawl the internet and you will find thousands, and thousands of frankly ridiculous explanations ( excuses ) by fanboys as to why their hero lost.

Well sometimes a loss can be given explanations. If both fighters were at the top of their game in the fight, trained hard, focused and ready to fight then it's pretty hard to make an excuse. If one clearly looked out of sorts in the run up to the fight, wasn't training too hard and appeared to be underestimating his opponent then of course you will hear the excuses, which in most cases probably explains why they lost. Sometimes fighters are their own worse enemy and take their mind off a fight and that's when it tends to go against them. As an example I'm a big Lennox Lewis fan, the loss to McCall can't really be excused in my book but his loss to Rahman he certainly didn't train too hard, take him too seriously or prepare for fighting at altitude. A loss is a loss of course but no way should Rahman have ever beaten him.

A fighter's prime is when he is in the best years. Usually it takes a fighter 3-5 years from the start of his pro career to get to this point. Then most fighters are close to this level for a few years. Then usually, age and/or punishment takes their toll. They usually gradually began to decline

Of course there are exceptions like Jersey Joe Walcott and Archie Moore. However, they are rare exceptions. Some fighters have shorter times to do wars, injuries, and drugs.

More often than not it is used to back a fans opinion of the fighter, positive or negative.

Often true. People use it as an excuse and say a fighter (usually someone that they like) was not in his prime for fight he lost when he was.
Or they they say a fighter (usually whom they don't like) was in his prime when he wasn't.

Or when trying to make it look like (someone that they like) was better than he actually was, they claim that an opponent was in his prime when the opponent wasn't.

A boxers prime is like the individual finger print. Ah....Ron Lyle had that sort of fighter makeup in which he would allow Jimmy Young/Scott LeDoux to be competitive and then come unpredictable against George Foreman. (Takes two to make the fight)

golden oldie wrote: Now lets take Tyson / Douglas.

This was a 23 year old, who went on to fight for a further 15 years after the defeat, yet nary a squeak of a rematch.

Edit. Also Lewis was so desperate for the contracted immediate rematch he had to sue King, and Rahman to get it, because they wanted a Tyson fight.

The big difference there was Rahman was still world champ and Douglas wasn't. After losing his title to Holyfield Douglas didn't fight for 6 years anyway and wasn't the same fighter anymore when he came back. Arguably Tyson fought far longer than he should have, 5 fights in the last 5 years of his career was pretty poor and even before that he was pretty poor, he was only fighting for the money at that stage and a shadow of his former self.

golden oldie wrote:

Controversial wrote:

golden oldie wrote: Now lets take Tyson / Douglas.

This was a 23 year old, who went on to fight for a further 15 years after the defeat, yet nary a squeak of a rematch.

Edit. Also Lewis was so desperate for the contracted immediate rematch he had to sue King, and Rahman to get it, because they wanted a Tyson fight.

The big difference there was Rahman was still world champ and Douglas wasn't. After losing his title to Holyfield Douglas didn't fight for 6 years anyway and wasn't the same fighter anymore when he came back. Arguably Tyson fought far longer than he should have, 5 fights in the last 5 years of his career was pretty poor and even before that he was pretty poor, he was only fighting for the money at that stage and a shadow of his former self.

So what better time for Tyson to get his " revenge "? He had been battered, and then disgraced by none other than Holyfield ( who'd put Buster into retirement in 90, ) by mid 97. Why wasn't it him possibly knocking over Douglas in 98 instead of Saverese? ( hell even I could have promoted that fight ) We KNOW he could still sell tickets then. I believe he felt that Douglas would always have been " up " for a fight with him, and consequently didn't really want to know. Too big, too fast, and too skilled for Tyson when he took the job seriously.

I assume because Tyson had title fights with Holyfield in 1996 and 1997, far more lucrative than a non-title fight against Douglas. When he came back Douglas was quite vocal about rematches with Tyson and Holyfield and got a few wins under his belt before being stopped in the first round against Savarese in 1998.