BoxRec

OK here's your opportunity to be humble and admit that you're not exactly the boxing expert you'd like everyone to believe you are. So beginning this exercise in humility here's some of my worst picks ever.

1. Fenech KO 9 Nelson. 2nd fight. After what happened in the first fight and the fact that the bout would be in Australia, I didn't think Fenech could lose.

2. Ganigan KO 4 Arguello. After Ganigan's great starts against Gato Gonzalez and Sean O'Grady, I actually believed he could take out the slow starting Arguello. Felt like a genius when sure enough Ganigan floored Arguello in the 1st.

3. D Moore KO 10 Duran. When Moore became a world champion in only his 9th fight, then defended 3 times and stopped Kalule along the way, I figured he was destined for greatness.

4. Rosario KO 7 Chavez. Three of Chavez last 4 opponents had gone the distance. He was moving up in weight, and Rosario was in deadly form.

5. McGirt KO 6 M Taylor. Just thought McGirt would be too strong for Taylor.

6. Mosley KO 8 Forrest. Coming in I thought Mosley was almost unbeatable. Apparently some sportswriters thought so as well and gave Forrest added incentive by practically ignoring him at the press conference while asking Mosley who he'd fight next.

7. Trinidad KO 5 Hopkins. I thought it was going to set up a super fight with Roy Jones.

8. Hagler KO 7 Leonard. And I was very happy to be proved dead wrong.

9. McCrory W15 D Curry. Thought jab-reach would be the difference.

10. M Saad Muhammad KO 10 Qawi. First fight. Thought Saad was too rugged and experienced for Qawi.

11. Tyson KO 2 Douglas. Then again did anyone have Douglas.

12. Biggs W12 Tyson. Expected Biggs to jab, move and use his big reach advantage.

That's just a start, I'm sure I can think of alot more.

My worst pick was Buster Drayton over Julian Jackson,

I really thought that Herbie Hide would beat Riddick Bowe

I had figured the following would happen and none came to pass. I reversed my thoughts the second time around for Tyson- Holyfield and Taylor-Chavez so was not caught napping twice on those.

Tszyu over Hatton
DLH over Mosely (fights one and two)
Liston over Martin
Duran over Leanard (fight two)
Tyson Over Holyfield (fight one) (however very happy with the outcome)
Cervantes over Pryor
Moore over Patterson
Danny Little Red Lopez over Octavio Gomez (fight one)
Jones over Tarver (fight two)
Taylor over Chavez (fight one)
Saad Muhhamad over Mustafa Muhhamad
Post Script:.......Morales over Raheem. Damn!

Do I have to keep going? this is getting embarrasing.

I thought Duran would beat Hearns.

well im only 17 and i didnt get into todays boxing until like 3 years ago, i just use to like the old stuff... but anyway.. due to my limited experience, im gonna hafta sayyyyy.. i picked Tyson over that man giant he fought earlier this year. mi scuzi

Andrew Golota as the next heavy weight champion as he was taking it to Bowe during their first fight before he got himself DQ'ed.

Mike Grant over Lennox Lewis.

My worst picks were manifested in terms of bets lost. I was betting big back in the 80s and this is where I got stung.

I picked Duran in Leonard-Duran II. (I had won big by picking Duran in the first fight.)

I picked Hagler to beat Leonard.

I picked Hearns to beat Leonard.

So I bet big against Leonard 4 times and won only once (the Brawl in Montreal.) I hate the little son of a....

I had a friend that hated the 49ers and always bet against Joe Montana. I smirked at his stupidity at the time but in retrospect I did the same with Leonard, that son of a ...

Man what is it about Sugar Ray Leonard that ticks people off ? In his 3 bouts with Roberto Duran we had a battle of two of the greatest fighters of the last 50 years, but it was also such a clear cut case of good vs evil. Leonard was polite, outgoing and personable, while Duran was ornery, vicious and obscene. And yet, so many people, friends included, wanted Duran to knockout Leonard. I never understood it, and still don't . I could admire Duran's boxing skills and fighting spirit, but at the same time I derived pure pleasure from what happened in the New Orleans Superdome, and from Tommy Hearns bionic right to Duran's chin that sent him to the canvas face first for the count. For me it doesn't get any better !

thank you seamus for pointing that out.

why does eveyone hate him????

he backs up eveyrhting he says like muhammad ali and he showed in the ring he was one of the greatest fighters who ever lived and one of the most talented. he was so gifted.

how could u not like him or at least respect him???

the guy beat a prime duran and hearns and was the first guy to beat marvin hagler in many years after coming off basically a 5 YEAR layoff.


u realize how much this guy acccomplished. u realize what he did for the sport of boxing. in his prime at welterweight, i think he was the 2nd greatest welter ever.

u would think people would not like duran for saying "next time ill send lampkin to the morgue and being the evilest fighter in the world. and leonard a nice spoken guy everyone is cheering for the evil guy. why??????


i love both of them, but come on. there wasnt a bigger asshole than duran. and leonard was one of the nicest guys

im not a big duran fan, and i thought it was great that sugar ray beat him, sugar ray was a great guy, and as brockton said how could u not like him?.. he was very similar to ali except he was more soft spoken. i dont think its fair to say that noone likes the guys seamus.

BoxBuzz wrote:I had figured the following would happen and none came to pass. I reversed my thoughts the second time around for Tyson- Holyfield and Taylor-Chavez so was not caught napping twice on those.

Tszyu over Hatton
DLH over Mosely (fights one and two)
Liston over Martin
Duran over Leanard (fight two)
Tyson Over Holyfield (fight one) (however very happy with the outcome)
Cervantes over Pryor
Moore over Patterson
Danny Little Red Lopez over Octavio Gomez (fight one)
Jones over Tarver (fight two)
Taylor over Chavez (fight one)
Saad Muhhamad over Mustafa Muhhamad
Post Script:.......Morales over Raheem. Damn!

Do I have to keep going? this is getting embarrasing.

With all due respect BoxBuzz, on the next big fight, please don't pick publicly. Write your pick to win on a piece of paper with time and date and seal it until after the fight.
I thought I had bad luck picking pro football winners against my daughter, but you are definitely unlucky in boxing.

Should huge upsets be considered in the "worst picks ever" list?

I mean, can picking Tyson to beat Douglas or Morales to beat Raheem be considered a horrible pick when virtually everyone is picking them? Before the Tyson v. Douglas fight, if someone said that they were picking Douglas to win, they were either joking or insane. No one could have made a good case for Douglas to defeat Tyson. So, from my point of view, that really wouldn't be a bad pick.

To further illustrate my point, let's say that fighter A is a huge favorite over fighter B:

If A defeats B, and you picked B to win, that's a "worst pick ever"
If B defeats A, and you picked A to win, that's not necessarily a bad pick, just an unfavorable outcome
If A defeats B, and you picked A to win, then you're with everyone else
If B defeats A, and you picked B to win, then you're obviously insane

Seamus wrote:Man what is it about Sugar Ray Leonard that ticks people off ? In his 3 bouts with Roberto Duran we had a battle of two of the greatest fighters of the last 50 years, but it was also such a clear cut case of good vs evil. Leonard was polite, outgoing and personable, while Duran was ornery, vicious and obscene. And yet, so many people, friends included, wanted Duran to knockout Leonard. I never understood it, and still don't . I could admire Duran's boxing skills and fighting spirit, but at the same time I derived pure pleasure from what happened in the New Orleans Superdome, and from Tommy Hearns bionic right to Duran's chin that sent him to the canvas face first for the count. For me it doesn't get any better !

"Good vs Evil." What kind of sentimental horse dung is that? Duran was the epitomy of a fighter to me. Leonard was the classic pretty boy. When I heard Duran was stepping up to welter, I started taking the bets. I knew Leonard was talented but also knew he'd never been in a ring with a fighter like Duran (few people have.) And I took a lot of money away from stupid Leonard fans who bet real big on that first fight. A true fight fan, someone who really loves the violence of the sport, has to prefer Duran's style to Leonard's. Good vs Evil. What nonsense. I don't want my boxing heros to be "Good." I want to them to be brutal. You couldn't pay me to go see that Ron Howard piece of crap movie. Now, Raging Bull, that was a flick.

[quote= You couldn't pay me to go see that Ron Howard piece of crap movie.[/quote]

please watch what you say about ron howard boxing movies. some of us have good taste.

and maybe if u got up off your lazy ass saw the movie, and had an appreciation for human greatness then maybe you would like the movie... or maybe your head was too far up something to realize that..sure this may be a little brutal and completley out of line, but i dont care i find that too be really offending of you, youve basically insulted the life of my hero.

Ron Howard is the hero of your life? How sad.

sharkeyboy i understand what ur saying about duran and thats why i also like duran ALOT. but i also love sugar ray leonard and so wut if he was a pretty boy???

he showed he wasnt just a pretty boy in that first fight with duran when he showed how tough he was. not to mention in the 2nd fight when he made one of the greatest warriors of all time quit.

leonard backed up everything he did and unlike some other pretty boys, he showed he has the toughness and heart to win the big fights.

sugar ray leonard and duran were truelly something special in all aspects of fighting and in their own style of personalities.

I'm not saying Leonard wasn't a terrific fighter. I'm just shooting down that childish "good vs evil" thing which really means, "Leonard has a better smile and he speaks good English."

worst picks??

hmm lets see i havnt been in the world that long and have only been watching LIVE fights for about 8 years.

id say for me

Tyson -holyfield II - i picked tyson in rematch

Kosta Tyzu KO 6 over Hatton

David Tua KO 5 Lennox Lewis- now here was my # 1 stupidest pick


Oscar De La Hoya 12s over hopkins- hey the fight was even until the knockout IMO though de la hoya was fading. i thought since he dropped to 155 for the fight he might have got some of his old speed back and he might be able to outbox hopkins. i thought it would be a speedy boxer with decent power to beat hopkins and i thought de la hoya had the much better shot than tito cause he was the better boxer

Zab Judah 12u over Kosta Tzyu

Felix trinidad KO 10 Bernard Hopkins- i was young and stupid but i did have my reasons, hopkins hadnt fouhgt anyone as close to as good as felix trinidad since he fought roy jones, not to mention tito was coming off a KO win over joppy.


shane mosely - Vernon Forrest II- i thought the first fight was a fluke and bad preformance by mosely but forrest beat him again convinsingly.

Hey Wolf Ferina........those picks are over a period of time that probably more than doubles your current life span. Now I'm not saying I'm proud of those pics but most of them I was with the majority on.

Pray tell me which of those you would have taken the other side on? And could you also tell me why you would have done so? Or were you just doing that old keyboard belch that you are incurring fame for?

Now I'm on bit of a bad luck roll with Tszyu Hopkins, Morales, Ouma and so on. But luck comes in streaks and when my luck changes it's easy street for me from then on. I can just see it now I'll be rollin in coin and you'll be wantin a loan. And I'm going to remember when you kicked me when I was down. And I'm gonna let you have it with an interest rate that will feel like a crakkin uppercut.

Sharkeysboy


You think the concept of Good v Evil in boxing is ridiculous ? So you wouldn't really care if a fighter was say a rapist, or punched his pregnant wife, or shot his girlfriend, or was a coke dealer or just in general a menace to society. And at the same time do you suppose you could root for such a fighter against a guy who behaved like a gentleman and was approachable and polite to the public ? Now I'm not accusing Duran of being all those things in the first part of the paragraph, but it's a pretty well established fact that we're talking about one of the most classless guys of our lifetime. Talking about killing opponents when a fighter is in serious condition, refusing to shake hands, commenting about opponents wives, crotch grabbing in the ring etc. AND none of that matters, because Sugar Ray Leonard was a pretty boy ! Like I said before, I just don't get it.

And a couple of other things. You said Leonard had never faced a fighter like Duran. He hadn't faced a fighter with the relentless aggression of Duran, but he had already dominated and stopped the previously unbeaten Wilfred Benitez, acknowledged at the time to be the best defensive fighter in the world at any weight. AND PLEASE !!! How many people are going to just keep repeating the claim that Duran stepped up to WW to fight Leonard ? He hadn't fought at LW since the DeJesus fight, almost 2 and a half years before he faced Leonard. He couldn't fight at LW anymore because it would have been too much trouble to make the weight.

there is only one duran, thats probably why i love his personality so much. but its ok for me to realize durans the biggest dick ever, and was born to fight. one of the only fighters i can think of that acutally was born to fight and to kill.

but to like him and not like leonard???

so u like a guy who after beating edwin virtuet and then adoplh virtuet says to viruet after the fight, "next i want your father"

and how bout when lampkin was hospitalized in serious condition duran says "next time ill send him to the morgue"

but u dont like classy guys like leonard that beat marvin hagler, roberto duran, and tommy hearns???? and he backed up that "pretty boy" image with a lot of heart and toughness. leonard was really tough

The worst in the not so distant past would have to be when I predicted that Barrera would take Pacquiao to school in a shut-out points victory. It annoyed me because one of my friends who is also an Erik Morales fanatic really got under my skin with the making jokes at my expense, but then after the third installment of Barrera-Morales I have been able to use the 2-1 ever since whenever he says anything about Morales being able to take Pacquiao to school, and Morales's performance the weekend just gone by, I still can't wait to see my friend so I can laugh at him, he predicted a Morales victory by KO inbetween the sixth and the eigth.

Usually I am able to do a good job with picking the outcome of fights.