Still Can’t Believe it Ended This Way for These Great Boxers
Longtime fans of the sport have surely seen it happen before, where a fighter they follow and root for crashes and burns in stunning fashion. It is often so sad and troubling to watch, that we tend to bury these events under our mental rug. To acknowledge their fall and absorb the full scope of their demise would make it hard to continue being a fan. As a defense mechanism, we just blow it off and move onto the next thing.
There were some fighters, however, whose descent from the high skies of boxing superstardom are still almost impossible to fathom. Nobody likes to fill their heads up with unpleasant thoughts, but it’s only right that we not forget. After all, these fighters paid a dear price during the course of entertaining us and maybe remembering their falls from grace can help us get our anti-aircraft weaponry ready to shoot down the next sad case coming around the corner.
When we think of the sport chewing up spitting out its participants, we think of a bygone era, where boxers had hundreds of fights in brutal conditions. A look at this list, however, shows that the notion of boxing being a cruel sport is still alive and well.
Meldrick Taylor
Taylor won a gold medal at 17 and captivated TV audiences with talent that jumped off the screen. A lot of people say Taylor possessed the fastest hands they ever saw and those folks aren’t just whistling Dixie. Next thing we knew, he was peppering unbeaten living legend Julio Cesar Chavez to the point where we could barely believe what we were witnessing.
Unfortunately, that moment of glory dissolved into heartbreak, with a brutalized Taylor being stopped a scant two seconds from the final bell. My young boxing eye might not have been fully developed by this point, but I thought Taylor looked good in snatching a piece of welterweight hardware from Aaron Davis, but then it all went wrong.
Watching him get extended in defenses against Luis Garcia and Glenwood Brown signaled that something was wrong. The old flair was gone. It all bottomed out against 154-champ Terry Norris in an emphatic 4th-round TKO loss. He still had his welterweight laurels, but was stopped by Crisanto Espana in the 8th round, bringing an end to his championship run. All this, and he had just turned 26 years old.
A shell, Taylor soldiered on and even got a rematch with Chavez in 1994. He was stopped in 8 rounds. In 1996, the former pound-for-pound entrant and near-megastar was on the USA network, losing a decision to 13-3 Darren Maciunski. All but banished from any kind of big-time fights in the states, Taylor went to Denmark to lose to Hasan Al, then on to Mexico to lose to 21-19-1 Quirino Garcia. It finally ended in 2002, when he lost to some guy named Wayne Martell.
By then, Taylor was already a tragic case, slurring his words alarmingly—barely decipherable as he talked about another run at the title. It hurts to juxtapose the image of him fumbling around in some shadowy arena to the gleaming star that once shined so brightly. He was 2 seconds away from greatness and ended up light years from where anyone could imagine he would be.
Terry Norris
He had it all—good looks, speed and power in the ring, and an overall supreme athleticism that had boxing fans spellbound. Full-fledged superstardom was all but guaranteed after beating Sugar Ray Leonard at 23. While he had a Hall of Fame career, it didn’t exactly go according to plan.
He had bounced back well from a 2-round shellacking at the hands of Julian Jackson, but when a post-peak Simon Brown zapped him in 1994, it was clear Norris was not the most durable guy in the world. He bounced back, cleaning out the junior middleweight division, but then suddenly hit a wall, getting stopped by 14-4-1 Keith Mullings.
The thought then was that Norris was burned out. Against Dana Rosenblatt, it was different story. Watching the once graceful panther constantly losing his balance suggested an ominous fate. In his prime, he would have literally destroyed the likes of Rosenblatt. He went on to France to get stopped by Laurent Boudouani. Thankfully, any further Norris attempts to box were shot down by the powers-that-be. Reports are that the final nail in the coffin was at a NSAC hearing, when tapes of Norris speaking in his prime were compared to his current voice in a teary room.
The fact that he never really built on that win over Leonard was disappointing enough. But the fact that he ended up diminished as a result of his career is the real dagger in the heart. He really looked like Superman in some of those fights in his prime. To think it ended the way it did is almost too saddening to even ponder. The fact that you don’t hear about him as much as his greatness would suggest points to this prevailing tendency on the part of fans of media to not acknowledge the unpleasant run-off from the sport. Terry Norris was special and deserved better.
Riddick Bowe
Imagine if you went to prison for 5-6 years right after Bowe beat Holyfield for the Heavyweight Championship and had no access to any boxing news. When you returned, would you have believed the reports you were hearing? He was supposed to be great. He was likable. The world was his oyster.
The fact that he screwed it all up is not in any way atypical. It’s just that he went from a gregarious, outgoing, and quick-witted champion to a troubled and damaged man in a mere 5 years. That is tough to swallow. In 1993, he was a popular champion, meeting with people like Nelson Mandela. By 1998, he was slurring his words severely, out of the sport, and up on kidnapping charges. Even by boxing’s standards, that’s a fall from grace that the most hard-bitten observers must find troubling.
Roy Jones
Unlike others on this list, the story of Jones is not yet tragic. His legacy has taken some hits, but he is at least still personally intact. The gravity of his recent ring failings, however, suggests a less-rosy future. In another “what would you have thought?” scenario, his 6-7 record following his win over John Ruiz was impossible to forecast.
The thought of the once-untouchable great not only getting knocked out, but getting rendered unconscious on 4 different occasions is almost surreal. He was unparalleled for so many years that it’s downright painful to watch. You’re almost mad at him for allowing it to happen time and again.
His demise, in the ring at least, has been far worse than anyone on this list. To see those former standouts having such a terrible time now, one would think Jones would be more cognizant of this sport’s ever-present hazards. But some people never think it can happen to them.
The sport often times produces tragic stories without much warning. In the case of Jones, however, the body of precedent is enormous. The sport needs to do a better job of making sure its greatest talents aren’t allowed to hit every rung on the ladder when they’re on their way down.
