Following former world champion Siarhei Liakhovich’s latest loss at the weekend, IBHOF inductee Graham Houston reflects on why some top boxers fight way past their prime and stay too long in the game.
It was sad to see former heavyweight champ Siarhei Liakhovich beaten up in two rounds by undefeated Evgeny Romanov in Ekaterinburg on the weekend.
Once Liakhovich, who relocated to Arizona from his native Belarus, was on top of the world. I remember attending a Don King press conference in Las Vegas when the promoter introduced Liakhovich and the fighter’s “intoxicatingly beautiful wife”. (DK always had a way with words.)
When Liakhovich won the WBO title by outpointing Lamon Brewster at Cleveland in 2006 it was a gutsy victory. Liakhovich was down in the seventh round but he fought back, sweeping the last four rounds on the judges’ scorecards. He had Brewster looking dazed and in trouble on the ropes in the ninth round. Brewster’s nose was bloody and his eyes were swollen.
That was as good as it got for Liakhovich. He lost the title in his first defence seven months later when Shannon Briggs stopped him with one second remaining in the last round. The fight was in Phoenix, basically home territory for Liakhovich, who then lived at Scottsdale, Arizona. Liakhovich fought well but Briggs, 30lbs the heavier man, was too big, too strong and too heavy handed.
Briggs sent Liakhovich into the ropes with a right hand in the first round. But Liakhovich was able to win rounds simply by being the busier fighter. The muscled Briggs didn’t seem able to throw more than a dozen worthwhile punches a round, but his blows were heavy and his left hooks to the body had a wearing-down effect on Liakhovich.
After 11 rounds, Liakhovich was in front on the scorecards but he looked exhausted. Briggs, too, was dead-tired, but landed some big punches in a give-and-take 12th round, finally knocking down Liakhovich with a right hand. Although Liakhovich beat the count he had nothing left and Briggs belaboured him through the ropes. Referee Bobby Ferrara waved the finish with, officially, 2:59 on the clock.
After that Liakhovich’s career was on a downward trajectory. The huge Nikolai Valuev soundly outpointed him. Robert Helenius knocked him out. Things got worse. There was the first-round knockout defeat against Deontay Wilder, when one of Liakhovich’s legs trembled alarmingly.
When Liakhovich went in with Romanov it was only his third bout in six years and he was 44 years old. He fought back as best he could but took a knee from a thumping right hand to the body. I was glad Liakhovich stayed down. I didn’t want to see him take any more punishment.
Perhaps Liakhovich will now decide to retire. He doesn’t need any more if this.
But who knows why a boxer fights on when his best years are far behind him? There can be many reasons.
It is hard for anyone, not just a boxer, to accept that age is catching up.
There could be financial reasons. Bad investments, maybe. Loans to “friends” that were never repaid.
There can be denial. A bit of delusion.
A boxer might watch a fight on TV and think to himself: “I can beat these guys.”
Perhaps boxing is all a fighter has got. Maybe it’s all he knows.
There are so many reasons why a boxer continues to fight when past his best. And so many examples of boxers who do so.
We saw Danny Williams continue to climb into a boxing ring into his late 40s, under licenses issued by jurisdictions that should have known better.
Who can forget Williams upsetting the odds by knocking out Mike Tyson in Louisville 16 years ago? Sure, Tyson suffered a knee injury, but nevertheless it was a big-hearted showing from the Brixton heavyweight, who withstood an early barrage.
I was ringside in Las Vegas when Williams kept getting off the floor in a heavyweight title challenge against Vitali Klitschko. Danny could have quit as early as the third round and no one could have blamed him. But he kept going, kept trying to get lucky with a wild haymaker, until the fight was correctly stopped after eight rounds. Yet in his last appearance in the ring Williams went out in two rounds against a Russian former MMA star making his pro debut. It didn’t make for pretty viewing.
Tyson himself went on too long, his career ending with the embarrassment of the Kevin McBride fiasco. Roy Jones Jr, now due to meet Tyson in a PPV exhibition match, stayed at the party too long. Danny Green knocked him out in the first round. Enzo Maccarinelli knocked him out when Jones was 44.
But at least Jones left the ring as a winner, outboxing the limited Scott Sigmon in 2018. Jones was 48. Even at that age he could show flashes of the old brilliance.
We can reel off the names, great fighters who couldn’t walk away. Ezzard Charles, Roberto Duran, Alexis Arguello, Willie Pep and the greatest of them all, Sugar Ray Robinson, all lost to fighters they would have beaten in their primes — and lost badly in some instances. It’s a long list.
Comebacks have ended badly. Take the case of former heavyweight contender Jerry Quarry, who figured in so many big fights. Quarry was still hanging on at the age of 38 and trying for a comeback in the the then-new cruiserweight division. “I was never big enough to beat those full sized heavyweights,” Quarry told British reporter (and ex-boxer) Frankie Taylor in an interview in August 1983.
“Quarry is still useful as nightclub bouncers go, but the rugged vitality from the days when he traded blows with Ali, Frazier and company is long gone,” Taylor observed after watching Quarry trudge through a workout.
A scheduled bout in Scranton was cancelled because then Pennsylvania commissioner James Binns was “concerned with the safety of Mr. Quarry”.
But the California commission granted Quarry a licence for a cruiserweight bout against a trial horse named James Williams. The fight took place at Bakersfield on November 22, 1983. Quarry won an unpopular 10-round majority decision. “Williams battered Quarry with left jabs and straight right hands throughout the fight,” the Bakersfield Californian newspaper reported.
It was a terrible showing by Quarry, one he attributed to a lack of adequate sparring. “I had no timing,” Quarry told the Bakersfield newspaper. “You can’t fight on guts alone.”
That really should have been the end, but Quarry turned up in 1992 for a five-round bout in Colorado, which he lost. He was 47 years old. By his early 50s, Quarry was suffering from dementia and he died at the young age of 53. The word “tragic” is overused. But Quarry’s story really was tragic.
Generally speaking, though, if a fighter meets all the requisite medical requirements, including neurological examinations, it’s difficult to deny him a licence unless there has been obvious and serious deterioration in the boxer’s performances.
Yuriorkis Gamboa, for instance, is obviously past his best at 38, but he was still competent enough to go the full 12 rounds rather easily with lightweight champion Devin Haney on the weekend. And there are fighters Gamboa can beat, though not at the elite level.
Should we call for a veteran like Gamboa to quit because he isn’t what he once was?
It isn’t easy, this business of deciding when a boxer should hang up the gloves.
I don’t think I am far wrong in saying that for some boxers, being part of the fight fraternity is their whole life. If a boxer has enjoyed success at the top level, it’s hard to let it go.
In some cases, though, enough is enough. It appears that Danny Williams has now retired. I wouldn’t like to see Siarhei Liakhovich box again.
For every fighter who knows when it’s time to go, many more will continue to box when their careers are in decline. And sometimes a supposedly faded fighter can pull off a surprise.
So, should they go or should they stay?
I think that Sonny Liston summed it up quite well when asked if KO victim Floyd Patterson should retire. “Who am I to tell a bird not to fly?” Liston remarked. I think Sonny had it right.
Main image: Former world champion Siarhei Liakhovich (left) in action against Simon Kean last year. Photo: Peter McCabe/The Canadian Press/PA Images.