Ricardo Mayorga - How far could he have gone?

[ViperSniper]

Fans speak about fighters being thrown in the deep end, getting burnt out or having careers ruined.

Don't get me wrong. Mayorga had a very successful career, fought amongst the sports best and one of the biggest overachievers.

However, I can't help but feel Don King cut Ricardo Mayorga's career short by cashing him out. Mayorga moved up two divisions to lose to Trinidad at Middleweight and then De La Hoya & Mosley at 154. I feel Don King got excited, maybe saw Mayorga may not be on top for long and thought he was be an excellent opponent to make maximum money on.

If Mayorga remained at Welterweight after the Cory Spinks fight his career would have been very different. He may have not been stopped so soon & had a more fights.

He would have perhaps ended up fighting the likes of Paul Williams, Antonio Margarito, Miguel Cotto, Kermit Cintron, Luis Collazo, Joshua Clottey, Carlos Quintana, Zab Judah or move up for Winky Wright instead?

Does anyone think Mayorga's career was cut short?

I think had he remained as a Welterweight, he would have picked up more wins and fights.

[Fitz]

Mayorga had a very good career considering his skill set. He became a linear welter weight champion.

I also do think that Mayorga's career probably got shortened with fights at 154 and 160, but I think Don King also did very well for Mayorga to be able to get him fights with guys like Forrest, Spinks, Trinidad, DLH, Mosley, Vargas and Cotto. That so called 'cash out' went for a long stretch.

I also agree that Mayorga was a beast at 147 and his best was in that division, but I'm not sure Don King is to blame for moving him up to cash him out. I think a lot of it probably had to do with Mayorga's lifestyle and making weight at 147 with his choices wasn't going to last forever.

Mayorga had a pretty good career for himself, and his losing performance against Trinidad is one of my favourite fights of all time, well in recent memory anyways with the fights I grew up with watching live. He took a battering, and kept coming and to be able to sustain that for 9 rounds (I think it was?) was incredible. A lot of mixed feelings, but I will never forget the time he stuck he stuck his chin out in round 1 (like he said he would) and let Trinidad throw some free hooks at his chin and just clowned around after it. Was it idiotic? Probably. Was it awesome and badass? Most definitely. I will always love him for that.

[Decagon]

I HATE to defend Don King here, but there was a reason why Mayorga didn't stay at welterweight: he was too big, and had trouble making weight. I remember looking forward to his fight with Jose Antonio Rivera at 147, but Mayorga was so off weight that they cancelled the fight, and Mayorga had a 10-rounder with some schlob he couldn't knock out.

Mayorga was putting on 15 to 20 pounds between the weigh-in and fight night long before the UFC made it cool. He was in the 170s when he fought De la Hoya at 154, and he landed one big shot on Oscar that had me thinking he had the superstar hurt, but eventually he lost out. I thought he was ahead against Mosley before getting knocked out in the 12th round, but the judges didn't see it that way, not that it mattered. He was a good fighter, and it's sad to see him broke.

[ViperSniper]

(09-30-2014 08:56 PM)Decagon Wrote:  I HATE to defend Don King here, but there was a reason why Mayorga didn't stay at welterweight: he was too big, and had trouble making weight. I remember looking forward to his fight with Jose Antonio Rivera at 147, but Mayorga was so off weight that they cancelled the fight, and Mayorga had a 10-rounder with some schlob he couldn't knock out.

Mayorga was putting on 15 to 20 pounds between the weigh-in and fight night long before the UFC made it cool. He was in the 170s when he fought De la Hoya at 154, and he landed one big shot on Oscar that had me thinking he had the superstar hurt, but eventually he lost out. I thought he was ahead against Mosley before getting knocked out in the 12th round, but the judges didn't see it that way, not that it mattered. He was a good fighter, and it's sad to see him broke.

I had it 6-5 to Mayorga going into the 12th against Mosley. A very dramatic ending. I remember being over the moon!

[blackbelt2003]

Mayorga losing to Spinks was effectively the end of him being any kind of elite fighter. If Mayorga was anything like the monster we want to remember him as at 147, he would have taken Spinks out. Judah did, after all.




But it was a focused Judah....





Black

[BrutalBodyShots]

There are two reasons why Mosley didn't look particularly good against Mayorga. One, it was Mayorga who certainly deserves credit. Two however is that Mosley always looked like shit at 154. At 154 Mosley has lost twice as many fights as he's won. He never looked particularly good with the exception of his stoppages of a nearly-retired Vargas. Most felt he didn't deserve the decision against DLH II either, but regardless outside of those 3 wins there's nothing noteworthy to speak of regarding Mosley at 154 except a ton of losses.

On a side note I didn't even realize until now that Mayorga fought 4 days ago in Oklahoma and knocked out some scrub in round 1. Mayorga weighed 172 for the fight.

[blackbelt2003]

He looked like shit. Just a fat guy slapping a weedy looking club fighter to the canvas. Sad to watch.



Black

[salvador]

Mayorga definitely got the biggest fights possible with King, but I'm not at all sure that he personally benefitted from it the way King did.

I remember there being controversy right before he DLH fight because Mayorga was refusing to fight unless his purse ($2MM I believe) was increased. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that King made at least as much off Mayorga fighting as Mayorga did.

[Decagon]

King's gameplan was to make 3-to-10 times as much as his fighters. When Larry Holmes fought Roy "Tiger" Williams, a 6'5" monster that everyone was afraid of, King promised him $10,000. When Holmes was in the locker room with a broken hand, King handed him $3000 in cash.