ABOMINABLE SHOWMEN

They were big, hit hard, looked the part and talked the talk – but these heavyweight boogiemen couldn’t quite deliver on the biggest stage

BY GRAHAM HOUSTON

EVERY so often, a heavyweight comes along who looks like he could be a threat to the division’s top fighters. But these things have a habit of not quite working out.

Take Arslanbek Makhmudov, who meets Dave Allen on Saturday. He’s a big, dangerous fighter, definitely one to be respected, but not quite the terror he once seemed to be, before he was twice beaten.

There have been other heavyweights with impressive records who looked as if they might reach the top but instead turned out to be might-have-beens.

One of these was the huge Cuban, Jorge Luis Gonzalez, who stood 6ft 7ins and weighed around 250lbs.

Gonzalez stood out in a crowd because of his size and also his unique hairdo, which consisted of a shaved skull on top and a mullet at the back.

"HIS SIZE, STRENGTH AND SWAGGERING SELF-BELIEF MAKES HIM HARD TO BEAT''

He was a top-level amateur, with wins over Lennox Lewis and Riddick Bowe. It’s not unreasonable to speculate that Gonzalez might have won a gold medal had Cuba not boycotted the 1984 Games In Los Angeles. He had, after all, defeated Tyrell Biggs in 1983, the year before Biggs won super-heavyweight gold in LA.

Gonzalez got off to a winning run in the pros, as was expected, beating a selection of “the usual suspects” – trialhorse types of varying repute who hadn’t been brought in to win.