When a fighter is "prime" what does it mean to "you"?

[JonesJrMayweather]

There are certain situations where you can say a fighter is not 'prime' such as the Ali who came back after years off suspended or the Ray Leonard who returned to fight Hagler. However, I think people often tend to use it as a way to excuse a loss by a previously unbeaten fighter who looked unstoppable, such as in the case of Tyson or Don Curry. I can agree that the Tyson who came out of jail was not prime, but the guy who fought Douglas, underprepared or not, was still a prime fighter.

agreed 100%

[Fenster]

Prime is mostly rubbish (unless blatanly obvious a fighter is way past his best and shouldn't be fighting) because physical and mental prime occur at different times and, as Jaz touched on, it's mainly used to excuse a great fighters defeat.

He was too old, too green, had too much money, wasn't motivated because of his small purse, was weight drained, was too small moving up, had a bad training camp, needed to do a shit, had the wrong socks etc....

The problem with assessing boxing compared with other sports is most fighters only ever meet once, so whenever a close fight happens it's impossible to determine who the greater fighter really is.

Even matched fighters would probably need to meet a minimum of five times to get an accurate result. As many rematch results show, the form can be instantly turned round.

[SweetPea]

A fighter's prime is that brief stretch of time where physical ability and ring knowledge intersect.

A fighter's prime is when he's experienced enough to have a complete understanding of what he's doing in the ring, but he's still at a young enough age where his raw physical skills haven't begun to deteriorate at all.

[JonesJrMayweather]

A fighter's prime is that brief stretch of time where physical ability and ring knowledge intersect.

A fighter's prime is when he's experienced enough to have a complete understanding of what he's doing in the ring, but he's still at a young enough age where his raw physical skills haven't begun to deteriorate at all.

But then when that prime fighter gets into a rough fight and wins by a SD, then kayos his next opponent. Many will say he was prime in the second fight but off in the first one.

[Jody Lane]

Makes you wonder what age we could say that Hopkins was in his prime. The 2001 version that wiped out Trinidad or the 2008 model that outboxed Pavlik?

[JonesJrMayweather]

Makes you wonder what age we could say that Hopkins was in his prime. The 2001 version that wiped out Trinidad or the 2008 model that outboxed Pavlik?

Pavlik was a tailor made for the old hopkins who only needed his knowledge to beat a young fighter with too much confidence in his own power...the 2001 bernard 80/20 possibly would have stopped pavlik inside of 10...

[Mar]

Now a days it's a useless over used term just like swagger, ducked, most feared, blah blah etc. I don't know what the term was supposed to mean but now when a fighter wins or is winning he's in his prime, all of the sudden if they loose their not. One of the easiest excuses to use post fight there is.