This coming weekend see's the fifth professional bout for 24 year old American Derrick Murray (4-0, 3). Whilst there lots of good nicknames out there, I think Murray genuinely has one of the most amusing as he is known as "Whoop Dat Ass".
Murray made his professional debut back in April 2011 and scored a 3rd round TKO over James Grant before adding 3 more victories this year. He'll be looking for victory number on Friday as he faces the unbeaten Ecuadorian Pedro Toledo (1-0) at the Doubletree Hotel, Ontario, California.
Apparently given the nickname by co-manager Rick Repo, I'd say that Repo and Murray have made an excellent choice. Not only is memorable but it's also pretty original and if he fails in boxing Murray could become a farm hand helping with disobedient donkey's.
Sometimes a fighter can genuinely live up to their name and one such case is the rather unfortunate Ronnie Fails (0-6) a former Cruiserweight who fought between 1991 and 1997. Sadly, I believe in aptronym and as a result I assume if your name is “Fails” you are bound to suck at whatever you choose to do with your life and as Fails's record indicated he wasn't much of a boxer.
Fails made his professional debut in Augst 1991 and faced Bill Corrigan with Corrigan winning a decision, the two men rematched just months later with Corrigan again winning the bout. Amazingly Corrigan would later go on to fight a who's who of the heavyweight division including David Tua, Mike Weaver, Bruce Seldon, Frans Botha, David Izon, Wladimir Klitschko, Damon Reed and Joe Hipp.
Following the back to back loss to Corrigan it seemed as if Fails would try his luck against some one else, sadly that just gave the chance to Zeb Wilson to pick up a win, which he did over the 4 round distance. This was to be the last win for Wilson who was knocked out in a round in his next bout by the hard punching David Izeqwire (who later go on to win the IBO Cruiserweight title).
Fails returned to the ring just days after losing to Wilson and was stopped for the first (and only) time in his career by Steve Brewer. Brewer's win over was then followed by Brewer going 6-17 in a career that ended in 2000 and saw him facing a young and emerging Montell Griffin in 1994.
After the loss to Brewer Fails took a year and a half away from the sport before returning to the ring to face Rocky Graziano Jr (sadly no relation to the great Middleweight champion). Graziano, like Corrigan and Wilson managed to outpoint Fail over 4 rounds. Graziano himself had a bit of a bizarre career fighting his most recent fight in 2009 just 8 days before his 46th birthday and seems to have retired with a record of 4-1-0-1 (3).
Fails appeared to hang up his gloves after losing to Graziano and was out of the ring for over 3 and a half years before dusting off the old trunks and returning to the ring to face the wonderfully named Harry Funmaker. Funmaker would score a 4 round decision over Fail in what would be Fail's last fight as a professional. Amazingly Funmaker actually went on to have a trilogy of fights with Eric “Butterbean” Esch winning 1 of the 3 fights.
Whilst we do feel a little big sorry for Fail who seems to have been unluckily struck by nominative determinism it's interesting to see that a number of his opponents did fight in much bigger fights than Fail ever managed.
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