Aydin To Retire?

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    In the back of The Forum in Inglewood, CA, while most were awaiting the walkout of Juan Manuel Marquez to come through the tunnel, Selcuk Aydin sat stoically in the back. “I’m done.” Aydin said when talking to reporters from a Turkish media outlet who had audibly cheered for him during his co-feature bout against Viktor Postol on the Saturday May 17th card on HBO. Aydin would be relieved of his consciousness seconds before the bell to end the 11th round.

    It was a harsh reality for Aydin who had never really found his grove in the states as he spent the majority of his career fighting overseas and often relying upon himself to do a large portion of the training. It had been long believed amongst European fight fans that Aydin had over trained going into a lot of his bout since he didn’t know any other way about it, but the hard way. Aydin, who stalks foes and tends to rely too heavily on power sacrificing for volume as Postol near quadrupled the output of Aydin in this bout.

    Aydin was a man with heavy hype and a rough past. Aydin and his corner carried over a meanness that was often seen as not just selling the fight. One folklore account had stated that Aydin had been suspended for sometime do to an in-ring brawl between his team and the other camp. When Aydin was in San Jose, Calif. for a media day two years ago when he was preparing for Robert Guerrero, the mood was heavy.

    Aydin’s camp started their workout for the public 10 minutes early stating that “…nobody came to see him anyway.” Aydin who looks skinny to the untrained eye, threw single heavy handed punches that day and gave the same ominous quote “I will break Guerrero’s jaw.” Leading into Guerrero fight, Aydin had a streak of breaking people’s jaws, an unsavory stat to most people.

    Aydin debuted and nearly beat Guerrero in a very competitive fight, but in 2013 things went haywire. Disgusted with the outcome of the Guerrero fight, Aydin fired his coaches and brought on a new team with a focus on boxing rather than banging. Aydin once again appeared on Showtime as the undercard for a major Showtime bout, this time for Lucas Matthysse vs. Mike Dallas Jr. undercard.

    Aydin’s foe, Jesus Soto Karass, a man coming off a strong performance against Marcos Maidana, but widely thought of as more or less a journeyman. The result was Soto Karass using volume to outpoint Aydin and seemingly send Aydin back to obscurity. Aydin would rebound with a win in his native Turkey over the far smaller DeMarcus “Chop Chop” Corley who had to go up in weight and travel across the world to fight him.

    Aydin was fighting on last Saturday for the third time on premium cable in the United States and the truth of the matter was he seemed to be regressing. Gone were the days of rocking Guerrero late and more so were the days of Arthur Abraham his way to barely double digit landed punch stat rounds. With all this being said it appeared Aydin was going to have one more stand left in him as he connected firmly with solid punches that hurt Postol early.

    The problem was once Postol survived Aydin fell back into the pattern that he had for the majority of his career, being stagnant. Postol appeared to hurt Aydin at times, but to be a fighter sometimes means you take chances and Aydin just was unwilling. The brash, undefeated boxer who stated how he would break your jaw had disappeared and in it’s place was a man in their searching for his identity as a fighter.

    When Aydin hit the floor in the 11th it was jarring, dramatic and quick, but one could not say unexpected. Aydin was just simply slowing down with his output while Viktor Postol appeared to be turning up his punch output. Aydin looked like a man who simply no longer had the love for the sport or better yet a man who was his strongest when he never knew what it felt like to be bullied and once it happened never could recover from the trauma. Aydin was there, but it appeared his head was already far removed from boxing.

    After the fight, Aydin sat in the back talking only with a select group of media as he went largely ignored by the masses, much like a majority of his career. Whether it was a spur of the moment thing or not, Aydin just feels like a guy that had his run and no it is done. Aydin failed on major networks three times and quite honestly did not leave much of an impression on the average fight fan. Media members on press row looked at each other blankly recalling past Aydin performances as he took the ring.

    Boxing has an’ it’ factor, some guys have it and some don’t. Aydin was a perfect example of a European fighter who could not make the adjustments in the United States to win as well as build a strong fan base. For Aydin retirement seems like the rational choice since he would have to rebuild himself for a year or two to even get back to any semblance of the place he was at two years ago and what network would even take a chance on him at this point?