Boxing thread

[howardj]

Mundine v Wood

I'm subscribing tonight, and your'e all welcome over.

Except for Craigos, of course teehee

The Man's career is on the line.

 

[Burgey]

Great result for Daniel Geale getting a split decision to win a world title in Germany. Away points wins a rare thing indeed.

Didn't see the Manny fight. Anyone?

 

[BoyBrumby]

Haye v Klitschko jr next week. Where's people's money going?

Should be an interesting match up. The big Ukranian by far the more imposing fighter, but Haye is a lot faster and can dig too.

Klitschko warm fav, but Haye at 17/10 is good value IMHO.

 

[Majin]

Wlad to retire Haye, at least I hope so. Not sure if I cba to watch it, especially with a UFC on the same night. Might just catch a replay before finding out any results if I can.

 

[TT Boy]

Looks like it is the end of the road for the Excusemaker. Good job Wladimir is so professional as Haye could have got a serious hiding last night. Was out of his depth.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Pitiful sleepfest. Just further emphasized how desperate the World is for a half decent Heavyweight Champion.

 

[Uppercut]

I like how Haye held his hand up at the end of the fight. Presumably hailing a taxi.

 

[social]

Pitiful sleepfest. Just further emphasized how desperate the World is for a half decent Heavyweight Champion.

Nope

It's only the marketing men in England and the US who are desperate for the Klitschkos to lose

Fact is that they are both far better than "half decent" and simply too good for anyone from anywhere else

 

[BoyBrumby]

Nope

It's only the marketing men in England and the US who are desperate for the Klitschkos to lose

Fact is that they are both far better than "half decent" and simply too good for anyone from anywhere else

They are both solid fighters, Vitali in particular; was leading Lewis until Lennox's jad made an unholy mess of his eye and it had to be stopped. I remember Wladimir being chinned about half a dozen times by Corrie Sanders in two rounds tho. & Sanders was pretty much the dictionary definition of a journeyman.

The fact that Haye, a blown up cruiserweight, could hold a world title & actually challenge for a belt after one previous heavyweight bout, shows the paucity of viable bigmen out there.

Only credible fight left is for them to fight each other but both refuse to, as I understand.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Nope

It's only the marketing men in England and the US who are desperate for the Klitschkos to lose

Fact is that they are both far better than "half decent" and simply too good for anyone from anywhere else

It's not a "fact" that they're far better than half decent. It is a fact that they're too good for anyone else, mainly because everyone is even less gifted than these dull plodders.

 

[Goughy]

The fact that Haye, a blown up cruiserweight, could hold a world title & actually challenge for a belt after one previous heavyweight bout, shows the paucity of viable bigmen out there.

There have always been smaller heavyweights and blown-up cruiserweights. Haye has fought at heayweight between 210 and 222 lbs. That is the same range as Tyson, Holyfield, Larry Holmes and countless others. In fact he is the same size as guys like Chambers and Adamek in the current top 10 and not much smaller than many more in the top 10 and 20. He has done nothing unique or particularly interesting. He is not a very small guy by heavyweight standards. Wlad is just a very big guy.

Haye has only has 1 win against anyone currently ranked in the top 20 and that was against Jean Marc Mormeck and that was at cruiser weight. He talked his way into a fight he didnt deserve to be in an made himself a very wealthy man in the process.

His fights against Valuev and Harrison were borderline embarassing and there are a whole host of Euros and others that would have given him good matchups.

The fact that Haye was 6/4 going into a fight he should have been 10-1 shows the lack of respect Wlad gets and how people get caught up in the hype. He is a machine-- a huge, athletic, technical machine. Going into the fight I was reading so much in the British press comparing Klitschko to Valuev and that is just embarassing. Wlad is a very athletic big man. I thought Haye and the British press I read were pathetic in the lead up to the fight. Haye was always unlikely to be capable of winning that fight. He did his best by refusing to engage, throwing himslf on the floor and whining at every opportunity but he needed a Douglas-esqe miracle.

It is hard to disagree with what FoxSports wrote after the fight
David Haye no better than other Wladimir Klitschko foes - News | FOX Sports on MSN
"Haye put in a pitiful performance. Indeed it was quite possibly the worst of any fighter in any major world heavyweight title fight. Not once was Haye even able to try anything as basic as putting together a combination to work his way inside. He would repeatedly throw himself to the ground, as if he was a soccer player trying to trick the referee into giving him a free kick. Likewise he was incessantly complaining to the referee about imaginary illegal blows. He showed a complete lack of boxing technique, repeatedly reduced to just lunging in with off-balance and wild overhand punches that were all too easily avoided by Klitschko."

Just to show that this isnt after the fact analysis-- I offered Haye at 10-1 on my facebook before the fight.

The Klitschkos deserves more respect from the bookies, pundits and punters (especially in the UK.)

 

[social]

Great post Goughy

People seem to ignore the fact that the Klitchskos are 2 of the 3 highly skilled and fit super heavyweights in history (with Lewis being the other)

To put things into perspective, George Foreman was regarded as a giant of his time yet is 3-4 inches shorter than both, would give up well over a stone in weight, was far less skilled

Anyway, these guys are not merely "half decent" by any stretch of the imagination

In fact, even though I'm not a huge fan of either, I'd go as far as to say that the only way that they wouldnt be in the top 10 heavyweights of all time is if you shrunk them and created an artificial pound-for-pound list

 

[Burgey]

Great post Goughy

People seem to ignore the fact that the Klitchskos are 2 of the 3 highly skilled and fit super heavyweights in history (with Lewis being the other)

To put things into perspective, George Foreman was regarded as a giant of his time yet is 3-4 inches shorter than both, would give up well over a stone in weight, was far less skilled

Anyway, these guys are not merely "half decent" by any stretch of the imagination

In fact, even though I'm not a huge fan of either, I'd go as far as to say that the only way that they wouldnt be in the top 10 heavyweights of all time is if you shrunk them and created an artificial pound-for-pound list

Johnson
Dempsey
Tunney
Louis
Marciano
Liston
Ali
Frazier
Foreman
Holmes
Tyson
Lewis

Would all be in the argment I'd think, for a top ten spot. I'm sure there others I've left out, Sullivan and Corbett for example.

 

[Goughy]

boxrec.com--one of the greatest sites on the web and somewhere I can lose a day surfing--ranks the top 20 retired heavyweights of all time (based on records and opponents) as--

1 Muhammad Ali
2 Joe Louis
3 Ezzard Charles
4 Sam Langford
5 Rocky Marciano
6 Floyd Patterson
7 Harry Wills
8 Larry Holmes
9 Max Schmeling
10 Gene Tunney
11 Lennox Lewis
12 Jack Johnson
13 Joe Frazier
14 Sonny Liston
15 Jack Sharkey
16 Jersey Joe Walcott
17 Joe Jeannette
18 Ingemar Johansson
19 Max Baer
20 George Foreman

Tyson is 21st

 

[Burgey]

Cheers mate. Schmeling is one I always seem to omit for some reason. Likewise Walcott, who, interestingly, was the referee in the infamous second Ali-Liston fight

 

[social]

boxrec.com--one of the greatest sites on the web and somewhere I can lose a day surfing--ranks the top 20 retired heavyweights of all time (based on records and opponents) as--

1 Muhammad Ali
2 Joe Louis
3 Ezzard Charles
4 Sam Langford
5 Rocky Marciano
6 Floyd Patterson
7 Harry Wills
8 Larry Holmes
9 Max Schmeling
10 Gene Tunney
11 Lennox Lewis
12 Jack Johnson
13 Joe Frazier
14 Sonny Liston
15 Jack Sharkey
16 Jersey Joe Walcott
17 Joe Jeannette
18 Ingemar Johansson
19 Max Baer
20 George Foreman

Tyson is 21st

IMO, lists like these take into account factors such as contribution to the sport rather than just who was likely to win a boxing match

Take Joe Frazier for example.

Unquestionably a great fighter but if the list was based purely on whether he could beat every fighter ranked below him, then there is no way that he would be ranked above George Foreman, who nearly killed him in the ring twice

Same with Floyd Patterson - he was brutally knocked out twice by Sonny Liston who is ranked well below him

 

[shivfan]

Marciano is another heavyweight champ who dominated a poor era....

That's why these rankings don't really reflect what might've happened if the best fighter from era A fought against the best fighter from era B. Records mean little when you're fighting against David Haye or in Marciano's case an ageing Joe Louis or Ezzard Charles, as opposed to the era of Ali-Frazier-Foreman-Holmes, when the standard was so much better.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Would be interesting to see what the Rock could've done against an XXXXL heavy like Lewis or the Klitschkos. Had a fighting weight of (from memory) 13st 4lbs, which is comfortably under the current Cruiser limit. Actually exactly a stone now the limit has been moved from 190 to 200lbs.

Vitali is the only one of the three who hasn't had a loss to being tagged by a smaller fighter. He lost to Lennox on a cut and (again IIRC) to Byrd because he popped his shoulder.

 

[shivfan]

Would be interesting to see what the Rock could've done against an XXXXL heavy like Lewis or the Klitschkos. Had a fighting weight of (from memory) 13st 4lbs, which is comfortably under the current Cruiser limit. Actually exactly a stone now the limit has been moved from 190 to 200lbs.

Vitali is the only one of the three who hasn't had a loss to being tagged by a smaller fighter. He lost to Lennox on a cut and (again IIRC) to Byrd because he popped his shoulder.

I watched some of Marciano's title fights recently, I agree with boxing historian Bert Sugar - they were dire, much like the heavyweight division recently. He fought Joe Louis when he was about 37 and a shadow of his former self, had two fights against a 39-year old Jersey Joe Walcott, two fights against an ordinary Ezzard Charles, and a final fight against a 39-year old Archie Moore. He was only 33 or so when he retired, so he could've fought on to try to cement a claim to be a truly great fighter, but instead chose to retire to preserve an unbeaten record. He was really nothing more than a better-than-average slugger.

If he had hung around to fight the likes of Floyd Patterson, Ingmar Johansson and Sonny Liston, then he probably would've had a better claim to be a great champion....

 

[social]

I watched a replay last night of the Vitali v Adamek fight

Adamek is a good fighter (former light heavyweight and cruiserweight champion) and has actually fought at heavyweight for a while to earn his ranking but he didnt win a round and was brutally beaten to a pulp by the 40 year old Vitali

Anyone that still claims Vitali is nothing more than half-decent should check this out as he was more skilled and faster than a very good opponent (not to mention being 6.7" and 250!)