The fact is that you can only do things in the ring that you are allowed to do. Pavlik just looked confused the whole time with Hopkins defensive skills and counter punching. He wasnt there to be hit. Calzaghe's jab was the key to his fight against Hopkins, Pavlik's jab is too slow and he didnt use it half the time.
Pavlik was always a second rate fighter. The only people he looks good against are those who stand in front of him and let him throw them crude punches.
Ive been saying he was a bum the whole time, but now the whole world has seen him get exposed
calzaghe will fight both RJJ and Pavlik before retiring. Assuming he wins the first one. After his divorce and lack of big fights at SMW he wants as much cash as possible.
No world class boxer would be afraid of fighting Pavlik. That is the stupidest thing ive ever heard.
Kessler by TKO. He would just pressure Roy like Johnson did and eventually wear him out and stop him. Jones doesnt have the legs to stay out the way anymore.
Khan - when you get floored by a super featherweight whos lost 3 of his last 6 fights then you know you have problems.
I cant think of any elite fighter who has had as many problems as Khan has early in his career.
Yes he looks impressive knocking people out, but each opponent has an angle at the moment, as well they should as he is on the way up.
But, he is overrated, and will lose the first time he fights someone who is the same size and has durability and power.
I would have thought larger gloves would cause more brain damage as a knockout is less likely and the brain is more likely to sustain a 12 round beating than a quick knockout.
Being knocked out by a punch is less damaging than being dazed over 12 rounds
I agree with 6oz or 4oz gloves.
This fight hasnt showed me anything that i didnt know about Khan. He still leaves his chin out to dry and lacks any of the defensive smarts and reflexes to live at world class level.
He should take a leaf out of Winky Wrights book and switch to the Philly shell style. Wright was getting tagged alot in his fights before adopting the philly shell and managed to turn himself into a defensive master, at the cost of being one of the most boring boxers on the planet though.
The fact that a Super Featherweight fighter was able to deck him with one punch whilst seemingly in a clinch doesnt exactly bode well fo Khan's future.
Coupled with this, pre-fight talk was about the fact that Khans body fat has gone from 16% to just about 1.5% now. So he added about 14 pounds of muscle to his frame.
I dont think this is a good thing, it may sound impressive but we should think about this. All that extra muscle mass requires even more Oxygen.
Punch power is a strange thing, and packing on muscle doesnt necessarily increase it, but what it does do is sap your strength down the stretch, think Frank Bruno.
I think they made a big mistake turning khan into a mini bodybuilder. They should have been focusing on improving is defence so he doesnt get hit as often as he does at the moment.
Everytime Gomez landed on Khan it seemed to have some kind of effect.
If Khan doesnt improve his defence before steping in with the genuine world class operators, and not the over the hill, blown up featherweight ones, his reign as champion at any level is going to be very short lived.
Lennox wanted him to rematch Mayweather or retire. If Hatton had more head movement and was taught to slip punches he could have been great. In my opinion he is very good, but lacks the polish of a great fighter.
Thats like saying tyson never had good head movement, cos he never beat a top heavyweight during his prime.
good point, but the HW division was a lot more glamourous back then than LWW is now. Tyson got kudos for destroying old men. I hope Hatton does start to slip punches and rematch Mayweather, I just havent seen him do it in the fights i have seen, which have been the big fights since Oliviera.
i agree, you can look at a fighter in his prime and almost disregard all but his last 10 fights. I mean fighting some guy at the local leisure centre isn`t something to hold up to scrutiny.
Hatton isnt an ATG. He hasn`t looked great in any of the big fights stateside. Castillo was looking for a way out. Tszyu was never going to win that fight because he cant box going backwards against someone pressuring him for 3 minutes a round.
I think his chin gets him out of alot of problems. He can be hit but if you have a great chin you are never really made to pay.
In so many of his fights he gets sloppy, then gets tagged, then changes the way he fights to pull away on the score cards.
His main attributes are work rate, chin, speed and the ability to change the fight. These are very difficult to overcome because paradoxically its very hard to beat him on the cards becauseof his workrate and you need to knock him out, which is also extremely hard because of his chin and ability to change up the fight.
His trainer is also a great attribute. You can tell he really knows him as a fighter which is invaluabe. He knows how to get the best out of him and motivate him.
Ive lost count of the number of times ive seen a fighter lose because of shit corner advice or tactics
I dont see him losing before he retires but who knows.
i think that you can harden the skin on your knuckles by rubbing vingegar into the skin, the old bare knuckle fighters used to do this to prevent their hands cutting up.
I dont think you can actualy harden the bones, like was said previously, any purposeful damage to your knuckles in an attempt to harden them will likely give you arthiritis or other bone problems. If you wrap your hands correctly you shoudn't have a problem but even fighters who do this still have problems like mayweather or calzaghe which can prevent you from punching with full force. Its luck i suppose whether you are born with knuckles that can stand up to the demands of training.
I think if you look at the 'little leagues' of boxing like the club fighters you will see alot of fucked up facial features.
The only boxer i can think of who has a perfect nose is Peter Manfredo
im not suggesting it, i was just curious if something like that would ever be allowed.
I was just making a general comment, not replying to your topic as such :)
i dont see the point in trying to strengthen your knuckles. There are so many fighters out there, why not spend the time doing some skills training or cardiovascular, why waste it trying to be bruce lee.