I think it’s mental to ignore that Kovalev is 50 years old and has been knocked out three times in the last three years.
But what do I know?
I'd definitely pick Lemuiex to knockout Kovalev. I think his punch resistance has been rapidly deteriorating. His confidence and killer instinct is gone, and his legs are starting to go too. I wouldn't expect him to go twelve against Bivol and I wouldn't be surprised if Beterbeiv took him out in the first round. I think he's essentially one more loss away from a gatekeeper. That being said I think he still beats Kamil at this point. Kamil definitely doesn't have the power to keep Kov honest and if there's one thing Krusher still has its a strong punch and I wouldn't think Kamil has the durability or perseverance to stand up twelve rounds of punishment from any heavy handed Light Heavy. Other than being relativley fresh and faster handed he's outmatched in every conceivable way against Kovalev including atleast a fifteen pound weight disadvantage. I couldn't see any path to victory for him in that fight.
Lemieux was ko'd by Marco Antonio Rubio.IN HIS PRIME!!!!....why are you trying to act like he is some monster? just because he fought GGG?
He's not a monster but he is a concussive puncher an absolutely massive middleweight. Maybe not height and reach wise but I wouldn't expect him to be giving up any weight to Sergey come fight night. Its not like he would just run over Kovalev, It would definitely be a shootout but if they were fighting next I'd have to pick David. Just because I think he has more left at this stage of his career and because he's always been able to come back from his losses where Kovalev has looked exponentially worse everytime he's been knocked out. Also he was in no way in his prime when he lost to Rubio. He was a 22 year old kid with no experience at the top level against a grizzled vet with 55 pro fights. And he didn't get beat down. He didn't look terrible. He certainly had his moments that night but Rubio fought a tough gritty fight and was just too much too soon for a young prospect in Lemuiex. I dont know when exactly his prime would be but he's been steadily improving as he's gone along with his career. Even since the Golovkin fight he's been getting better.
I'll just say, nobody in the Fab 4 wanted anything to do with Mike McCallum. Roy had an opportunity to fight him in 91 and passed although he would fight him years later when Mike was at the end of the line
The guy beat 15 Hall of Famers, went 50-0 in one year and regularly beat guys 30 pounds heavier than him, including giving Tunney his only loss in 80+ fights. He was 5'8 with a 71 inch reach and weighed less than 160 and he beat up Heavyweight Champions. That's basically like Crawford going in and beating up on Usyk or Briedis.
I think Floyd has a great claim as the greatest fighter of the 21st century and possibly the greatest since Leonard. Anything past that is just fanboyism to me
Nah Ruenrong and Mthlane aren't bums. Mthlane is a current champion and is one of the better Flyweights of the last decade. And Ruenrong was in the middle of a monster championship run beating undefeated Kazuo Ioka and double Olympic champ Zhou Shiming as well as McWilliams Arroyo who was arguably the biggest puncher in the division. In fact Amnat was the clear number three guy in an absolutely loaded flyweight division and he just recently went 12 with Srisiket as a 40 year old. Garcia Hirales wasn't a bad fighter when he beat Casimero either. He took a beating from Chocaltito and was never the same and he's accumulated alot of losses since then. He should have retired after the Gonzalez loss but they don't pay Flyweight so he had to keep fighting hence the 9 L's. The Jonas Sultan loss was embarrassing for Casimero though and this narrative that Inoue is ducking him is ridiculous. Inoue signed to fight him but had his Visa delayed because of COVID so Casimero pulled out and fought someone else. I'm mostly seeing this from Inoue haters who don't even follow the division and just want their guy to have his spot on the P4P list so they just say anything to disparage him. Just like 4 years ago they were saying Gonzalez was "Ducking" Inoue.
I totally agree. Rosario got drilled and Dervy lost clearly. If anyone got robbed last night it was Payano. Although I don't know if you could really call that a "robbery" per se
Because they aren't turning professional as often as other countries do. It's the same reason why Soviets didn't have any pro success. Cuba has had 17 professional champions which is more than Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan. Ukraine and Russia would be a better comparison. Only a small fraction of Cuba's top amateurs have the opportunity to turn pro. Cuba currently only has 50 or so professional fighters and only maybe 6 or 7 who were successful amateurs. Russia and Ukraine has something like 500 pros each and almost all of their elite level amateurs become professionals instead of 1 or 2 per Olympic cycle like the Cubans seem to do. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan both have atleast a couple hundred profighters and most of their World/Olympic medalists turn professional as well
It's been a very long time since I saw it, so I may be wrong but didn't Zeljko Mavrovic give Lewis a boatload of problems?
But yeah, I'd say either Ray Mercer or Vitali Klitschko
Mavrovic did frustrate Lewis some but it seemed like that was his goal in the fight rather than winning. Just to survive and spoil rather than actually try to take rounds but he did accomplish that and gave a good account of himself, I don't know how much Lewis was really in danger though.
For me the hierarchy of Mexican boxing history is something like this
Teir 1
-
Julio Cesar Chavez
Salvador Sanchez
Ruben Olivares
Teir 2
-
Miguel Canto
Ricardo Lopez
Juan Manuel Marquez
Marco Antonio Barrera
Carlos Zarate
Teir 3
-
Erik Morales
Humberto Gonzalez
Vincente Salvadir
Pipino Cuevas
Rafael Harrera
Teir 4
-
Lupe Pintor
Antonio Margarito
Daniel Zaragoza
Kid Azteca
Jorge Arce
Rafael Marquez
Rodolfo Casanova
Baby Arizmendi
Efren Torres
Jose Luis Castillo
Isreal Vasquez
Juan Zurita
Jose Luis Ramirez
Chucho Castillo
Gilberto Roman
For me Canelo is at the second tier right now and he still has work to do if he wants to be up there with Chavez and company
It's a good fight, and you never know in this division, but AJ is a strong betting favourite for good reason.
I think Pulev has to hope that Joshua is so mentally broken that he can't commit to throwing anything serious. If they play tippy tappy stuff on the outside then Pulev can win on points. But I don't see that happening.
People talk about Pulev's only loss being to Klitschko like it improves his standing. He got throughly bested in that fight and made to look levels and levels below Klitschko. That was when he was at his peak. He's a long way past that now.
He's awkward but I reckon he won't see the sixth round.
He ran into Klitschko on the wrong night. Wlad never looked better, easily the best performance of his career.
To attempt to commit suicide requires a large amount of fragility does the fact that fury attempted and failed highlight an as yet unexploited mental frailty that’ll likely be exposed further when he takes that first loss?
To commit suicide is to essentially to quit on life so chances are he could be forced to quit in the ring as well?
It indicates mental something
First of all he's incorrect Loma is 5'7 Crawford 5'8 And Canelo 5'9 and even if they were all the same height so what? Alexis Arguello was the same height as Tyson and they were both P4P top 10 Also Loma and Crawford have both moved up 2 weight classes just like Canelo has
I don't think it's a guarantee. If Tyson could lose to Buster Douglas then he could lose to Joshua imo. I wouldn't put money on Joshua or anything but I wouldn't bet on Tyson knocking him out in one round either.
I think prime Tyson would be vs Holmes or Biggs. He looked like absolute dog***** against Douglas and didn't really look great against Bruno either. AJ could def go some rounds against that version of Mike
I went to Boxrec to take a look back at Tyson's opponents during his prime (1986-1990, or from the Berbick fight to his loss against Buster Douglas), and here is what I found:
Tyson weighed between 215 and 221 for those fights so let's just average it out to 218.
All of his opponents held significant height and reach advantages, however Tyson especially destroyed guys who weighed under 220. (4 KO's, 3 within the first two rounds)
Of course he handled everyone else too, however the guys who weighed in the high 220's and 230's fared better against him on average.
Tyson's two toughest opponents during this stretch were James "Bonecrusher" Smith (6'4" with 82" reach, 233 lbs.) and Buster Douglas (just under 6'4" with 83" reach, 231 lbs.)
Anthony Joshua is 6'6" with an 82" reach, and he has weighed in the low to mid 240's for his last five fights. Even the super-slimmed down version of AJ still weighed 237, which is heavier than all of Tyson's opponents during his prime run.
Does that mean AJ would win? No, but it does tell me that AJ probably wouldn't get stopped in a single round. The more likely outcome is that Joshua would go some rounds like Tyrell Biggs did
This is true although i think Biggs success was due to him being great on his feet and defensively solid and I dont see that in AJ but there is a chance Mike may struggle with AJs size reach and punching power like he did against Smith and Douglas (I don't think Smith and Douglas fought Mike in his prime though) However there's also the point that just like prime Mike was never tested by someone with AJs size, AJ has never been tested by someone with Mikes power. We know AJ has both a weak chin and leaky defense because he's been hurt and dropped by guys not known as huge punchers. If he just simply can't take Mikes shots he may not make it past the opening round. But the truth is we just can't know how either guy would do in that situation because they haven't fought anyone comparable to each other. Or atleast Mike didn't in his prime.
We talking about a prime mike here Corey.
I know, I was explaining to this other guy that if we're talking about prime Mike then his performances against Douglas and Bruno can't be taken into consideration