Don't like it but have to agree with Mr Warren here.
Can we all stop talking about Joshua's win like it was against a peak wladimir.
It was a fantastic action fight a good solid win for a man still learning on the job but let's not take it out of context.
He fought a 41 year old coming off an 18 month lay that had been gradually declining since the loss of steward. This culminated in him 'growing old' over night against fury and being unable to pull the trigger.
The men Warren mentioned would have beaten wladimir at that point in his career, a point where he was struggling with jennings, losing to fury and being stopped by joshua.
To put it in to context, Larry holmes was 39 coming off an 18 month layoff and a loss when he was destroyed by tyson, yet tyson gets no credit. Why should AJ for beating a man in a life and death struggle who was in the same boat?
This is from a klitschko brother fan and seeing the people who once derided wladimir try to now build him up to try and add weight to joshua is pathetic.
I think all 4 fighters from the last two weekends have the combination of power, speed and skill that they could make noise up at heavyweight aswell. We've already seen it with breidis stopping charr early on in his career.
A guy who I helped with his S&C work once said to me heavyweights aren't real boxers, because they don't suffer through dieting and weight cuts etc. I took offense to this as I would qualify as a heavyweight but seeing how lackluster that division is compared to this, I'm starting to believe him.
Glancing through this thread I think I need to re-evaluate my boxing knowledge. All of a sudden absolute killers like a prime Kelly Pavlik are being compared to the Chavez jr that fought Canelo?
Then apparently the same Canelo who *****ed about laras tactics, then (not as effectively) employed them against Canelo and still lost a clear, albeit close UD to GGG is all of a sudden a ginger Marvin Hagler.
Oh and for the people saying it was scored a draw, I bet you also agree with that one card against Mayweather.
Based on?
If he beats Wilder and defends his title then we can have this discussion. But when you have ex world champion southpaws, like moorer, byrd, Sanders, ibragimov and chagaev I thinks it's a bit premature.
Remember cotto being one of my favourite fighters. Loved his fight against Judah, basically bullying zab for the win.
Then remember sitting there marvelling at how well Miguel was putting his punches together, but starting to notice tony was smiling when eating shots and slowly he was starting to land.
Would cotto outlast him or would he wilt?
What a war, that version of margarito beats any version of cotto and would be a tough night for anyone.
P.S for all the people *****ing about the handwrap scandal talking about mosley beating, what about mosley being an admitted ped cheat. Double standards
Bellew won the first 3 rounds despite getting his legs stiffened briefly in the 3rd.
From that point on usyk started nicking rounds more convincingly then swept the 7th and dominted the 8th before the stoppage.
Bellew had about as much success as mchunu did early, despite what narrative the sky sports cheerleading team might try and spin
Some very cynical people on here, im not the biggest fan of hearn but that was nothing but concern for a friend/fighter.
Looking at how he fell between the ropes, in the immediate moments its hard not to let your mind jump to the worst scenario.
Its bad enough for us fans of the sport who have nothing but a superficial connection to fighters to become emotionally involved. But someone like hearn who has had a 7 year business reltaionship with bellew, knows his family, friends etc. he will have had serious concern.
Bellew hadn't made the cruiserweight limit for nearly 2 years and at this late in his career, considering he doesn't "live the life", it may have effected his punch resistance and stamina? As he was ahead on the cards, would his physical condition be stablized and sturdy enough to possibly beat Usyk in a heavyweight rematch?
He was ahead on the cards and canelo got a draw against mayweather on one of the cards, whats your point.
When youve spent an entire career making 175 then weigh in a fleshy 210, making a fleshy 200 wouldnt be an issue.
I've flip flopped on this fight since it first got brought up as a fantasy match
I'm leaning towards Crawford having too much guile and craft to fight Spencer fight and I think as long as the judges do their job he wins a competitive but clear ud
kovalev is the better fighter, perfect example of a boxer/puncher.
He deserved the nod against ward in the 1st fight and the 2nd the shots were low, not golota low but still.
Ward was a potentially atg talent, but he spent too long on the sidelines and retired too young. Crawford has accomplished more than ward and still has time to acomplish even more
Boxing is so reactionary
I remember arguing with someone who said naseem hamed was overrated because barrera beat him
Spence would always struggle with a fighter like Crawford who has so many wrinkles to his game, doesnt mean he is washed. Just means he lost to a fighter who had the style to beat him
I think its very strange the way people talk about the lower weight classes and diminish achievements below 126 but then accept 135-147 as if these aren't also very small fighters. Is it because it is predominantly american/Mexican fighters that win titles here?
Is it because 126 and below tends to be dominated by predominantly Asian fighters?
It's similar to how the heavyweight division doesn't matter when there are no good American heavyweights, or how no one paid attention to cruiserweight the other year despite it being the most stacked division at the time.
depending on my mood i can make an arguement for Crawford, inoue and even uysk being p4p no 1, but to pick Crawford over inoue purely based on size makes zero sense. Crawford has moved up 12 lbs in his career, fighters like usyk started at 199lbs and he fought chisora who weighed 255 and Joshua who was 245
Mayweather is TBE, let's look at this objectively.
He destroyed a prime canelo who destroyed trout, angulo and Lara.
He destroyed a prime undefeated* cotto who destroyed a prime margarito.
He destroyed a prime JMM, who destroyed a prime PAC.
He destroyed a prime hatton who destroyed a prime tyszu.
He destroyed a prime de la hoya who destroyed a prime Chavez, a prime Whitaker and a prime camacho who destroyed a prime Duran and Leonard, who between them destroyed prime Buchanan, de Jesus, cuevas, Moore, Barkley, Benitez, hearns, hagler and each other. Floyd better than every name on this list obviously.
If you don't agree your a hater. Or a racist. Or a racist hater. Or you don't agree with floyd and ellerbes relationship and your a homophobe. Or your against domestic abuse.
TMT 4 life.
True story.
Interesting match up, and one Haye would definitely try to avoid!
I think Toney wears Haye down,and scores a late stoppage. Let's not forget, Haye has stamina issues.
Exactly the way I see it going
Sergei liakovich springs to mind. He was never more than an average boxer at best but thanks to one great fight against lamon Brewster he will forever be renembered as a world heavyweight title holder.
There have been others but liakovich was poor before the Brewster fight, when it counted fought the way a challenger should when he's trying to rip a title away from someone, then was back to being poor in his first defence.
I know he's damaged goods but I would still love to see him get it on with Bam Bam Rios, I wonder will there be even more bad blood since he left Danny 'the delivery driver' Garcia?
I was on holiday with my missus, my big bro and his wife in orlando and watched Ortiz-Berto at a bar with my bro, who I had almost lost to the UFC and this was the fight that pulled him back to boxing. I always hope for the best for Ortiz because of this but I always find myself disappointed, hopefully he can recapture some of the fire he had that night and reconvert some more wayward fans.
It doesn't matter who Briggs gets to train him, he's always going to have terrible stamina, too much muscle and too much power to try anything other than trying to land a one punch KO.
I used to like Quigg but he's another casualty of Eddie Hearns poor match making. While Frampton has been improving his opposition and improving with every fight, Quigg has been spoon fed sub par opposition and will find himself lacking when faced with someone not turning up to lose.
I used to be high on this fight but it's lost its lustre, Frampton will walk through him.
Evander Holyfield unified 2 of the 3 heavyweight titles after being ko'd by Bowe and then went on to have his fights with Lewis etc. The first tyson win is arguably the biggest win of his career because of the hype tyson had after getting out of jail then destroying Seldon and Bruno. Tyson was back and Holyfield was finished.
Antonio demarco - john Molina was a prime example of this, Molina was caught cold and went into a shell more than being hurt to the point he should have been pulled out. He definitly could have carried on and we could of had a great fight on our hands rather than the up satisfying end we actually got.
Danny Garcia always finds a way to adapt and win
Andre ward is very effective and talented at what he does, he is the best Super Middleweight in the world by a mile
Stiverne vs Wilder, winner to face Wlad. Stop the absurdity of people being able to call themselves 'Champ' in a division that has such a dominant champ as Wladimir when they picked up a vacant title. Whoever wins this is the man in the division.
GGG vs Cotto, having someone call themselves 'The Man' of a division while avoiding the true number one contender, reminds me of Spinks, Judah, Baldomir and Mayweather calling themselves the man while pretending they didn't know who Margarito was.
Rigondeux vs Leo Santa Cruz, the true man in the division, the counter punching/defensive wizard vs the volume punching pressure fighter.
Also sets up a fight with the winner of,
Frampton vs Quigg, massive fight here in the UK, with massive implications on the world scene, determining the no 1 contender in the SBW division.
Huck vs Hernandez, stable mates, the two best cruiserweights, with completely different styles. Hernandez more athletic with better technique but also a shaky chin and huck crude but powerful. Would be massive in Germany.
Eubank - Saunders.
I thought sr talked jr up so much as a marketing ploy, but he obviously believes what he says because this is a tough fight. From what I've seen of them both, Saunders is a level above Eubank, but something must be happening behind closed doors that we don't see for them to be so confident.
Very interested in this one.
This is one of them fights where I can only see two outcomes and I'm not happy about either.
Scenario 1 : kovalev does to Hopkins what he does to everyone else, brutally kos him and we have to see an ATG, at 50 stopped for the first time.
Or
Scenario 2 : Hopkins does to kovalev what he does to everyone else, mentally ruins him by shutting him down and we have a top light heavyweight, possible future opponent for stevenson, ward and everyone else ruined ala Kelly Pavlik
Despite this I can't pick which of the two is going to happen so I can't wait for fight night, this is the beauty of boxing.