My money is on klitschko for this one, also, but isn't Rahman the toughest opponnent he's faced, besides Lennox Lewis and Chris Byrd? There's no way that it's gonna be as easy for him as Danny Williams was...
Great fight - just what i like, lots of action but still a boxing match...
It looks to me like Pacquiao has the superior natural talent with that incredible handspeed and strong punching power, but Morales is just a much more solid boxer - he kept his focus better than Manny and seemed to control most of the fight.
If Pacquiao could really hone his natural talent some more, though, he'd be unbeatable.
lol - that's right i forgot about his grills. i guess he must be great if he can get hit in the head that many times and still come up with such a good invention. or have the business sense to sign his name on someone else's good invention.
Rahman would be a fool not to fight Klitschko, even if he doesn't get the $ he's looking for. He's not getting any younger - if he wants to be heavyweight champ I'd say that now is his chance. Fight Klitschko and try to tag him with a lucky punch (like he did to Lewis a few years ago).
What else is he going to do - go fight John Ruiz again?
lol - that's right i forgot about his grills. i guess he must be great if he can get hit in the head that many times and still come up with such a good invention. or have the business sense to sign his name on someone else's good invention.
I think that a 33 year old Lennox Lewis would clearly beat a 33 year old Vitali Klitschko, but a 40 year old Lennox vs. a 33 year old vitali? I'd give Lewis a 50/50 chance, dropping fast as he gets older. Klitschko looks goofy but he has very fast hands for a big guy, is accurate and hits hard, and unlike his younger brother he can take a punch.
I do agree with you that Lewis looked COMPLETELY unprepared and unfocused for the fight with vitali - he didn't even seem to warm up until the third round. If he had been fully warmed up and focused then he probably would have beaten Vitali. Although... you do have to take into account that Klitschko was essentially fighting with one eye, by the end of that fight...
I doubt that we'll ever have Lewis/Klitschko II. Here's what I predict, for Vitali's carrear: he captures one or two more titles over the next 2-3 years, but at some point someone knocks him out by getting inside his long arms or by taking advantage of his problems with endurance - and that will be the end of the Klitschko era.
i'm a vitali k fan, but if i ever found out for certain that he was taking steroids i'd loose all respect for him. you're supposed to be the champ based on how good of a boxer you are, not how good of a chemist your trainer is...
that being said it sounds like there isn't any real evidence at this point.
Maybe because all heavyweights don't weight the same, making it mismatches in fights, meaning you're not always fighting guys your size.. Think about it, you put a small good heavyweight, who is good at fighting guys his size and has never been KO'd, in there with Vitali and Vitali knocks his ass out in the early-mid rounds, by just over-powering, and over-sizing him. Vitali won't deserve that much credit, because he had a clear advantage, his size.
It's an interesting point, that the size range is the greatest in the heavyweight division (from tyson at 5 11 to valuev at 7 feet) - maybe we need a superheavyweight division... I actually don't agree though with the theory that vitali only beats people because of his size. Even though he doesn't move very smoothly i think that he actually is an extremely talented boxer-- if Roy Jones Jr. says that you're a good boxer then you've gotta be good, and after the fight with williams Jones said that for his size at least, vitali is a good boxer.
You know if you really wanted to make sure that the plan worked you could bang the hooker yourself until you got herpes, and then bang john ruiz until you were completely sure that he was exposed :D
As much as i would love to see someone just KO the hell out of James Toney, I'm afraid the reality is that he's just a much better boxer than Ruiz and is probably going to demolish him.
P.S. Nice torrent ration. Way to contribute!
I knew that that was going to come up as soon as someone got pissed off at me. Trust me, I've only downloaded one fight, Tyson-Holyfield 1, and I'm trying to share it but i don't think that people are able to download from me consistently because of the router that i'm on. I'm not going to download any more until i figure out how to share.
Also just so you know i was just kidding - i don't actually want you to give John Ruiz anal herpes.
this isn't what you're looking for, but when you brought up james toney it reminded me of my pick for the boxer fighting now who has the WORST defensive skills - vassily jirov. i don't think that he even tries to avoid punches. a total waste, too - if his defensive skills were in line with his offensive skills he'd be a great fighter.
as for best defense... i realize that this isn't a very good choice but evander holyfield in his prime was able to hold his own in the ring with some massive punchers - tyson, bowe, lewis -and it wasn't all just because of his heart and his offensive volume... he looked like a defenisve master in the tyson fight, at least...
you ever have that feeling where you're actually scared of the fighter you're watching, even though you know that they're thousands of miles away and you're not a boxer and that if you were a boxer you'd be in a different weight class... anyway, i'm scared of floyd mayweather - good god how could anyone last against someone that fast & accurate...
lol why does everyone on here either love klitschko or hate him? i think that he's a powerful fighter who could beat almost anyone in the heavyweight division, but who has some weaknesses (tops on the list, his shaky endurance) that someone is eventually going to exploit to defeat him. by the time that happens, though, he may be the undisputed heavyweight champion...
you guys who say that klitschko sucks and is a fake champion just aren't using your brains - you don't get to where he is just on luck... but you guys who think that he is already on muhammad ali level are also not using your heads, IMO.
one of those Peter left hooks flush on Klitschko's chin and the whole heavyweight division could change... if S.P. could get close enough to land it...
i think that vitali k would probably beat james toney if they ever fought, but i think that toney would be a very dangerous opponnent - much more dangerous than, say, danny williams. i saw toney fight jirov a few months ago, and he looked very smooth and powerful. of course jirov helped him out alot by letting him hit him in the head over and over again...
that's another interesting topic - why doesn't vassily jirov move his head? he was clearly winning in both the toney & morrer fights, but he leads with his head and doesn't seem to try to avoid punches at all - especially in the later rounds of his fights - and so he inevitably gets dazed and goes down.
you know the good thing about this running vitali klitschko argument is that it's all gonna be solved over the next two years, as all the belt holders fight each other (i hope)... since i haven't seen ruiz or byrd fight yet, i'm not sure who i think is gonna come out on top, if it ends up being one of those three at all...
i'll admit that vitali looks like a spaz when he fights, but i don't think that you can get to the top or even near the top of the heavyweight division on size alone - at that level you've gotta have skill and size/power. klitschko is 6'7" but there are plenty of guys out there who are his size or bigger... i just don't see tyson knocking klitschko out. maybe james toney, maybe...
the most likely scenario for a vitali k loss, i think, is some solid pro like ruiz or byrd or rahman making vitali fight a long greuling fight that tires him out.
the newbie says:
i always think that it's funny when people say that elite atheletes aren't any good. anyone who gets even into the top 100 of the heavyweight division has to be a phenomenal athelete...
i don't know as much about boxing as some of the people on here, but vitali k has power and he can take a punch, and he has great boxing skills - but his endurance is questionable. anyone notice how tired he gets in the later rounds of his fights? it didn't stop him from beating up danny williams, but i wonder what would have happened in the lennox lewis fight if it had kept on going, and if lewis had really come there ready to fight. also i bet that a small, fast tyson-type who could get close in with vitali without getting clobbered first could mess him up bad - big guys are always susceptable to that...
overall i'd say that klitschko is an elite fighter, and i won't be surprised if he beats rahman and ruiz and ends up dominating the heavyweight division for a couple of years.
i'm a vitali klitschko fan, but i'm pretty sure that lennox lewis in his prime and ready to fight would have destroyed vitali k... lewis is a great boxer, even though he seems to also be a bit of an a-hole.
i've actually never seen rahman fight - should be an interesting match.
vitali klitschko has a decent chin - lennox lewis of all people tagged him pretty good a couple of times, and he took it...
i'm gonna make everyone yell at me by saying that vassily jirov is the most un-knockoutable fighter around these days, even though he's been tko-ed twice recently. hear me out: the guy uses his head as a punch-absorber, like he doesn't even care that he's getting hit - i've almost never seen a heavyweight take as many solid head shots before going down as he did in the james toney fight - so i'm saying that because he absorbes such huge ammounts of punishment before going down, he deserves the iron-jaw award for the heavyweight division. if the guy actually learned some defensive skills he'd be a top-10 heavyweight, james toney level.