Max Baer vs The Klitchko Brothers.

[lightsout_finit]

This fight comes down to If Baer lands that right hand.......

[nomadman]

Baer was plenty talented, and awesomely powerful with a very good chin and stamina.

Problem is that very very early on in his career, with the death of Frankie Campbell, he just gave up. He didn't strive to be excellent or even take the sport seriously anymore. He lost most of the horrifying power he had early on after that and was afraid to go all out then on, but still terrified and dominated a era. He was probably the most terrifying of all of the champions, Liston being a far off second. Baer literally killed 2 people, and sealed Ernie Shaff's fate with one right hand.

I would say that between him and Shavers, their was noone that could punch at that level. Even Foreman, Tua, and Marciano(Believed to hit harder than Foreman, and probably did shot for shot)...It was just a whole other monster

I cannot favor Baer against either Klitschko. I do not think either one can land the blows to KO him. I see a very one sided 12 round decision, Baer just wouldn't care. He could take either one out with one shot even though he lacked the shot he had early on.

Early on their are only writings and records of Baer. He was said to be hyper aggressive, possessing a amazing number of first round knockouts, legendarily powerful, and just in general a ****ing terror. I can see this version of Baer taking out anyone in history potentially.

Baer's hands were broken in the Louis fight and his right arm had been numbed by Novocaine to stop the pain. He was still more than a handful and almost KOed Louis at the end of the 2nd and in the first rounds, and lifted both of his feet off of the ground with a left to the body. God knows what he would have done to Louis if his hands weren't busted and his right arm numbed. And still yet, this was a man that just didn't care.

This is all well and good, but as far as I know, no footage of Baer's fights up to and including the Campbell bout exist. Now Baer might be all these things people have said about him and more, but without looking at the actual fight footage not one of us can really be sure. People are faillible and bring a unique set of beliefs and prejudices to anything they experience, and with fight journalists you have to factor into the argument the strong likelihood that they will exaggerate and hyperbolise what they witness. At any rate I myself would never want to base my opinion of a fighter on second hand sources, no matter who they are.

Baer might well have been a madman in the ring, but a lot of guys are early in their career, before they've learned to properly temper their aggression. I don't doubt that the Campbell fight affected him; Baer seemed liked a genuinely decent and warmhearted guy, and knowing that his fists might have caused another man's death would have deeply affected him, perhaps in ways that were literally career destroying. But he was also a man for whom fighting was his profession, and who had a family to support in hard times, and I have difficulty believing that he could have willingly fought that far below his level simply due to the Campbell incident. Thus, I have to rate him and accept him on the footage that I've seen.

What I see is this: a man with decent but not outstanding power, crude technique, slowish feet, a slowish pawing jab and a porous defence. I've already posted quite extensively in another thread about what I feel to be Shavers's overrated punching power. Baer is another fighter whose punching power I believe gets horribly overrated. He could knock men out, obviously, but he never demonstrated his ability to end fights in the blink of an eye, the way guys like Tyson, Lewis, Foreman and Wlad himself showed. There are more than a few fighters who withstood his best punches before crumbling, and many who withstood his best punches without crumbling at all.

Regarding the matchup, if we're going to bring this into the present age, then I think Baer has a great number of disadvantages. First off, he's going to be the smaller man in the ring, by a large margin, and unlike the Carnera fight he's also going to be at an athletic disadvantage too. Secondly, he'll be fighting with larger gloves, which will affect his punching power, or at least his ability to inflict gruesome and possibly fight ending injuries. Thirdly, and leading on from the second point, he'll be more at the mercy of refs who are liekly to stop the contest if a fighter receives too much punishment in the way of cuts, swelling or simply an unwholesome number of punches. Not the most macho thing to talk about, but salient if we're going to consider all bases.

I see this fight going only one way: Wlad keeping Baer at bay with his jab and footwork, catching him with a series of right hands, and eventually knocking him out. I'm usually able to see some openings for his opponents, but I'm seriously at a loss to see how Baer is even competitive in this one. He doesn't have the speed to catch Wlad, he doesn't have the technique or the unorthodoxy, and he doesn't have the power either.

"Doesn't have the power!" you splutter? "Doesn't have the power," I reinterate. And whilst Wlad's chin never be spoken of in the same breath as Chuvalo's, Cobb's or McCall's, if I had a pound for every time I've heard the phrase "all it takes is one punch on Wlad's fragile jaw and..." that was subsequently preved untrue then I'd have... more than enough for a decent meal at the very least. I mentioned in the runup to the fight that Wlad would be able to withstand Haye's best shots, and this proved to be true. I mentioned this in the runup to a large number of his previous fights as well, and they all proved to be true as well. It seems due to his past losses Wlad is cursed with the Lennox Lewis approved phantom glass chin syndrome, that anyone who can simply land on his chin is going to knock him spark out, regardless of their inability to do so with former opponents.

Baer has the weight of history and legend behind him, but viewed objectively, the chances of his landing a right and Wlad crumbling to the canvas and staying there are extremely slim...











...unless he lands his backhand. Now that could crack boulders.

[Vadrigar.]

Cracks me up everytime!

[Barn]

Cracks me up everytime!

Baer went onto win the World Judo Championship and Bronze medal in olympic sprinting.

[Rspen46]

Klitschko's

I would take both Klitchko's over Baer & I really like Baer & his career a lot, but especially after watching the video here against Schmeling, I Would say he would have a better shot against them than Baer, he hit Schmeling with some flush straight right's & he kept coming.

[GeneralZod]

For someone reason i'm actually giving this to Max Baer. I can't picture Wlad doing much to stop him other than clinching.

[Kid Achilles]

Watch Louis land his best combinations on Baer only to have Baer grin at him goofily at the end of the round. And Louis was a much better puncher than either Klitschko.

If he loses, it's on points.

[rightsideup]

why not have buddy involved and have two on two.