Comments Thread For: Daily Bread Mailbag: The future for Boots Ennis, Mike Tyson, and the brilliance of Bam Rodriguez

[JeBron Lamez]

At what point in his career? The Wilder victories? Give a guy like Lomachenko that kind of natural size advantage and he doesn’t lose a round, even with a torn labrum.

Weirdly, Coppinger had him at #2 p4p after the Dillian Whyte fight: https://www.espn.co.uk/boxing/story/...bing-now-top-5

But yes, for most people it was after Fury - Wilder II.

[crimsonfalcon07]

Yes, very much so.

That's silliness that doesn't understand the concept of pound for pound, IMO. If you shrink Tyson Fury down to, say 118, with the skills he's displayed, I doubt he even makes it to contender level for any of the belts, including the IBF. Most of his purported skills come from being massive, but still being able to move well FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT. P4P exists because you can't really compare the big guys well to the little guys, because cardio and skills tend to decrease as you go up in mass, while power makes a bigger difference. After all, there's only so much that a human neck can take. But if you're going to consider things skill for skill, it's the VERY rare heavyweight that's actually got the technical skills to hang with their lighter compatriots, even if the heavyweight would likely win an actual fight just by dint of size.

[Mark Elding]

That's silliness that doesn't understand the concept of pound for pound, IMO. If you shrink Tyson Fury down to, say 118, with the skills he's displayed, I doubt he even makes it to contender level for any of the belts, including the IBF. Most of his purported skills come from being massive, but still being able to move well FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT. P4P exists because you can't really compare the big guys well to the little guys, because cardio and skills tend to decrease as you go up in mass, while power makes a bigger difference. After all, there's only so much that a human neck can take. But if you're going to consider things skill for skill, it's the VERY rare heavyweight that's actually got the technical skills to hang with their lighter compatriots, even if the heavyweight would likely win an actual fight just by dint of size.

I was going to reply to the comment above but I’ll add to yours instead, which is much more closely aligned with what I see.

Fury’s beat downs of Wilder were not as impressive as, say, Lomachenko’s thorough spanking of Rigondeaux. Rigo was closer in natural size to Loma than proportionally Wilder was to Fury, as well as the Cuban maestro being infinitely more skilled than the one trick pony from Alabama. And yet everyone, including Loma himself, tends to dismiss that masterful win due to the difference in size, while marvelling at Fury beating up Wilder.. Go figure.

[JeBron Lamez]

That's silliness that doesn't understand the concept of pound for pound, IMO. If you shrink Tyson Fury down to, say 118, with the skills he's displayed, I doubt he even makes it to contender level for any of the belts, including the IBF. Most of his purported skills come from being massive, but still being able to move well FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT. P4P exists because you can't really compare the big guys well to the little guys, because cardio and skills tend to decrease as you go up in mass, while power makes a bigger difference. After all, there's only so much that a human neck can take. But if you're going to consider things skill for skill, it's the VERY rare heavyweight that's actually got the technical skills to hang with their lighter compatriots, even if the heavyweight would likely win an actual fight just by dint of size.

There are many aspects to a fighter. It may be the case that when faced with the severe adversity of truly concussive punishment & multiple knockdowns, most lighter fighters wouldn't be able to recover at all, much less go on to dance on their opponent & deliver knockout blows of their own. It doesn't impress everyone but it is very much part of the consideration.

[JeBron Lamez]

I was going to reply to the comment above but I’ll add to yours instead, which is much more closely aligned with what I see.

Fury’s beat downs of Wilder were not as impressive as, say, Lomachenko’s thorough spanking of Rigondeaux. Rigo was closer in natural size to Loma than proportionally Wilder was to Fury, as well as the Cuban maestro being infinitely more skilled than the one trick pony from Alabama. And yet everyone, including Loma himself, tends to dismiss that masterful win due to the difference in size, while marvelling at Fury beating up Wilder.. Go figure.

Lomachenko is one of my favourite boxers & I glaze him all the time (no Diddy) but he didn't respond very well to the rough treatment overweight Salido gave him, nor did he respond very well to the adversity of Teo's amazing one-off laser focus & jab work. He didn't start that fight slow because he decided to, it was imposed on him!

Plus who are you tryna kid, Rigo was teeny tiny compared to Hi-Tech.

[DeeMoney]

That's silliness that doesn't understand the concept of pound for pound, IMO. If you shrink Tyson Fury down to, say 118, with the skills he's displayed, I doubt he even makes it to contender level for any of the belts, including the IBF. Most of his purported skills come from being massive, but still being able to move well FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT. P4P exists because you can't really compare the big guys well to the little guys, because cardio and skills tend to decrease as you go up in mass, while power makes a bigger difference. After all, there's only so much that a human neck can take. But if you're going to consider things skill for skill, it's the VERY rare heavyweight that's actually got the technical skills to hang with their lighter compatriots, even if the heavyweight would likely win an actual fight just by dint of size.

But pound for pound isn't just relative skill, but it is also relative athletic ability- including body type (thats what makes it so hard to do that for heavyweights). Fury has a lot longer reach than the average heavyweight, you mix that with his relative speed when taking into account P4P. Consider a 118 pounder with a significant reach and somewhat better speed advantage than his opponents, and thats what you have with Fury; in a relative P4P sense.
Not writing that makes him top 10 P4P, just that its not just relative skill, but also relative athletic ability.

[JeBron Lamez]

Fury’s beat downs of Wilder were not as impressive as, say, Lomachenko’s thorough spanking of Rigondeaux.

Terrible take.

Wilder been a skinny legs the whole time he was "the most fearsome puncher ever", he was a massive favourite in the first fight & got gifted a draw because his KD's were so spectacular. He was still favourite going into the second fight.

Now if you'd said Loma vs Walters... I still would have disagreed

[DeeMoney]

I wonder if American trainers are sought out more often due to the advantages America itself offers, particularly the ability to train at altitude, and larger population to chose sparring partners from?

[crimsonfalcon07]

There are many aspects to a fighter. It may be the case that when faced with the severe adversity of truly concussive punishment & multiple knockdowns, most lighter fighters wouldn't be able to recover at all, much less go on to dance on their opponent & deliver knockout blows of their own. It doesn't impress everyone but it is very much part of the consideration.

Fury doesn't have good punching technique though. His power is primarily because he's huge. Just to give you a few examples, he likes to throw lazy jabs from the hip with his other hand low. It works because he's got a major height and reach advantage against pretty much everyone, but if you take away the size advantage, the skills don't hold up. He throws a lot of arm punches too, especially hooks and uppercuts. Good enough at heavyweight vs the competition he's faced, outside what passes for the elite of the division, but he'd get stopped early if you take the size away and look at it skill for skill. That's why, for all his size, he's got only a 70% KO ratio, most of which are TKO. He's got 4 total actual KO's, vs Wilder and Cunningham, who he outweighed by huge amounts (40lbs and 44lbs), and vs guys with mostly losing records early in his career.

And speaking of getting stopped, he's kinda chinny. He's been knocked down by guys who were way smaller than him who aren't known for their knockout power. Got knocked down by a debutante, FFS, and really should have lost that fight. What kind of P4P talent gets knocked down and has to be handed a gift decision vs a person in their first boxing match ever?

That's leaving aside the fact that he's a cheater too. Great at marketing himself, but I just don't see how he holds up when you really adhere to the key concept behind P4P, which is, literally and definitionally, how good is this fighter if you take size and weight out of the equation. If you want to argue that P4P is consequently a fundamentally meaningless, artificial, and largely arbitrary list that frequently looks a lot like a popularity contest, well, I won't argue with you on that at all.

[CPNUTKnockoutFreshMart]

Ya'll complicate P4P way too much. The original idea was and still is supposed to be that if the fighters were all the same size , who would win in a fight between them. Everyone wants to add criteria to justify their picks when it's just not that complicated.