Boxing

[Shaggy]

Goodnight! Sleep well!

[ame]https://twitter.com/MichaelBensonn/status/1536477290267299844[/ame]

[spud_gun]

I'm kinda torn on the various classes.

I've no real love for Mayweather or Ward. On the other hand I loved watching Roy Jones, James Toney and especially JMM and to a lesser extent Mosley and Cotto.

No doubt Mayweather and Ward were the most talented of the picks.

[Doc_Piptorious]

The Lewis fight was a great fight. The ferocity of the uppercuts from both men were bone chilling. I don't watch much heavyweight boxing but that was great entertainment. Lewis being a little out of shape and past it made it better because it probably wasn't a quite yet prime Vitali either. So one just past it and the other not quite there yet.

But **** that, "the Sniper" Corrie Sanders was the best of the lot. Last 3 or 4 rounds of mayhem and it's an easy fight but those first rounds hell on earth. Would've been playing pro golf on the European (or at least Sunshine) tour now if some ****wits didn't shoot him.

Sanders was a big tough man. Sort of the Ken Norton or Ernie Shavers of his era, probably closer to the former actually.

A proper old school gatekeeper.


Never forget him stopping Wlad and then big brother Vitali wanting to take on Sanders straight away to avenge his brother's loss.

Man went out a warrior to the way he protected his daughter as he was murdered.

[Zapater]

The Lewis fight was a great fight. The ferocity of the uppercuts from both men were bone chilling. I don't watch much heavyweight boxing but that was great entertainment. Lewis being a little out of shape and past it made it better because it probably wasn't a quite yet prime Vitali either. So one just past it and the other not quite there yet.

But **** that, "the Sniper" Corrie Sanders was the best of the lot. Last 3 or 4 rounds of mayhem and it's an easy fight but those first rounds hell on earth. Would've been playing pro golf on the European (or at least Sunshine) tour now if some ****wits didn't shoot him.

[Doc_Piptorious]

Agree two top fighters that retired undefeated (although Castillo and Kovalev may have contest that). I've said it before but I think time will be kind to the Klitschko's. Just because the American and UK press hated them and called them boring doesn't mean they weren't good fighters, Vitali particularly. The dearth of talent in the division didn't help but it's no different to today. Without them journeymen like Joshua, Fury and Wilder are worshipped like gods.

And yes, I know Joshua and Fury beat Wlad but Wlad was a hundred years old. Let's be honest when Joshua is that age he'll either be long retired or will have a string of losses on his record and Fury will be lucky to still be alive if he hasn't eaten, coked and drunk himself to death by then.

I think the 2020 additions are great too. More unassuming but all greats. I think Mosley and possibly Marquez were better lightweights than Mayweather and would've beaten him at the weight if their reigns had overlapped. Marquez has a good shout of being the best Mexican fighter of all time with his records across weights.

Vitali goes under the radar an amazing amount of the time when discussing the best heavies of the last 20 to 30 years.

Man was a beast and by far the better of the brothers.Wlad in his prime was a top heavy but Vitali was a level above him.

Moved better, hit harder, could be hit harder without flinching, and had more of a killer instinct imo.

His two losses against Lewis and Byrd were dead unlucky as well. He was ahead on the cards in both fights when injury stopped both fights. Think he would have stopped Lewis that night if not for the injury (albeit a Lewis that was a tad over the hill at that point and nowhere near his world class prime).


Think he suffered from a bit of what Lennox Lewis suffered from in that he would beat guys that before the fight were being lauded as big threats but after he beat them handily they were dismissed as bums.

Same thing used to happen to Lennox Lewis (though Lewis beat far more top fighters than Vitali did and Lewis is an ATG at HW for me). He would go into a fight with people claiming the other guy was the next big thing, Lewis would dismantle the guy and suddenly people were rushing to take the gloss off of his good win.

The loss against Byrd is the one that caused people to dismiss him as a top heavy imho. He was 5 or 6 rounds ahead after 8 rounds when he had to quit due to pain and the inability to properly use one arm (similar to what happened to him against Chisora but he won that one more or less one armed). The American media crucified him for quitting and the fact he had fought from round two onwards with a torn rotator cuff and was still miles ahead on the cards was ignored. It was his no Mas moment as far as the media was concerned. The fact he went from round 2 as far as round 9 carrying that sort of injury is a testament to his toughness.

History will be very kind to both brothers though. You pick through their records and their longevity and it is difficult not to be impressed and not see that both were high end boxers. Not ATGs but maybe the tier below.

[Zapater]

2021 and by some distance. Ward and Mayweather alone win it. Klitschko is big cherry on top.


All three trios are excellent though.

Agree two top fighters that retired undefeated (although Castillo and Kovalev may have contest that). I've said it before but I think time will be kind to the Klitschko's. Just because the American and UK press hated them and called them boring doesn't mean they weren't good fighters, Vitali particularly. The dearth of talent in the division didn't help but it's no different to today. Without them journeymen like Joshua, Fury and Wilder are worshipped like gods.

And yes, I know Joshua and Fury beat Wlad but Wlad was a hundred years old. Let's be honest when Joshua is that age he'll either be long retired or will have a string of losses on his record and Fury will be lucky to still be alive if he hasn't eaten, coked and drunk himself to death by then.

I think the 2020 additions are great too. More unassuming but all greats. I think Mosley and possibly Marquez were better lightweights than Mayweather and would've beaten him at the weight if their reigns had overlapped. Marquez has a good shout of being the best Mexican fighter of all time with his records across weights.

[Doc_Piptorious]

2021 and by some distance. Ward and Mayweather alone win it. Klitschko is big cherry on top.


All three trios are excellent though.

[spud_gun]

Headliners from the last 3 Boxing Hall of Fame classes...

The class of 2022 Roy Jones Jr., Miguel Cotto, James Toney

The class of 2021 Floyd Mayweather, Wladimir Klitschko and Andre Ward.

The class of 2020 Bernard Hopkins, Juan Manuel Marquez and Shane Mosley.

Which class is the best...

[Doc_Piptorious]

Just after catching up on the fights I wanted to watch this week.

Inoue simply destroying Donaire in 2 rounds. Not a shock as time has been fast catching up on Donaire and at 39 he was at risk of falling off a cliff at any time, but Inoue was just destructive.



Dubois knocking out Trevor Bryan for the fake WBA belt. Really sick of organisations having multiple belts for the one division. Is bad enough there are so many organisations, but individual organisations having a number of belts per division grinds my gears.

Solid and expected stoppage win for Dubois that really told us nothing we did not know about either guy.


Still think Fury should have gone after Dubois as I think Fury would have schooled him before forcing a stoppage, but to the general public it could have been sold as Dubois being this heavy hitting genuine threat.

Dubois vs Joshua could be a fun watch too. Joshua should beat him as Dubois is quite slow, but Joshua is prone to getting caught clean as well and seems to have forgotten how to clinch in an effectove manner. Joshua to win that match up if it happened but not as easily as Fury would beat Dubois imo.


Last fight I watched was Riakporhe vs Turchi. Turchi is just a record padder but really nice finish by Riakporhe. With Usyk no longer at crusier that division is wide open imo and Riakporhe is a big rangy cruiser. Him vs Okolie or vs Makabu could be routes to getting a strap.




And because I know everyone is crying out for an update.........


Jaco P Official P4P Rankings

1. Crawford
2. Spence jr
3. Inoue
4. Lomachenko
5. J. Taylor
6. Davis
7. Estrada
8. Gonzalez
9. Uysk
10. Charlo

Haney, Bivol, and Stevenson moving into the top 15 along with Ginger Balls dropping down into the top 15.

[Doc_Piptorious]

https://twitter.com/MikeCoppinger/st...04689489805312

Finally

Canelo v Golovkin in September

Crawford v Spence in October

Golovkin is a shadow of what he once was and personally is taking this fight on pride and/or the misguided notion he is physically what he once was. Think it is too big a risk at the age of 40. I know the guy has had beastly training regimes and generally has sparred with bigger men all his career to build up punch resistence but Ginger can bang, is not over the hill, probably will have his mom and nan as two of the judges, will have some special steak before the fight, and a horse shoe in side one glove.



The second fight though....damn that might well be special and one for the purists and casual fans alike.

Number One and Number Two on the Jaco P Official P4P Rankings going head to head.

Screw titles, this one is to see who the very best boxer in the world is regardless of weight class.

The two very best guys out there, in their primes, going head to head. Throwback fight that is as good as any pairing I can think of that met in years gone by. Proper super fight in a boxing sense and worthy of any hype it gets.

For me this is a fight that is on the level of Wilfred Benitez vs. Sugar Ray Leonard in terms of the skill, ability, toughness and heart of both fighters.

I'm not going to compare it to Hagler vs Hearns or Hagler vs Leonard as none of those fights had all involved as close to their absolute best as Crawford vs Spence will.

There is nothing about this fight I do not like. Two immense talents that can box beautiful and both can brawl, both hit hard, both are quick, both have lovely footwork, both move well, both are excellent at timing other boxers but have enough differences in their styles to make it difficult to pick a winner.

Spence is a lovely boxer to watch and has a style that sometimes reminds me of Hagler (younger Hagler not the latter era version) with that super slick southpaw style of his. Can pick guys apart from distance or rip a defence apart up close, lovely relentless feel to his style and movement when he decides there is blood in the water.

But Crawford, another southpaw, reminds me of Andre Ward in how he moves and especially in how he switch hits. He is as comfortable fighting in an orthodox stance as he is in his natural southpaw stance. Whilst not as freakishly smooth at transitioning between stances as Ward was (Never seen a fighter at any weight that was able to do that like Ward could), he is still probably the best in the world today at doing so and damn smooth at doing so. Guy can hurt with body shots equally well with either hand.

Calling it early, this is going to be the fight that changes my mind as to what the fight of the year for 2022 is. Most exciting match up for me in decades.


Thin Lizzy sum up this fight for me

Like thunder and lightning
God damn, it's so exciting
It hits you like a hammer
God damn

[marcus50bucks]

[ame="https://twitter.com/MikeCoppinger/status/1532804689489805312"]https://twitter.com/MikeCoppinger/status/1532804689489805312[/ame]

Finally

Canelo v Golovkin in September

Crawford v Spence in October

[Doc_Piptorious]

Josh Taylor not moving up in weight after all, staying where he is and looking to fight Zepeda next.

Bit disappointing that Catterall does not get his rematch after all the talk that he would get one if he followed Taylor up a weight.

Catterall might have to chase the WBA belt that Taylor has been stripped off and then push for a champion vs Champion fight if he can win that belt.

Taylor vs Zepeda should be a good fight. Zepeda's style is more straight forward than that of Catterall but he hits hard enough and is a southpaw so is a dangerous opponent for Taylor albeit one that Taylor is better than but I cannot knock Taylor for how good he is.

Favour Taylor to beat him by stoppage, but very much another live opponent for Taylor and not a case of him taking an easy option.

[Doc_Piptorious]

"Retired" Fury is back in the gym.

Very unusual for him to go back into training after a fight and even more so for a non gym rat who is saying he is retired. More than just an eye on the winner of Usyk/Joshua one might think.

Only logical answer though is that he knows I am after him and he is getting fit so he can try to run for 10 rounds. The division needs a clean up and is need of a King.

Zap, you fancy being on the undercard? I'm sure we can find a Scottish tomato can for you to knock out

We can then strut around as the undisputed Heavyweight and Middleweight Kings of EST1892.

[Doc_Piptorious]

Very much so and a lot of what makes some fighters great is the tools they possess at their weight. So imagining a bigger or smaller version of themselves with relative attributes is a bizarre pipe dream we have. To make it even funnier boxing even throws in all of these hypothetical clashes between historical and modern fighters. When if you look at it objectively sports science makes a huge difference if we like to acknowledge it or not. I mean the Ali vs Marciano must be the most mundane discussion in sports history and obviously Ali would've won.

I also never think of adding a heavyweight to a P4P discussion because they're all bums. As Jaco and I have said before, if you've found the best welterweight of the era, you've usually found the best fighting man in the world.

Yep that is almost almost true of every modern (since the 1950s or 1960s) era imo and why any P4P list I make is nearly always topped by a welter with the number two on my list usually being the next best welter.

Occassionaly you will get an era or even a shorter span of years where a different weight class will vie for that best guy in the world title, but even then the biggest that guy will be is a middleweight with a few notable exceptions.

A few heavies would have made the loser end of lists I made over the years though. Usyk makes my current list though a lot of that is for how good he was at crusierweight.

Lennox Lewis would have cracked the top ten a couple time when he was in his prime.

Holyfield would have as well, though like Usyk some of that would have been him at crusierweight.

Prime Ali you could make a case for being in the P4P top tens if we were to comple a list for certain years during the 1970s and 1960s.

A maybe surprise addition (though I am cheating by including his time at another weight) would be Michael Moorer. I think for that spell between 1989 and maybe 1992 he would be on the lower end of a few P4P lists for back then. He was a beautiful light heavyweight and he then jumped straight up to heavyweight and for his first couple years there he boxed very much lke a light heavyweight.

[Zapater]

Thing about P4P lists and boxing in general is that it's so subjective - as we've seen on this very thread.

Very much so and a lot of what makes some fighters great is the tools they possess at their weight. So imagining a bigger or smaller version of themselves with relative attributes is a bizarre pipe dream we have. To make it even funnier boxing even throws in all of these hypothetical clashes between historical and modern fighters. When if you look at it objectively sports science makes a huge difference if we like to acknowledge it or not. I mean the Ali vs Marciano must be the most mundane discussion in sports history and obviously Ali would've won.

I also never think of adding a heavyweight to a P4P discussion because they're all bums. As Jaco and I have said before, if you've found the best welterweight of the era, you've usually found the best fighting man in the world.