Boxing

[labourRed]

Big stoppage but I saw better fights when I drunk in parks as a teenager and a few lads had too much cider.

[Doc_Piptorious]

Big stoppage but I saw better fights when I drunk in parks as a teenager and a few lads had too much cider.

In terms of technique it was bloody awful. Is about the standard for what passes contender level heavies these days

[Zapater]

Povetkin looked even rounder than usual. Think he's been pretty underrated over the years but surely done after that.

[Zapater]

In terms of technique it was bloody awful. Is about the standard for what passes contender level heavies these days

Don't we say this after every heavyweight bout? Nothing new tbh. The last 10 years have been a whole new awful.

[Doc_Piptorious]

Don't we say this after every heavyweight bout? Nothing new tbh. The last 10 years have been a whole new awful.

Yeah we do say it after every supposed "top" bout, don't we?

Think for me it is sort of a knee jerk reaction to the commentators and "expert" pundits trying to big up every bout and the calling of the modern day top ten heavies as being as good as any era.


Think for me a lot comes back to how poor a lot of my favourite weight divisions have become. I always loved the heavyweight, light heavy, midddleweight and welterweight divisions and the first three of those divisons nowadays are littered with pretty average fare that gets called top class.

If you go through the current ratings for almost any division now you find yourself asking "is he STILL around?" or "How the hell is he in the top ten, he is a top 50 fighter at best"

https://box.live/boxing-rankings/

[Doc_Piptorious]

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOKI7hknAJ4"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOKI7hknAJ4[/ame]



Dickhead went into Elite and started talking **** to the owners and coaches. Dorian obliged him by being gentle in the ring.

Methinks he was lucky that Dorian was the coach that went into the ring with him as Adrianna is a machine and she would have killed him.

[Zapater]

Not a bad outing from Derek there, thought he did enough to get the nod with the knockdown. Always thought he'd be horrible for Parker stylistically and it would be an easy fight for Chisora. Parker did better than I anticipated. Whilst still pretty decent, can't help but think 3 or 4 years ago, Chisora would have had enough stamina in the tank to see it out convincingly rather than stepping off the pedal in the last 3 rounds.

[Doc_Piptorious]

Watched a replay of it this morning.

Pretty daming indictment of the lack of quality that now makes up the supposed second tier of heavyweights.

[Zapater]

Watched a replay of it this morning.

Pretty daming indictment of the lack of quality that now makes up the supposed second tier of heavyweights.

Who are the top tier?

[Doc_Piptorious]

Who are the top tier?

Nowadays the that "top" tier would be the likes of Fury, Joshua, and Wilder.

As I said the current tiers just highlight the utter lack of quality in the heavyweight division.


The current "Top" guys would have been the sort that filled out the lower reaches of a top 10 or top 20 list years ago. Wilder would have been a Michael Grant type - hyped to the moon until he ran into a class heavyweight and then sinking back into the mire.

Joshua would have been a Frank Bruno or Bruce Seldon type. Again lots of hype for a big strong looking guy who comes unstuck against genuine quality.

Fury would just have been another Joe Bugner or Gerry Cooney. The big white hope who made their name beating long past it mid sized names of yesteryear.

These guys come with a lot of hype nowadays about their perceived talent and abilities, but all they are are a trio that stand out in what has to be poorest heavyweight division in living memory. It is actually stunning how poor the division is from top to bottom.


The other guys in the current top ten, the Chisoras, the Parkers, the Whytes, the Joyces and so on would just have been journeymen padding people's records rather than the Pay Per View "stars" they get billed as nowadays.

[fidget]

100% concur

[Zapater]

They're all journeymen and circus acts to me. Never really enjoyed heavyweights, almost always inferior fighters to their smaller counterparts. The division has been a joke for many a year and the current crop are horrendous. No idea how promotors and broadcasters have hoodwinked the public that there 'red hot'.

Wilder moves like a spastic ostrich. It's like he's based his movement on the monsters from Silent Hill 2. The less said about the other two, the better.

Who'd have thought that Wlad and Vitali were probably the last really good heavyweights for some time. Unfortunately they were rarely challenged and had to dispatch cannon fodder for the majority of the time.

[Doc_Piptorious]

They're all journeymen and circus acts to me. Never really enjoyed heavyweights, almost always inferior fighters to their smaller counterparts. The division has been a joke for many a year and the current crop are horrendous. No idea how promotors and broadcasters have hoodwinked the public that there 'red hot'.

Wilder moves like a spastic ostrich. It's like he's based his movement on the monsters from Silent Hill 2. The less said about the other two, the better.

Who'd have thought that Wlad and Vitali were probably the last really good heavyweights for some time. Unfortunately they were rarely challenged and had to dispatch cannon fodder for the majority of the time.

For me the brothers were last heavyweights who potentially may have been good enough to slot into a number of eras and still be top dogs or close to that level.

I grew up loving the heavyweight and middleweight divisions and saw them as being "THE" divisions.


Love that description of Wilder's movement. Having the grace of an epileptic in a strobe factory is usually how I describe him, but like your description more so am going to rob that


Agree on the promoters/broadcasters too. It is simply amazing how they get the public to purchase such awful PPVs time after time. It is just chock full of journeymen, washed up fighters or never rans, yet time after time it is pushed like you are about to see Hagler vs Hearns.

Course does not help when you have guys like Sugar Ray Eubank Jr talking about himself like he really should have Sugar Ray in front of his name, and not being laughed out of it whenever he speaks.

Think where I am with pro boxing now is similar to what I see a lot of guys posting about football. The heart has really gone out of the sport at mainstream level and whatever integrity was there once upon a time is not even a faded memory now.

[Zapater]

I get it, whilst my opinion would be extremely unpopular among boxing historians and fans - I find it difficult to put any heavyweight into the discussion when compiling P4P lists. I'd like to think I'm a student of the game and whilst only being alive for contemporary boxing, I've watched a lot of footage of the classics. Perhaps I'm biased, but when I look at the quality of really good, but not the best ever in their weight and compare them to heavyweights who are lauded over, you can't really compare them.

Off the top of my head, Rocky Marciano to me looks ****. Apparently this was often the opinion of him among fighters/trainers at the time too... until they got into the ring with him. I know he beat slick boxers like Jersey Joe Walcott and bigger men an he is to be rated by his heart, workrate and punching power. The guy just looks so average, he's like Wilder's small Italian brother. Meanwhile compare him to Rocky Graziano or Tony Zale who were relentless with much more about them at lower weights are not really spoken about. If Marciano was a middleweight, I don't think anyone would know who he was. I know it's romantic and automatic to assume heavies are the best, but I find the history of the division pretty dull. It's no surprise to me that some of the best remembered heavyweights through the ages are either small or move like smaller men. Slow, cumbersome ogres with low punch output shows for some boring viewing.

The PPV is currently ridiculous. How the likes of Parker and Chisora are on PPV and people are buying speaks more for the intelligence of humankind at this moment in time. You can't even blame sharks like Eddie Hearn for profiteering when people are so stupid and make it so easy. He's been putting on stinkers year after year, packing cards with **** fights; claiming he's selling 'value'. My mind springs to the Cleverly - Bellew 'fight' and that he even almost to arrange a rematch... *shudders*

I don't think it's just boxing, I'm disillusioned with sport in general. I've dedicated my whole life to participating in, watching, studying and coaching different sports. The last few years I find myself thinking 'what's the point' more. I'm not sure if boxing has ever had integrity as such. Those fabled nights of professionals knocking out 5 or so journeymen/tomato cans in a single night have disappeared. Don't know how different that is to the Youtube 'fighters' now. The sport has always had an element of a freakshow about it, I think we just don't like to embrace it today where promoters were shameless enough to profiteer from them in the past. Chuck Wepener allegedly did an exhibition against a bear FFS.

Even though boxing is backward and the good fights are too difficult to put together. Are Crawford and Spence going to fight this decade or next? I do like that to some degree, it's about how good you are, not what country you're from. Moruti Mthalane who lost his title a few days ago for example. In other sports, namely rugby and cricket the haves exploit the have nots to generate turmoil for their benefit. What has happened to West Indies cricket for example. Regardless of the state of sports though, trying to enjoy it when they haven't tinkered with it beyond recognition is still possible, although football makes it extremely difficult with a million penalties each match and ****s in offices millions of miles away using rulers and protractors to draw lines on monitors. Responsibility of judges in boxing is exactly the same, there haven't been as many shockers recently, but the fact Canelo is billed as only losing to Mayweather and phenom is really baffling when everyone knows he's lost at least 3 or 4 times. And let's be real - Marquez beat Manny at least 3 times too while we're at it.

[Doc_Piptorious]

Really enjoyed reading that post Zap


I think anyone who compiles an all time P4P list and has even one heavyweight in their top ten was viewing that boxer through rose tinted glasses.

There have been some great heavyweights over the years. Some were powerhouses that excited with their stopping power, some were great brawlers, some were pretty damn good boxers, but P4P I would not have one in my top ten, and most likely not have one in my top 30.


Hearn is just a grifter. Nothing more and he has mugs lining up to buy his promotions and buying into his crap about how all his fighters are top class.

David Haye is a pound shop version of Hearn.

But mugs will keep buying the PPVs, mugs will keep swallowing guff about how the current British heavies are "world class", will keep swallowing guff that the likes of Eubank jr are top level operators.




I do think boxing had integrity or at least more people with integrity involved in the sport than there is nowadays. There were men and women in the sport that saw the sport over the dollar sign, people who saw the fact you could be the undisputed best as meaning more than a few extra zeros on a cheque. Yes they would still want to be paid but it was not the driving force, and they way they fought or coached reflected that as well.

I do not need to make a list of the sort of names I am thinking of because I have no doubt that you would already know the sort of people I am referring to.

But I think with the passing or retirement of each of those people, the sport is a bit poorer because the new generations of super coaches or super promoters are far far more driven by the almighty dollar and the more purist aspects of the sport drft a bit further and further away (and probably shine a bit brighter in memory than they did when there were here).


Nowadays I get more enjoyment from watching trainers at work in a local ABC than I do from watching Pro Boxing. I will watch some fights now and then, but generally I come away from watching a fight feeling crictical of what I just watched and critical of the sport in general.


Liked your take on Marciano too, probably because I feel the same way, and your mention of Tony Zale tickled me too as I love that era of middleweights.

For me the best p4p fighters will nearly always be middleweights as they are, for me, the perfect blend of power, speed, agility and technique.

I grew up loving Heavyeights and Middleweights. I was attracted to the spectacle and power of the Heavies, but Middleweight was always where the royalty lived in my eyes.