Their defeats were a long time ago Ron. Name me any other great heavyweight who hasn't suffered losses other than Marciano
If you watch those fights smokey, they were getting knocked down by not what you would describe as a peach of a punch and not by particularly well known or classy fighters. Name me a decent fighter they have beaten; someone big enough and willing to mix it. Klits is not getting any quicker and is noticeably trying not to get hit. He knows he can't take a punch and he will be found out.
Its not their fault that they are around in a time of poor heavyweights but they have beaten all that have been put in front of them. Its easy to knock fighters who they have thought and say they are nobodies but at the time when they fought some of these boxers they weren't nobodies. David Haye, Shannon Briggs, Manuel Charr, Kevin Johnson, Alexander Povetkin were all very good at the time of fighting a Klitschko but were made to look poor and now are seen as nobodies. Vitali was beating Lewis until the cut robbed him of the fight. Lewis knew it too and never fought again. I'm not a massive fan of either Klitschko but they deserve respect for what they have achieved in the sport. Who would you consider greats in the heavyweight division?
My main problem with Boxing is the number of different bodies governing the sport, i.e. too many champions with different belts. WBA WBC IBF WBO and a thing called The Ring, that's just bloody ridiculous. Guess "The Ring" is the boxing magazine, forgot about that!
I'm not against the different governing bodies it means we can have more world champions and unification bouts. What I am against is the sheer amount of different titles each organisation has. We have regular champs, super champs, silver champs, intercontinental champs, interim champs, there's even a bloody belt for French speaking champion that some bloke won in Canada a few weeks ago! If each of the main organisations WBC, WBA, IBF, WBO had just one world champ then it would be much better
Lennox Lewis was looking very slow in that fight. Was he at the end of his career anyway? They both looked pretty slow and out on their feet; one good punch would have finished it but neither of them had it. I think I would have put Lewis above the others you mention (never heard of some of them). Haye was potentially the best of the lot you mention but he wasn't quite big enough and heavy enough in that division; very fast but didn't have the best of chins and was worried about getting hit. The best champions in my view were Ali and Louis.
The video was an eye opener alright. Parts of it Wladimir was literally running away from much smaller men. Very strange indeed, and didn't look like someone with the heart of a champion to me. However I'd agree that he's much more accomplished now. The Lewis fight was a very controversial one though, Vitali was well up on the cards but look at the guys face! Ripped apart, shows how good a jab Lewis possessed, really was piston like.
Lewis was coming to the end of his career and Vitali was up and coming. I think Lewis knew he was done as I think he expected to win the fight comfortably and Vitali caused him a bit too much trouble. Lewis was definitely above the others I mentioned but he himself was an overrated fighter in my opinion. Gets far too much credit for his wins over Tyson and Holyfield two fighters who would have anhilated him in their prime.
Tomorrow night we have the fight that is being billed as 'Rumble on the Humber' between Tommy Coyle and Olympic Champion Luke Campbell. They've done quite a good job stoking interest in this fight billing it as ex friends going into battle etc.. but in reality it could be a complete mis match. Campbell is by far the better fighter and is classes above Coyle. Granted he hasn't got the experience of Coyle in the pro ranks and although there's no doubting Coyle's heart his ability is way below what is going to be required tomorrow night. Coyle will give it everything and might give Campbell something to think about, it will be Campbell's toughest test to date but i think we'll see a class performance from Campbell with a stoppage victory around the 9th. Its also a final eliminator for the WBC lightweight title currently held be Jorge Linares (recent conqueror of Kevin Mitchell). On the under card are a couple of interesting fights. Blackpools Brian Rose faces a rematch against Carson Jones after suffering a somat of an upset in the first fight when Rose was stopped in the first, if this one gets going it could turn into an interesting fight. Also on the card is Dillian Whyte, unbeaten heavyweight prospect and future Anthony Joshua opponent, who gets his first real opportunity on a decent show to show what he can do. He holds a victory over Joshua from the amateur ranks, so expect a lot of build up to their proposed British and Commonwealth title clash at the end of the year. Intersting also is the fact that this will be Whytes' first fight under trainer Jonathan Banks, who also trains Wladmir Klitsckho. Over the other side of the pond, Sky Sports pundit and 'part time' boxer, former world champion Paulie Malinaggi steps back into the ring to fight the unbeaten light welterweight champion Danny Garcia, who is having his first fight at welterweight. Paulie is past his best but is still an excellent boxer, although is seriously lacking any power. Garcia, has power in both hands so it will be interesting if he can carry that up to welter. He'll be looking to put in a good performance as he's become somewhat of the forgotten man of boxing despite being an unbeaten world champion with over 50% knockout rate. He holds victories over Amir Khan, Lucas Matthysse (probably his best boxing performance), Erik Morales (twice but way past his best), Zab Judah (also past his best) and Lamont Peterson so should really be up there getting talked about for the big fights along with the Pacqiouas' and Mayweathers' of the world.
The Dillian Whyte fight will be interesting. I watched a video of the fight against Joshua. Although he won, he didn't look very impressive to me. It will be interesting to see how he has come on. I suspect not as much as Joshua but we'll see.
Just watched the Lewis Tyson fight. Lewis very cagey first 3 rounds. Round 4 Tyson knew he couldn't win and from then on it was a masterclass. Interesting stats on punches thrown/landed. Tyson took a bad beating that night.
Wasn't the real Mike Tyson in the ring though. In his prime Lewis wouldn't have lasted 6 rounds with him
Tyson was too easy to hit and too easy to make miss, even in his prime. Any one that mixed it got slaughtered but someone like Lewis who could continually jab, get out of the way and counter punch would always have been too good for Tyson. Too classy. All you had to do was wait until Tyson fully committed with one of his lunging right swings, step back/sideways and hit him coming in. Easy pickings for a class fighter. Even I could have managed that.
When Tyson was at his best Ron, there was next to escape. Nobody can run forever, not even the wonderful Ali. Even he had to work himself out of trouble from time to time against some fantastic fighters. I'm an Ali fan, for me he was the greatest of all, and I think at his best, he'd have taken Tyson. But I was truly shocked at the ferocity of Tyson at his peak. As I said, I'm an Ali fan, but I firmly believe that outside the champ, no other heavyweight in the last 50 years could have lived with mad Mike in his prime.
Going back to an earlier question I accept he was not the best heavyweight ever however my favourite was Joe Frazier. Tyson beat a lot of 'great' fighters who were past their best. The best fight I recall was against James Tillis.
Iron Mike was something else, but was probably his own worst enemy. Some quotes below from Boxing.com “Iron” Mike Tyson denoted the significance of mental strength at the sharp end of boxing. Had he the will to match his astonishing physical capabilities, it’s possible that Tyson would have been the greatest heavyweight of all time. As it stood, a lack of discipline, commitment, grit, prevented him fulfilling his astonishing potential." It was James “Quick” Tillis of all people that showed Tyson what boxing was. “I was out of shape because of [an] illness and also because of drinking and partying too hard,” he said of that fight. “He gave me such a body beating I couldn’t even walk…I found out what fighting was really about that night.” But Tyson didn’t learn lessons; four years later, at the time of his expected outclassing of James “Buster” Douglas, Tyson was training on a steady diet of hotel-maids and “unconventional Japanese women” while supposedly eating only soup in a drastic attempt to lose the thirty pounds he had gained since the Carl Williams slaughter. He was unfocused, slovenly, complacent. Boxing punished him. His complacency took hold by way of dominance. He smashed out nineteen over matched journeymen before Tillis extended him the distance, and more seasoned men followed in similarly one-sided fashion. But it was his mid-late eighties prime that really established him as special, as a series of world-class fighters were dispatched with a steaming barrel of vicious torque unseen since Dempsey, but in this instance, the bull-rushing destroyer weighed 215 lbs. and hit accordingly. A creaking Larry Holmes fell in four, Pinklon Thomas in six, Trevor Berbick in just two; most terrifying of all was his first round knockout of legitimate lineal Champion Michael Spinks.
