David Tua. An entertaining,hard punching contender for sure but aside from a booming left hook and sturdy chin he was nothing to write home about.He was one dimensional,very slow to adapt and easy to outbox. Yet some rate him as this H2H monster who would destroy virtually any past great prior to Ali when in actual fact he wasn't good enough to win an alphabet strap in an era when fighters like Valuev,Ruiz and Byrd did.
This fight has a lot to do with the overrating of Tua. It was a good win for Tua and a great demonstration of his power but the fact is Ruiz came back from this to have a better career than Tua did and deserves to be ranked as the better heavyweight fighter,despite his godawful style. The trouble with Tua was everyone remembers the Ruiz and Moorer blowouts yet forget about him twice getting outboxed by Rahman (despite the bull**** stoppage and gift draw) and the Lewis and Byrd schoolings and rates him ridiculously high all time and H2H because of it.
Ruiz doing "better" than Tua is due as much to Don King as anything else. Tua gets over rated by some people but he was a monster if you couldn't stick and move.
My point is only that making a point of him "not even being able to get a hold of a title" in such an era... is a bit silly, imo, when he beat a couple future and a couple former champions...devastatingly so. I certainly don't consider him a lesser fighter than Ruiz, Maskaev, Peter, Leon Spinks, etc...Do you? ...I don't, anyway. I'm not saying he was anybody's great fighter, but, put him in with a Shavers, Lyle, Mauriello, Galento, Chuvalo, Harris, Zanon, Cobb, LeDoux, I think he comes out on top an awful lot against other name challengers. Is that overrating? I think he also has good shots against the likes of titlists like Ellis and Bonecrusher, Seldon, Weaver, Coetzee, etc, and when they held the titles. ...If you think that's overrating him, I disagree. :conf But, I don't rank him as a great of any kind (well, a great puncher), or really think about him much when frankenfrank's not around, if it makes you feel better. ...And I think Bodhi might be able to take him. If he disses Schmeling or something in the pre-fight press conference.
Ali , his speed and his resume Louis , his power and technique Roid Jones Jr. and his speed Floyd Mayweather Jr. Jack Johnson Archie Moore : he was very good , but far from all time top 20 P4P , he is a borderline top 10 @ 175 . Harry Greb Jack Dempsey Bob Fitzsimmons Sonny Liston and his power Cleveland Williams Larry Holmes Ezzard Charles (I always thought he was very good and better than Moore , higher than him both p4p &@175 , but the recent thread of Charles vs. Toney and Hopkins proved to me that he is indeed vastly overrated by others) Gene Tunney most of the known pre 1980s fighters really