Wlad Klitchko V (Pre Manny Steward) Lennox Lewis

-Lewis never demonstrated that he could solve Bruno's jab or right cross. His offense had been limited to the odd jab and was looking quite foolish as right hand after right hand couldn't find the mark. Bruno WAS outboxing Lewis and looking damn good at it.

-As for Bruno doing it the rest of the fight. He didn't. Typical Bruno as I said. If Bruno wasn't so damn Bruno..maybe just maybe. But if he didn't **** up when he did, he would have ****ed up down the road.

-My point was the vulnerability and frustratoin Lewis showed against a little movement, a high guard, a strong jab and a right cross he couldn't get out of the way of. Lewis' high power offense had been rendered quite impotent. He didn't cause Bruno to make a mistake he had to wait for Bruno to make a mistake. Waiting for this version of Wlad to make a mistake...not a game I'm going to play.

-In short, I think Wlad can repeat Bruno's sucess with the jab and 1-2. I'm not worried about Wlad's durabilty because Bruno wasn't taking any type of severe punishment to execute his gameplan on Lewis. And most importantly, I don't see Wlad foolishly giving Lewis his chin like Bruno did.

 

Not outbox as such, more an edge, Lennox landed plenty of big rights on him and it was reasonably close plus he started walking him down in the prior round. Anyway Lewis fought plenty of fighters with jabs on par with Bruno, see: Vitali, Golota, Akiwande, Tucker, Mercer, Rahman

You might argue that if if it's pre-Steward versions it would be different but then again this Wlad was easier to hit, easier to counter and gave up his height/range more

 

-He actually didn't.

-Almost every single right hand he threw badly missed or got deflected by Bruno's forearm and glove. In Round 5, Lewis might have got a right hand to the side of Bruno's head as he pulled back..a land but not a great one. Lewis' success in the fight came from the jab when he caught Bruno pressing to hard.

-Lewis developed a more effective jab under Steward.

 

I'll come back with my full score card shortly but after the first 2 and a half rounds I'm content Lewis would have beaten Wlad.

The first 2 rounds Bruno takes, he's fighting pretty short in this fight on the front foot, Lewis is playing the role of outfighter. Bruno is looking to walk Lewis down with body jabs and head jabs, throwing hooks when he gets in close. Lewis is dancing round the outside, flicking his jab out doing nothing of note.

Round 3 starts and Lewis comes out more aggressive. He lands a jab jab right, a jab right and then a left hook. These shots could bounce off Bruno's chin, they'd take Waldimir out. He then lands a big right.

No way in hell does Wlad survive that first 30 seconds of round 3. Lewis would have visibly hurt wlad at that point, then we can fast forward to the finish where we saw Wlad backed up against the ropes, taking the biggest punches in HW history.

I'm going to return to watching the fight again because it's good seeing Frank in action, but even if we could draw parallels (slow stocky body builder throwing jabs on the front foot compared to a tall lean sfatey first fighter throwing jabs at range) then the fight ends right there in round 3.

In Lewis's fights against SHW's he came out more aggressively but even in the predominantly jab styled fighter, there's still a clear window of opportunity right in the first 30 seconds of this clip here:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaUFxGhBXJo&NR=1&feature=endscreen[/ame]

 

I don't recall those bouncing off Bruno's chin. I'll revisit the footage when I'm able and comeback. If I'm wrong, I'll admit as much.

 

Within the first 30 seconds. Bruno takes them brilliantly and gets back to his jabbing but Wlad couldn't ship them shots imo.

 

It's worth noting that this is by a huge margin the best performance of Bruno's career.

Way better than the win over McCall, the near shut out over Bonecrusher (before the KO) or anything else he did.

 

Sorry, you know I'm going to say it but those didn't land.

The start.

-Two jabs hit glove as Bruno pulls back. But that right fell waaaaay short under Bruno's extended arm. Its not even close or made partial contact that you could argue it as a hit. Its off by a mile.

-Lewis tries a second 1-2. The right again, falls waaaaaay under Bruno's arm and misses completely. Come on, Luf.

-The left hook looks like it mostly caught Bruno's guard and maybe made some conntact with his shoulder as he ducked down. Difficult to tell from the angle but it certainly didn't bounce off his chin.

I hope screen caps won't be necessary and you go back and look at those a little better. Lewis isn't that fast man..you should be able to see how short those rights fell.

 

Wlad doesn't hold up to that first 30 seconds imo. The moment lewis throws bombs is the moment he wins.

 

This is what we've come to? Bruno's superior toughness now boils down to his ability to back paddle from two telegraphed right hands. That is your opinion but I would have more respect if you just agreed that Bruno didn't have to take as much punishment as you initially remembered to outbox Lewis for so long.

I think your selling Wlad short if he's now getting knocked out by the boxing equivallent of air balls.

 

It's an issue of mentality. Bruno didn't get flustered, he threw hooks back at lewis, he then began to get behind his jab again.

Wlad would be like bambi on ice and would try clinching, once his arms come out to grab, lewis will take his head off with uppercuts.

As I say, I don't think wlad can take the shots.

Maybe I am selling him short, he's comfortably in my top 15 in terms of greatness. H2h i'd favour him over most fighters. But against someone strong enough that his clinch won't neutralise them, he's in trouble.

Unfortunately for us, this fight never materialised (unless you count the fight on oceans 12 ) so we don't have much to go on. We have shw who don't fight behind a jab and a smaller compact bodybuilder who does.

Both of us are joining dots to reach a conclusion, just that mine make a different picture to yours :good

 

-Come on, Luf. Bruno just simply backed up when Lewis tried that little barrage. He didn't throw back until got out of the way and reset. Most of Lewis' offense got neutralized by stuffing the jab in his face or just getting a long arm out there. Wlad has proven well past the Peter I stage of sloppy bear hugging, he has shown perfectly capable of using his left glove and footwork to avoid wild punches in this manner.

-I saw Wlad in Round 12 take a flush perfectly timed and landed counter right cross from Haye that buckled his legs and badly rocked him. Make no mistake, he was hurt. However, he kept a cool held, grabbed when he had the opportunity, and surprisingly turned up the pressure on Haye to put him back on his heels before he could try anything else.

Now had that been Bruno, I think Haye would have scored a 12th round TKO. Bruno never demonstrated that ability to come back from being hurt. I don't care who he was against, once he got stunned..it was over. There was no coming back. Not just against Lewis, anybody.

 

I think wlad's clinch is one of the more underappreciated boxing tools in hw history. It virtually stops any guy smaller or weaker than him being able to mount an offence. Combine that with his great jab and only a couple of styles beat him.

Assuming it's a prime wlad, the purrity and brewster mistakes of undertraining can be dismissed imo. The chances of any hw fighting a southsaw counter punching style as wlad did are very very small.

Only ali has enough skills that i'd favour to beat him on points. The only other guys I see beating him are those who stylistically have an advantage. That namely comes down to strength or infighting.

Frazier, tyson could get inside and catch him early but I don't think their chances are any greater than wlad's of keeping them at range.

Louis and liston have the power and range to take him out with one shot once he throws a lazy jab.

Prime george walks through in.

And then there's lewis who is going to win the moment he opens up imo.

I'm unsure about larry v wlad atm.

 

This we can agree on, I've come to that very same conclusion.

I give Louis the strongest chance of KOing current Wlad. Great mind and a great finisher. But than again, I think Louis has the strongest chance of stopping just about anybody above 175. All he needs is to get one punch in there, and even if it takes him all night, he'll find that opening.

 

Bruno was having a fairly easy night against Lewis. He was beating him with his jab alone. Lewis was falling all over the place sloppy unbalanced and having a problem setting up his punches.

Bruno made a foolish mistake trying to stop Lewis when he hurt him but it was an emotional fight for Bruno and he wanted to beat Lewis badly.