Is it safe to say Wladimir got the worst chin of the top 10 heavyweights?

Janitor,

Dont forgeet that he wasnt just a 45 year old man. He was a 45 year old obese old man (not taking away from his herculean effort to get into shape) who was probably the slowest heavyweight champ (like Wlad has the weakest chin) of all the heavyweight champs. IN fact maybe of all the heavyweight contenders, yet the 90s heavys not only couldnt stop him, but all who were succesfful had to change their fight plan to sticking and moving which was the only way they could compete. Imagine what guys like Conn, Tunney, Corbett, Loughran, charles, Prime ali,Ellis, YOung even Braddock and plenty of the unknown fighters from those eras would have been able to do using a stick and move method like say Morrison and others tried to do.

 

Old foreman is being under rated here.

If he was anything it was methodical and powerful. Everyone knew what he was doing but it fukim hurt when he did it.

Morrison showed you can beat him with above average footwork but if you're gonna swap leather with him you're gonna have to say good night.

Even against Briggs he was able to establish his jab and use his experience to dictate the pace at times. It was a very close fight. A close fight against a man who 10 years later would be amongst every top 3 list out there.

Foreman was always something special and we shouldn't ever conclude something other than that.

 

Ask guys who were the young Turks during "Old Foreman's" run how old, docile and simple he was. I have asked a few of them and they all shook their heads.

Say what you will regarding his career, George was a freak of nature. There hasn't been another.

 

I dont think anyone would have an easy night with a George foreman aged between 20-50.

A guy hitting that hard with that much confidence will always give anyone pause for thought.

 

It's not fair to question Sanders' power like that. he fought three top guys: Wlad, Vitali, and Rahman. He almost knocked out Rahman, hurt Vitali worse than I've seen anyone do, and stopped Wlad early. Asking him for more knockouts over top fighters would be asking him to have fought more top fighters. Based on what we have, he clearly had world class power and the ability to land it.

 

Pretty much.

This power debate is dick measuring. He hit hard enough to knock people down and out, and to hurt the durable. Thats all we need to know.

Btw, one of those old guys that Wlad owned just kicked one of the young Turks ass. If ex-Wlad opponents keep trouncing his would be successor, his resume looks still better, yes?

 

Yup. People need to see the quality difference between Wlad and the Wannabe's. That said, I never really trusted Price's chin. I think the super tall heavyweight will still be an exception rather than the new prototype.

On another note, Sanders stopped a dangerous Cooper in 3. Was the first to KD and KO Al "Ice" Cole (in 1 round), and absolutely demolished a Bobby Czyz who had previously given Holyfield a few problems until his back went out. An incomplete fighter? Absolutely. A legit powerbroker? Yes.

 

I think Thompson icing price absolutely makes wlads victory seem better. Thompson is in my view currently a world class boxer who has only been bettered by wlad.

He should occupy a top ten spot anyways.

Him vs Fury would be an interesting fight and I think Thompson should go into it a favourite.

As a side note, I might be completely talking out of my arse here but massive tall boxers dont seem to recover from knockdowns too well, even glancing ones. Maybe the bigger they are the harder they fall is a bit of a truism here.

 

Taller boxers generally have less balance because of their longer legs.
Generally longer necks to turn them into bobbleheads.
Less stamina because their heart has to pump their blood higher
Being long means relatively much more bonemass compared to muscle mass.
They have to overcome more gravity than shorter men when they rise from the canvas again.

Sure their are examples of long men with good balance, iron chin and endless stamina but these men are much rarer than a shorter boxer with good balance, iron chin and endless stamina.

A short stocky built is better than being Julius Long, height and reach is only an advantage when you fight tall.

David Tua had a pretty perfect built for boxing (Except his footspeed though)
He would always be able to outmuscle any man in a similar weight range that was taller than he was.

His shortcomings were not being able to cut off effectively, slow footspeed, poor motivation. And those have nothing to do with his lack of height.

Maybe Mike Tyson would have been a better example...

 

Foreman is something of a freak, and also a man who became more durable and more composed as he became older. It's not unknown for heavyweights to become more durable as they become older. Shannon Briggs is another who displayed markedly increased resilience in his elder years but was getting dropped by relatively willowy heavyweights like Darroll Wilson in his twenties. A general increase in mass and neck thickness have a lot to do with it, I suspect, but also perhaps something of a to hell with it mentality for fighters nearing the time to be put out to pasture. Who knows. It doesn't necessarily follow that an older fighter is going to be less durable than his younger iteration, especially if he's had a long layoff.

Find me a trend of fighters from past eras doing this and your position becomes a lot stronger.

Badly rocking Vitali with one punch, stopping teak tough journeymen Bert Cooper and Michael Sprott, dropping a prime Rahman and nearly taking him out. Poo poo all those examples if you want. I'm not here to argue that Sanders had an awesome resume, I'm simply saying that he could punch and proved it on the few occasions he was given centre stage (basically both Klit fights and the Rahman fight).

If you don't trust the evidence of your own eyes then trust Bert Sugar. He clearly mentions that Conn buckles Louis's knees in the fourth and staggers him in the twelfth. Heavyweights should not be getting hurt multiple times by middleweights unless there's a huge skill disparity between the two (there wasn't) or their chin is pretty bad.

You and I continually appear to be arguing about different things. I'm not interested in quality of wins or career highlights but purely about power and one's ability to take it without hurt. That is what is being debated, isn't it?

Simon was clearly a harder puncher than Conn so getting stopped by him doesn't impact as badly on Louis's punch resistance as it does on his overall quality as a fighter. Conn was the greater talent, hence better win from a career perspective.

At heavyweight, absolutely. The fact that they knocked Louis down but not out speaks of a number of things: Louis's often porous defence, his sometimes poor balance, his excellent recovery skills, and his rather iffy chin. Much like Wlad's losses to Puritty and Brewster hint at more than just a poor chin. Difference is, every fighter that stopped Wlad were either teak tough (purity), or very big punchers (Brewster and Sanders). The same can't be said for Louis.