I have a question, who is Alex Leapai?

This is a ridiculous fight in my eyes.

Yes, it's a Mandatory, but that's been the excuse for the past few years now.

If you know you're going to be fighting bums for mandatories, then fight some live contenders with your voluntary defences.

You can't have it both ways - Not if you want to leave a legacy worth the paper it's written on.

 

That has nothing to do with my original point.

 

Number 1 position possibly. Certainly not the mando position. Wlad would hardly have to fight two WBA mandos in the space of a few months.

 

Good post. :good

 

That's right it wasn't originally an eliminator. It was supposed to be a tune-up fight for Boytsov before WBO declared him the mandatory challenger. The things went wrong and Leapai beat the #1 WBO contender, therefore he took #1 spot, but I have no idea why did they give him the mandatory position right away without fighting any final eliminators.

Of course Haye vs Fury was a high profile fight and a big money fight, that's why he refused to fight Pulev. Fury chose money instead of the chance to get the mandatory spot, but at the end it turned out that he made the wrong decision.

 

The WBO and all the other orgs have ****ed boxing up with their ridiculous rankings and belts. Historically if a contender is upset by an underdog the challenger moves into the rankings, the number one seed loses his spot and the number two moves into the top spot. In no way, shape or form does Leapai deserve to be number one with no other top 20 wins. The guy is straight up shitn at the elite level, if you can even call it that.

 

Not a fan of Leapai then mate?

 

Well, he's a smallish slugger who can punch and take a punch, but is flat footed and crude defensively. I like Alex and I'm happy he's getting the payday but Wlad is probably the worst possible opponent for him :-(. Just watch his fight with Kingpin and you'll see what I'm talking about.

 

He's certainly capable of making it interesting if he makes contact but he's going to have to pay a steep price to do so. Wlad's just going to jab-jab-jab-side step-pivot-right hand-rinse and repeat...

 

I don't have anything against him I just don't think he's worthy of a shot at boxing's biggest prize. I don't blame him though, who wouldn't take a shot given the opportunity. I blame the orgs first for their ridiculous rankings and then Wlad for even accepting such a fight.

 

everybody knows that, its not exactly a secret is it?

 

Wladimir retiring will be making the heavyweight division much worse whenever that happens but Alex beating Wladimir in their fight would destroy it much sooner, nothing good will come from that.

 

It's not been Wlad's excuse in the past few years because in the past few years his beat opposition has been his mandatories, Povetkin and Thompson were the best he's faced in recent years.

Fact is when Wlad has had a chance to make a voluntary defence he's scraped the bottom of the barrel and given us Mormeck, Wach and Pianeta.

This maybe due to wanting an easy opponent or due to him being unwilling to pay a decent purse to a top contender so is forced to fight much weaker opposition. Whatever the reason it doesn't reflect well on his legacy.

 

No, it's certainly not a secret. I was simply responding to your tongue in cheek(hopefully) post. In all honesty, I would compare this matchup to Wlad's first fight with Peter , except that Sam punched harder, took a punch better, had a MUCH better jab and noticeably better feet. Just sayin'...

 

That tko was based on less punishment than Walker had been dishing out on Leapai. Dodgy in my opinion.