Tua vs these HW's at the time they were beltholders? Tate Weaver Dokes Coetzee Page Tubbs Witherspoon Smith Thomas Berbick Tucker
Page, Tate, and Tubbs would've outboxed him, and Witherspoon outfights him for that UD. Dokes edges him, and I could see Tua beating Berbick, possibly Weaver and Smith. Tucker, Thomas, and Coetzee decision Tua.
Tua would be outboxed and beaten by most of them. He was terrible against anyone who ddint stand in front of him. The slow sloth Hasim Rahman was smart enough to step around him and use a jab. Jeff Wooden (who) about beat him. Tua was just only good when he was in shape and could wear guys down but these 80 guys were used to boxing and moving over the course.
Tua came around at the perfect time in the 90's but he couldnt stay in shape long enough to win a belt.
He would knock most of those guys into oblivion at his best, that said there was a huge difference between his best and worst.
spoon would beat tua thomas would beat tua on a very good nite dokes that lost to holyfield at 225 lbs would out hustle david tua and win via dec...tua over rated big puncher ...but guys with great jabs would out box him all night
Tucker is the only one who definitely would win because he was bulletproof and could jab. Others, like Thomas and Witherspoon would definitely be favorites. But a bunch of circumstantial stuff like training camps and Tua landing the right punch or not would make the outcomes variable Smith would have the worst chance.
I'd favor Tubbs, Thomas and Tucker against him prime for prime. Witherspoon, Dokes and Tate I'd say are about 50/50 and I'd favor Tua to beat Berbick, Page, Smith, Coetzee. Interestingly enough I wouldn't count out either side in any of the match ups.
Tua beats most if not all of them. The 80's save Larry Holmes is the worst era of heavyweight boxing.
I could imagine Tua beating all of them by KO to be honest. Dokes had good overall skills but he was far from a defensive wizard and he could be hurt. Page and Tubbs had good skills but they could be outworked and overwhelmed. Witherspoon was a good fighter but he could be hit. Tucker had height and reach and used those advantages well, he could also take a decent shot. He was just trying to survive against Tyson and Lewis (Lewis did drop him twice), and he did, but he clearly lost both fights. Had he tried to mount an offense vs. these men I think he would have been stopped. If he tried to open up vs. Tua, what would happen?
Tua's issue was weight. He was slow to begin with but once he started packing on the pounds around 1998-99 he became extremely easy to outbox. He couldn't avoid a jab, had no foot speed to close distance and stopped throwing combinations. This Tua was being outboxed by Rahman until after a late punch after the bell tilted the fight, was outboxed by Lewis in a snooze fest and by blow up light heavy Byrd. This Tua probably loses to half of these fighters. The early Tua that destroyed Izon, Maskaev, Ruiz and fought a great close fight with Ike, would win many of these fights but would struggle with Tucker, Thomas and Tubbs (if motivated). IMO
Theres no way on gods green earth that Tua would KO Tony Tucker. Same Tucker who fought a prime Tyson and Lewis and went the distance with both of them. Lose or get stopped by Tua? Hell no. Id be surprised if Tua won any portion of a fight with Tucker.