Most skilled SHW (6'5'' and taller)

Bobby Crabtree would KO each one of them. You don't "play" boxing.

 

In real life, yeah. But if they'd been trained as fighters when they were young...

 

Lol at the people who need to be explained that speed and power don't equate to skills

 

Good calls. Two fast, coordinated, strong 6'8+/250+ athletes. The NBA and NFL are full of guys who might have been extraordinary boxers. Imagine how boxing would look with an influx of tall world class athletes in the upper weight classes?

 

Patrick Willis would have been a dominant boxer

 

I'd probably go with Aldon Smith but yeah, so many great big men.

 

Kendall Gill did become a pro boxer.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Manute Bol also beat The Fridge.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

You can't train getting punched in the face and returning.

Humble brag: I was one of those workout warriors who did boxing. I could jump higher, run faster and bench more than anyone my weight. And I could fight pretty damn well on the stret..

Y'know what I couldn't do? Box better than golden gloves level. I just didn't have the response that some guys do to getting hit in the face. I wasn't all in when sh;t came down, you had to play within the rules and this event might go 9 minutes.

Boxing isn't a game. It's a simulation of life and death pursuit and kill at some point.. It is not about being an athlete. It is about being a tooth and nail fighter with patience, stoicism... and not a lot better to do.

There's a reason Larry Johnson went to bball, or on a much lower level I deferred to running sprints... it's a f*ck of a lot easier than getting hit in the face.

 

Of course being an athlete is no assurance that a person will become a great boxer, especially if they pick up boxing too late in life. But all things equal, having great reflexes, agility, coordination, and length certainly helps a whole lot.

Boxing has a serious pipeline problem in the US. It's mainly only happenstance when guys who would potentially make great upper-weight boxers actually take up boxing, given the greater glamor, popularity, and riches of other sports. Pure speculation but I'm absolutely convinced that if thousands of the most physically talented football and basketball players in the country picked up boxing as kids instead of their respective sports, there would be a sea change in the pro ranks from middleweight through heavy. Even if the vast majority of these young men weren't tough enough to exploit their physical advantages, plenty would be.

 

That is an extremely concise summary of Wlad's strengths and limitations.

 

He sure as **** won too.

The first fight featured a horrendously out of shape Bowe, he was so bad Eddie Futch said he wasn't treaining him anymore, he'd had enough of his lack of desire to train. He was getting outboxed early as well with Golota landing plenty of jabs.

Golota was nothing to sneeze at around this time, that's for sure. Bowe quit after these two fights, he was a head case and who knows how into boxing he was at this stage. He apparently trained hard for the rematch but was in no way overly impressive at all. He's lucky he wasn't in with a Lewis.

 

A perceptive and honest post,even pro boxers have to get
re-accustomed to being punched again if they come back from retirement.
Upon being hurt/hit its natural for a civilian to turn away from the cause of the pain ,that is the opposite of what's required in the ring. You can still see it occasionly even among pros.

I was watching some bare knuckle fights yesterday, several of the participants turned their backs on the action after couple of big shots landed.As you know S, boxing is as much a mental as a physical discipline.

 

Golota also had some pretty decent tools in his box, but not the mental strength to cope with adversity when the sh*t began to fly .

 

Wilder has good hand speed and mobility to add to his obvious power,my niggle with him is he seems to nearly always throw long punches.That's fine as long as you are keeping your opponent at range and he isn't prepared to pay the price to get inside and unload, but sooner or later you will meet a shorter guy with a Frazier type mindset ,who not only realizes he needs to get close to be effective, he is prepared to take shots to do so.