I agree that old Wladimir's good "fighting age" is being rather overstated. He's amazing for his age but that was true 3 or 4 years ago too. He's less good now. I think a lot of people expected him to be shot or for other reasons expected AJ to steamroll him (due to an unrealistic overrating of the inexperienced Joshua) so were amazed at what transpired. I figured Wlad would look as good as he did and win the fight by KO, probably 6 or 7 rounds, so for me the amazing thing was seeing Joshua do what he did.
It's a tricky one isn't it. Did Wlad look good because he was good, or did he look good because Joshua wasn't. This is the sort of decision that gets made ultimately over years of thinking and discussing. For example Calzaghe got no credit at the time for edging a close fight with Hopkins, yet Kovalev got lots of credit for dominating an even older Hopkins. Which means retrospectively speaking Calz should have got credit. If Joshua wins the rematch ko2, will Wlad's last 3 losses be considered as due to him being shot? I mean I already think I saw enough to say confidently prime Wlad beats Joshua, so how much does that detract from the win? What I do know, more than anything, is Wlad showed some stuff that he had never showed before. He recovered well from a knockdown, he exchanged huge punches, he fought inside, he showed footwork as opposed to clinching. He looked brilliant. Did Louis look brilliant against Rocky? No but Moore and Walcott did and he gets credit for those. These things are very much case by case imo.
Nikolay Valuev vs. David Haye (100 lbs difference) Jameel McCline vs. Chris Byrd (56 lbs difference) Jess Willard vs. Jack Dempsey (56 lbs difference) Buster Mathis vs. Joe Frazier (44 lbs difference) Frank Bruno vs. Mike Tyson (32 lbs difference) All of these are examples of fights where the size difference exceeds 30 lbs and the smaller fighter won. In three of those examples the 'swarmer' despite the disadvantage in weight, height and reach won by knockout. Rocky Marciano's career wasn't a fluke by any means, he's a proven puncher has incredible stamina and is surprisingly difficult to hit. There used to be a joke that if you missed Marciano with your jab, he'd stick out his face and apologize. This content is protected Anthony Joshua is a compelling fighter and he's a great heavyweight in the making and his win over Wlad was superb victory over an underrated former champion who came to win. One thing we know about Joshua is that he is susceptible to flash knockdowns from punishing right hands. Though AJ does have strong punching power, decent hand speed, athleticism and imposing size I'm not ready to give him carte blanche over a fighter who has shown the consistency that Marciano has shown in his illustrious career. I think it's a pick em.
Who has suggested Marciano's career was a fluke? The difference between Bruno and Tyson in their 2 fights was 10lbs and 27lbs . The difference between Frazier and Mathis was 37lbs.
Wlad looked good because he's good. He was not as good as he once was but he was still good. People got a bit confused because Tyson Fury made him look bad in 2015, and Bryant Jennings fought a surprisingly cagey (mostly 'survival') fight against him earlier that year. They exposed his decline but did so with skills and gameplans that AJ would or could never do. And combined with the unfair overrating/expectations for a still-learning Joshua, some people were actually surprised that Wladimir Klitschko was still very good on Saturday night. I'm one of the other camp who was surprised more by Joshua's performance. He's better than I thought.
"Crude" "Slow" "Unskilled" The Bert Sugar effect is too real. Can someone show me some clips of Rocky being those three things? Shouldn't be hard to find at all, considering that's what he is.
Stop projecting skippy. Brook got moved from punches, and had to repair his eye bone. It's not like we don't have the footage of him grasping for the ropes Max Schmeling style. This isn't 1930 where people don't have real time access to fight films.
The funny thing is most people don't realize that someone like Rocky is fully capable of fighting a faster arm punch style. But Arm punchers wouldn't have a clue to how fight like Rocky, leveraging the shoulder snap in every punch, using strength to fight for positioning, and incredibly rare long range haymakers.
Bert once said rocky was a minus 12 on the skill level that utter BS teddy atlas shut him up by explaining clever thing rocky I will try to find a video of it you cant go undefeated in 49 fights and not be skilled
The guys is 8 inches taller than Rocky. He can easily reach his head with those long range haymakers. When you think of the scenario in your head, you imagine Rocky half the height of Joshua, don't you? But that would make him 3'3.