If the photos are in B/W, Povetkin is most definitely KO'ing them badly. Line up your vintage Murican heroes and their crude highlight reels with zero defence. They all get destroyed. To put this into perspective, Wlad was a 6'5 monster puncher who didn't want to go toe-to-toe with Povetkin and hugged his way to a win. These old fighters will all exchange and get bombed out.
This, it's the classic old debate regarding modern sports science and modern culture vs the old mentality as a result of more social injustices, so to speak. The Internet has played a big part in giving people far more access to varied information.
And it's well documented Liston had many ties to the mafia, did Liston take a dive in his second fight with Muhammed Ali?
Yeah but taking an apparent dive vs Ali didn't help Liston did it ? But taking performance enhancing drugs certainly helped Povtekin and he was caught multiple times for it.
Fair point the argument I was making is that boxing is a very shady sport and as fans we will never know the true details of what goes on behind the scences we can only speculate.
The closer we have to that is Povetkin/Whyte 1 and 2. Liston and Sasha are in the same tier for me, exciting 50/50 fight
Interesting fight. If Povetkin can get past Liston's jab he'd do very well. Maybe a bit of a blasphemous comparison to old timey fans but I can see the fight looking a bit like Povetkin vs Takam.
I think Povetkin would have been THE man in the division if the Klitschko genetic freaks hadn't been around. This guy had a great all-round skillset, good chin, high workrate and excellent power. He managed to combine defence and offense in a single package and he's got, imho one of the great heavyweight left hooks. Liston may have had a better resume if he'd gotten the fights that mattered earlier. I think a younger Liston vs Ali might have given him a good deal of trouble. Regardless, we've all seen him in action. Long jab and heavy hands and a lot of grit. I personally fancy Povetkin but it would not be an easy fight whoever won.
He had one of the ATG left hooks at HW. Maybe not as powerful as a Morrison or Tua but massively versatile and pinpoint accurate.
"the old mentality" It's ironic when it comes to Liston (who started boxing in his early 20's) because most regard the 2nd Ali fight as a fix/quitjob and the 1st certainly was a quitjob. If a fighter did that today they would be universally regarded as gutless. It's also very questionable whether blacks who grew up in mid 20th century democratic America had a tougher upbringing than those born in communist and post-communist states. Russia in the 1990's was a hellzone.
Povetkin would win in his prime - he is as solid as they get. Very technical, one punch KO power, fast hands, explosive, tough, and an underrated chin in my opinion. But yeah Povetkin, pleasure to watch his work..