Rico Verhoeven vs. Buddy Baer.

That’s fair.

I left Buddy Baer out of the equation for a moment just to isolate/highlight some other considerations.

Just out of curiosity, how did you rate Ngannou’s chances going into the AJ fight?

 

Pretty low. There was always the chance that he could pull off the upset due to his power but I expected Joshua to win by KO, although not as fast as he ended up doing.

 

The whole thing with Rico is curious to me. He had one pro fight then gave Usyk a serious run for his money. It is assumed that this makes him some super prodigy and a great boxer.
Has anybody considered what it says about Usyk? He beat Tyson Fury and was immediately crowned the greatest of all time, better than Ali (??!!!???!!!!), better than everybody. This is the same Fury that was bounced around like a basketball against Steve Cunningham, was a laughingstock for years after hitting himself with a really nice uppercut, and who's entire reputation is built on beating Wlad in possibly the worst fight of all time. And beating Wilder, going (to turn a popular phrase around these parts) 'life and death' with him in the first fight. Wilder is regularly ridiculed on here.

 

That self uppercut was a peach. Although he threw it Tyson still didn’t see it coming. An extremely rare “own goal” in the sport of boxing.

 

"It is assumed that this makes him some super prodigy and a great boxer."

Please name who is making this assumption in this thread. I do not recall making this claim but maybe someone else did.

"He beat Tyson Fury and was immediately crowned the greatest of all time, better than Ali (??!!!???!!!!), better than everybody."

Again, who is saying this in this thread? Just because 4 or so guys in the general forum say this doesn't make it the common wisdom or opinion.

"in possibly the worst fight of all time"

I was unaware that the entertainment value of a fight was relevant to how great a win is or how great a boxer is. I'll keep that in mind for the future.

There's this common tread on this thread of people just vaguely gesturing to people who overrate Usyk or Rico as if that's supposed to be some sort of knock down argument argument or relevant at all to this thread. Whether or not some idiots with recency bias on the general forum think Usyk is the p4p goat has nothing to do with this thread. If you keep punching ghosts you might end up hitting yourself like Fury!

This is like if there was a Tommy Freeman vs Floyd Mayweather thread and there were people going "Oh Mayweather is so grossly overrated! I mean have you seen people crowning him better than Duran, better than Armstrong, better than Robinson (??!!!???!!!!)"

Ok sure, some people overrate Mayweather but he beats Tommy Freeman so I fail to see the relevance.

 

Nobody is saying Rico is an ATG fighter based on running a faded version of Usyk close.

However, we can say that he belongs at a high level of boxing based on that fight, and that he combines an awkward style with great size and physicality. He isn't a glass cannon either. We have to take into account his dominance and gritty displays in kickboxing when evaluating him too. At the very least, we have to admit that Rico is a real-deal fighter with lots of heart.

Buddy Baer is certainly more "proven" based on the number of fights he had and his extensive KO record. But when we put Buddy under the spotlight, if we are honest, his opposition in the main was very undersized and often simply not very good.

Using the footage to evaluate the two, I think it is fairly obvious that Rico is both bigger and better than Buddy Baer.

That is all that is being said here.

 

Man, I forgot: don't drink and post.