Jerry Quarry vs. Vitali Klitschko

He beat better oposition. He was in the 70s what Byrd was in the 90s.

 

A man who beats most of the best contenders of his era is not a journeyman.

 

Beating Shavers doesn't make him superman. It was more like Journeyman beat Journeyman. Even Bob Stallings beat Shavers.

 

Who said anything about Shavers?

You must have a verry low opinion of the fighters of the 70s if you think that a Journeyman was able to do what Quarry did to them.

 

In the 90's, Byrd was still fighting his way up to contender level untill he ran into a monster called Ike Ibeabuchi.

Byrd's best wins:
Vitali Klitschko (flukish, but a win is a win)
David Tua
Evander Holyfield (aging but is fighting for a title 5 years after)
Andrew Golota (aging but capable)
Fres Oquendo
Jameel McCline
DaVarryl Williamson


Quarry's best wins:
Floyd Patterson (aging, argubly lost one to him as well)
Buster Mathis
Mac Foster
Ron Lyle
Ernie Shavers

Edge: Even.
I think Byrd's wins are a little bit better but it's very close so let's call it even.

Now, on to their losses:

Byrd's losses:
Ike Ibeabuchi, TKO by 5
Wladimir Klitschko, UD12
Wladimir Klitschko, TKO by 7


Quarry's losses:
Eddie Machen, UD10
Jimmy Ellis, MD15
Joe Frazier, TKO by 7
George Chuvalo, KO by 7
Muhammad Ali, TKO by 3
Muhammad Ali, TKO by 7
Joe Frazier, TKO by 5
Ken Norton, TKO by 5

Edge: Byrd. Wladimir Klitschko has an offensive arsenal at least as good as Frazier's, in my opinion better. He lacks an uppercut but Frazier lacks a straight right hand. Ali didn't carry much pop but stopped him twice. Ibeabuchi stopped Byrd but he, like Klitschko, was a huge man at 6'2 240lb with little body fat, with handspeed & power the likes of Quarry has never faced.
You will also often hear the claim "Quarry only lost to greats, Ali and Frazier" but this is clearly not true.
Say Ali and Frazier didn't exist. Even then, losses to Ellis, Machen (who was halfway into retirement and went 1-3 in his next fights), Norton and Chuvalo are most definitly worse losses than only losing to Ibeabuchi, and W. Klitschko twice.


Edge in overal resume: Byrd. He has equally if not better wins and less worse losses.


Sidenote: Byrd is fighting Povetkin next october. If he beats Povetkin, this would add a win similar to the Mac Foster one on his resume, or even better if Povetkin does not flop afterwards like Foster did.



You claimed Quarry was "much better than Byrd". Even if you think all heavyweights in the 70's are supermans like some do here, there is no reasonable argument to be made that he was "much" better. At the very least, they're on par.

 

He's the only one you could mention. :smooch

 

Shavers is certainly not the best opponent Quarry ever beat.

Patterson and Lyle were of a higher calibre.

 

It's nice that Quarry had many fights against the best of his era. You pointed out how he faced many top contenders.

But why does Quarry's win list not clearly exceed Byrds if he fought so often? Why are his losses, even if you exclude the ones against Frazier and Ali, still a step below Byrd's losses? That he was a sacrificial lamb against Lyle but pulled out the win is a nice story, but in the end it's the resume that matters. And if Quarry was as good as you claim him to be, why did they consider him to be a sarcificial lamb?

And you say Byrd was regularly having fights below his level. Sometimes indeed he did. But Ibeabuchi and all three of his fights against the Klitschko brothers certainly weren't. His upcoming fight with Povetkin isn't. McCline was quite good when they fought. He tried to make a fight with Lennox Lewis but Lewis refused, you can hardly blame Byrd for that.

Byrd was a natural cruiserweight, fighting heavyweights and superheavyweights (W. Klitschko, V. Klitschko, McCline, Golota, Ibeabuchi) for the better part of his career. They was certainly not seen as opponents below his level, Byrd was given not all that much chance in most of them.



I find your reasoning as to why Quarry is "much" better to be quite strange actually. I just compared to their resumes and now you bring up some circumstances, Quarry being cannon fodder, fighting often and what not. Why do wins and losses not count anymore?

 

Are you serious or a fool?

 

None of those mentioned are anything but average fighters,Klitchko s resume has only Lewis on it,and he lost that one.

 

Let's go on what we know. McCline doesn't hit in Lewis or Sanders league. Not in Hide's or K. Johnson's either. Secondly, when a fighter is older and inactive, I don't hold it against him if he goes down. They way I see it, it is highly unlikely for McCline to score a knockdown.

Right, and for Vitali I mentioned a career of never going down, and a career where his chin was tested by three certifed knockout artists. What more can you ask?

Louis was knocked down often as an amatuer. The thing is his offense was too much early for him to be tested, much like Wlad's was. Schemling badly hurt Louis with one right hand, and the effects lingered the entire match. Max Bear hardly landed on Louis. Louis blew him out. However a few other fighters that did land on Louis knocked him down, and several others shook him up. While this is not a Louis thread, his chin should be viewed among the best.

I don't think Marciano faced a puncher in Lewis, Sanders or Hide's class. Many of the men Marciano fought were older curiser weight sized fighters. A high ranked contenders does not mean a fighter can test your chin. Tyson fought a few good punchers. His chin to me was very good, yet he was knocked down and KO'd by punches from Lewis, Holyfield and Douglas.

Here's where we disagree. Vitlai has proven this already. In fact, he has proven to take hard shots and not go down, which means his ability to take a punch is better than Foreman's, Marciano's, and Tyson's because these fighters were down or out from a group of lesser punchers. I think accepting these facts at face value is the key. You mentioed Wlacott and Young being tricky. So was Donald and Bean.

 

Excellent post.

 

Because "they" kept forgetting how good Quarry was. Jerry wasn't only a sacrificial lamb against Lyle, he was a sacrificial lamb against the favorite to win the WBA Tournament, Thad Spencer. Then, he was the sacrificial lamb against the second coming of Joe Louis, 24-0 (24 kayos) Mac Foster. He was a sacrificial lamb against new BBB of C and EBU HW southpaw champion Jack Bodell (fresh off a 15 round win over Bugner), and destroyed his career in 64 seconds. He was a sacrificial lamb for Buster Mathis, and sent Mathis into a tailspin he never recovered from. He was a sacrificial lamb against 21-1-1 Larry Middleton, and also sent him into a tailspin he never recovered from. He came back repeatedly from defeats which would have destroyed a lesser competitor, a Rasputin of the division.

If Byrd/Klitschko was flukish, what does that make Chuvalo/Quarry? (Jerry was clearly better.) It is only in retrospect that Lyle and Shavers have come to be regarded as his best wins. But at the time they took place, Spencer and Foster were something else. Quarry dumped Foster in six rounds, and was the only one to ever stop Big Mac.

 

The truth has been spoken.

Most of Vitalys best wins are on a par with wins that are trivialised on Quarrys record by modern observers.

Boxing geeks of the future will look over Vitallys record on boxrec and say-

Vitally who?

He beat nobody.

Of course that will be unfair but it is the deal that any contender pre 1950s who never quite made it gets.