An Apology to Wlad (and ESB fans of Wlad)

Discussion in 'World Boxing Forum' started by DINAMITA, Jun 21, 2009.

  1. DINAMITA

    DINAMITA Guest

    I have seen Chagaev fight a few times, and I think he's a top class heavyweight. Better than Arreola or Povetkin or any others from the current crop. He was simply outclassed by a man with the perfect gameplan and tremendous physical attributes.
     
  2. OBCboxer

    OBCboxer Boxing Junkie Full Member

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    Wlad is a very skilled big man and Steward brings the best out of him. I agree in part with your post but I think his opponents don't employ the right gameplan. They don't apply pressure to make it a fight. It also has to do with who he fights; Thompson, Ibragimov and Rahman aren't pressure fighters. The division doesn't have many pressure fighters, even if they are, they aren't effective or any good to trouble Wlad.

    I know they try but they don't fight him the way that they should. Once again, Wlad is very skilled but has very weak in-fighting skills but nobody is there to effectively exploit this weakness. Wlad does very well to keep his fighters away with his dominating jab and right hand. What Wlad does on the outside is truly amazing though.
     
  3. PugilisticPower

    PugilisticPower The Blonde Batman Full Member

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    The problem when you dominate your opponents to this level means people do not take your wins seriously. Roy Jones Jr wasn't taken seriously during the peak of his career because he was just destroying people, Floyd Mayweather Jr's best selling/most enjoyed fights? When it seemed like he could lose.

    Calzaghe was considered to have fought nothing but bums because he dominated them - then he had a closer fight with Kessler and suddenly everyone thought he was great.

    No doubt if Sam Peter was undefeated now and they had the fight they had way back when and Wlad came through the adversity, following on from all of his dominant victories, people would think he was a spectacular boxer.

    In the eyes of many American's - you are not great until you win rough and ugly.

    In the eyes of Europeans (including my wife and her family) - the more clinical, clean and oustanding your victory, the higher you are.

    Although I do notice Europeans generally have more respect for people who rise to the top of their craft.
     
  4. tysonlewisbook

    tysonlewisbook Well-Known Member Full Member

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    Well Dinamite if Mike Tyson could change his tune from before the Lewis fight to the class act he was after, there's hope even for a crude but lovable son of a gun like James Toney.
     
  5. DINAMITA

    DINAMITA Guest

    Maybe so mate.
     
  6. PugilisticPower

    PugilisticPower The Blonde Batman Full Member

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    The talk of pressure - fine in principle but lets just take a look at a very good fighter who spanked some of the best of his generation in David Tua.

    A close thing that could have gone either way with Ike Ibeabuchi (my pick for the best ever fighter to never wear a title strap at HW) and the Byrd fight aside, Tua was dominating opponents like Moorer, Ruiz, Rahman, Oquendo, Maskaev, David Izon, etc - all guys who represented tough fights in their division

    He goes in against Lennox Lewis - who uses his reach, skillset and such and completely nullified Tua, to the point that I can't recall Tua landing a single shot of note in their entire fight - Tua's iron chin was the only reason he stood through the entire fight, where all Lewis did was move in behind the jab and land the right hand.

    Lewis nullified all weapons of Tua in the way Wlad has done to every fighter he's fought in the last 6 years.

    When he beats Haye, you'll have a few more people give him respect (and a lot of people saying Haye was a bum anyway) and this will continue - why? Because American's can't respect clean fighters. Americans won't respect a guy who is at the top of his craft because they can't conceive someone being so good at what they do that there isn't any competition for them

    Roy Jones Jr got beaten by Father Time, but prior to that? Again, he had his share of haters doing the same old **** they say about Wlad now.

    Difference is? Wlad lost early in his career, so people always point back to those as if it somehow nuillifies the fact that ever since, he's been dominating everyone and anyone in the HW division.
     
  7. RightCross

    RightCross Grandmaster of Boxing Full Member

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    very good post and well written, solid points.
     
  8. tysonlewisbook

    tysonlewisbook Well-Known Member Full Member

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    OCB it's impossoble to pressure Wlad. He is impregnable. Of all the HWTS in history not a single one comes to mind that could offset what Klitschko is doing with pressure. Small Tyson even in his prime would fail. Foreman was too crude and too much of an arm puncher and would have been picked apart. Marciano and Dempsey? Come on.

    Klitschko has changed the game and raised the bar. Its going to take a new fighter with a new style, with huge size, athleticism and creative power and speed. That fighter has never shown himself yet, maybe he will in the future. Like a 240 pound Manny Pacquiao or a 6 ft 4, 240 pound in shape James TOney style fighter.

    It's very hard to think of a HWT form history that could effectively pressure this prime mature devastating version of Klitschko
     
  9. Popshots

    Popshots Active Member Full Member

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    Its all good we all misjudge, but its hard for me to believe that Wlad had to defeat this guy in order to be validated, but you obviously rated him high. IMO the only meaningful fight in the HW division will never happen and thats Wlad vs Vitali.
     
  10. ocelot

    ocelot Boxing Junkie Full Member

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    One of the best posts I have read here in a long time.
     
  11. tysonlewisbook

    tysonlewisbook Well-Known Member Full Member

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    Excelent post PugPower. But I disagree, Tarver KOed Jones, not Father Time. For years Jones showed a strange reluctance to fight Tarver as if he was somewhat intimidated by The Magic Man's confidence and his superior and brilliant articulateness. Jones was used to having his own way against secondary B level opponents who were beaten before the contract was signed. Tarver always had confidence he could beat Jones and Jones definitely was aware of that and it spooked him considerably.
     
  12. PugilisticPower

    PugilisticPower The Blonde Batman Full Member

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    I think a guy like Bernard Hopkins if he was a little younger, capable of carrying the weight like Chris Byrd did in his earlier years, could represent the type of style that would give Klitschko problems.

    Even at 6'1 - I think the style is there for Hopkins to be able to roll inside some of those punches and land enough to make Klitschko tentative about leaving the jab out there.

    At HW - Povetkin is the guy who could do the job, very sharp boxer, would take most of those jabs on his gloves, it's more so can he get inside the jab to put the shot on Wlad.

    What people don't want to realise is that Wlad is an even harder version of Lewis now. He's had six years since the last time he looked beatable and in that time he's grown his abilities to suit the major advantages he has in size.

    The problem is that anyone else the same size as Wlad (with the exception of his brother) doesn't have the movement, skillset or general ring intelligence that Wlad has grown in the last 10 years of professional boxing.

    Haye is interesting because at 6'4 and in great shape, he looks a sharp punching prospect - the problem is, he's still giving up a tonne of reach to a fighter who throws straighter than he does. That's never a good thing.
     
  13. PugilisticPower

    PugilisticPower The Blonde Batman Full Member

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    If that was the case, Jones Jr would have forgotten about Antonio Tarver after he managed the MD win against him.

    Age and the fact that Jones Jr had come down from 195lbs in a 7 month period was why he wasn't the same boxer and hasn't really been the same boxer since.

    The version of Jones Jr that spanked Virgil Hill would have mauled Antonio Tarver.

    That's my view anyway - Roy very rarely rematched people, he only rematched Tarver due to Tarver gaining a strap he wanted - but would he have done that if he thought Tarver was likely to beat him? I don't see it.
     
  14. tysonlewisbook

    tysonlewisbook Well-Known Member Full Member

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    Ocelot, thanks buddy :)
     
  15. DINAMITA

    DINAMITA Guest

    Agree 100%