Chris Bryd TKO 10 Vitali Klitschko- Let's revist round 9

Get off my lawn!

 

All very good fighters? LMFAO .. STFU.

These are HORRIBLE in the aggregate. This planet, at this very moment - with the economic development that has occurred, has more large mega-sized athletes with amazing reflexes, power, quickness, skill, talent, etc., etc. than ever in human history. This trend, while gradual, is a one way trip to date (as the average height and weight continues upward for the population as a whole and, more relevantly - is evidenced by a slow but certain increase in the average size of pro athletes in the major sports over the generations). It is becoming statistically harder for "small" athletes to make it and compete - not easier.

The crap in the current heavyweight division is the embodiment of a sport out of favor and ignored by 99% of those that would dominate it.

Heavyweight boxing has been on a comparative decline for MANY decades. This doesn't mean there weren't talented fighters in the 20th century just that there could have been SO MANY MORE if not for the COMPARATIVE disinterest and lack of subsidy that occurred.

Being HUGE but athletically average means you have a real chance to be a heavyweight champ today. Being good but "smallish" means you have a real up hill road to climb. Being HUGE and EXCEPTIONALLY talented means you aren't boxing. No such athlete is in the heavyweight division. There are plenty of them in other sports at the moment. PLENTY OF THEM.

If you think those names attributed above reflect good fighters and good athletes you are a ****ing gimp, dude. You need to get in a training camp and visit some CURRENT pro athletes in other sports and check out what they can do in the combines, trials, and camps. The CREAM of the athletic crop is not in heavyweight boxing. The names and fighters you mentioned are BUMS and near BUMS - athletically and on a comparative with the most talented that EXIST TODAY. That is an undeniable fact.

Not every large sized athlete in the pros would make a heavyweight champion. BUT, the NUMBERS and the TALENT makes it quite unequivocally clear that the very BEST athletes out of 300 million (as an example) are competing to make it as pro athletes outside of boxing. Being a heavyweight doesn't make you a decent athlete merely because you are there. Making the pros (to compete week after week against the world's best) after competing and succeeding against the country's best in high school and then college does.

If ten guys want to be the best at smacking a ball on a string with a paddle - then ONE guy will obviously be or become the best OUT OF the TEN GUYS who want to be the best at smacking a ball on a string with a paddle. That is ALL it means. It doesn't indicate that the one guy is anything special - just better than the other nine "paddlewackers".


Provide an educational subsidy and/or a work subsidy to young athletes to train as boxers and basically none of that collection of jokes you mentioned at the start would have careers. That isn't speculation. That is an understanding of the kind of exceptional athletic talent that exists in greater relative numbers than ever before - and the ability to note the obvious (albeit disparate) shortcomings in all those you noted. It is seen in the aggregate improvement in the overall quality of performance in the other pro sports. It is statistically harder and harder to make it there. The numbers demonstrate more and more competition and greater and greater difficulty to rise to the top.


No one can make that argument to the same extent for boxing. It is evident in the back-n-forth that goes on (on these boards) about these heavyweights. If they were conclusively the culmination of athletic development and quality at this point in human history there would be less dispute about it.

If one states that Usain Bolt is likely to have defeated any human in recorded history in a sprint there can only be so much argument. We don't see many or even a few examples in the other sports of guys appearing BY THEIR PERFORMANCE to be superior talents/specimens. We can look at Bolt's times and measure fairly objectively where he stands historically. Only a clown can watch heavyweight boxing and not note the apparent "limitations" of the participants. Most novices can see it - why do you think so few are interested in a country that lauds entertainment in all forms and athletic talent no matter its source or point of origination?


How could anyone even bring up Arreola, Peter, Mahone (LMAO), or any of these mediocrities and suggest that they are GOOD? Are you so truly insulated that you can watch them perform and think that is HIGH LEVEL athletic quality TODAY?

There has been a MANY generational shift toward providing a subsidized path for some young athletes to train RATHER than to become WORKERS. But, let's be clear, there is no such subsidy to become a boxer - and so, comparatively, boxing as a sport has fallen by the way side. There is no mystery to this. In EVERY case, boxing is less than it would be if ALL or the majority of the young athletes becoming pros in the other sports had the option to be subsidized to become boxers as well.

These are the "war years". The able bodied TALENT is fighting wars in other sports and being paid handsomely for it. Those that fail in that competition become WORKERS. It is still a challenging world and time waits for no one - and few receive "free tickets" to train for a boxing career from some anonymous benefactor. In the past several generations of uninterrupted world growth - both economically, numerically, and socially, these other major sports have EXPLODED in popularity, use of resources, media coverage, and commercialization - they are growing and competitive - boxing has been comparably stagnant and/or regressive.


There should be little doubt that an EXCEPTIONAL HUGE athlete would be a theoretical problem for any SMALLER athlete in history (in a mythical match up). So, what do we have? We have the two best conditioned AND LARGEST athletes at the top. But, we don't have EXCEPTIONAL huge athletes proving their level against ample and equivalent competition. Instead of real competition we have "C" level athletes, out of shape bums, old great and/or good fighters that aren't forced into retirement no matter HOW OLD THEY GET because NONE of the young EXCEPTIONAL athletes are becoming boxers, and even smallish cruiser weights still able to move up and compete due to the pathetic dross parading as heavyweight pros.


It is quite absurd to claim that Arreola, Peter, and the like represent anything more than the other nine guys who want to smack a ball on a string with a paddle. They showed up. Good for them. They SUCK.


The pool of talent competing as boxers today is no where close to where it could be or would be if all the available athletic talent was represented. If all goes back to a simple axiom: competition defines the athlete. It isn't always fair - but it is quite relevant.

Anyone who looks at Valuev, the Klits, Ray Austin, Tony Thompson, Jameel McCline, Derrick Jefferson, Tye Fields, or any the biggest men in heavyweight boxing should note that to varying degrees they are not extraordinarily quick of foot or of hand. They are not exceptionally agile or gifted. However, there are big guys in the other sports that move like baseball shortstops, or point guards, or tail backs to some extent, that combine a multitude of athletic attributes, capabilities, and abilities. There are some with great size, undeniable athletic talent, and EXCEPTIONAL conditioning.


The defense of this crappy era with so many obviously pedestrian athletes in the AGGREGATE is absurd. One can contend that due the superior size of the Klitschkos they would be easily competitive with many fighters from the early history of boxing and even of generations not all that long ago. All things being equal a great big man is likely to beat a great smaller man. OR, in this case, a mega-sized athlete in condition with average skills can be quite a handful for a substantively smaller opponent - with great talent or skill - DUE to his size offsetting his own comparatively lesser talent and/or athleticism ...

None of that means we are witnessing anything but a completely forgettable era at this moment.

 

You did not answer my question - name one Irishman who quit in a boxing match?

 

I dont know.
Byrd and Lewis are probably the best fighters he ever fought. He lost both.

 

Numerical records dont mean much at all.
I guess Peter Mcneeley, Eric Esch and Tye Fields had a great "combined record" at their peak too. A lot better than Mike Weaver, Jersey Joe Walcott and James Bonecrusher Smith.

I mean, anyone with a basic understanding of boxing knows that the win-loss-draw numbers aren't an indication of how good a fighter is.

 

Well if Sullivan, Tunney and Loughran did not hide behind the race card maybe three right there ... :roll:

 

yep

 

How about this, he was thinking safety first instead of being a fighter. Like TheGreatA posted, he said he won't sit on the stool again.

 

Anyone who boxes professionally with no headgear and small gloves, cant think about shoulder safety first, sorry. I do agree, I dont think he would do it again.

 

As I said, he's only going to be remembered as a Lewis opponent 30 years from now - people will watch the film, see a valiant effort against a fat, old champion who in all reality was ripe for the picking and they'll say the same as we're saying right now. He's a better than average belt holder but was never the recognised number 1 in his **** weak era. Unfortunately for VITLAY he never will be because he won't fight his brother, I don't blame either of them for that but by the same token it still harms his legacy.

 

As I said earlier, no matter how many bull**** stats the Klit-ites bring up....:roll:

Why not produce a stat about the above fighters and tell us how many were overweight and out of shape? :yep

 

Too many silly points to address here at once. However, the assertion that the heavyweight division has been on the decline for MANY decades torpedos much of what you have to say. The late 80's through the late 90's was a golden era of the division. I would argue it was deeper and better than the vaunted 70's, certainly deeper with bigger, harder hitting heavyweights.

Many sports are out of favor and ignored by those who might dominate it. Do you think, maybe, if American Football were popularized in West Africa or the former Soviet republics, the NFL might look a tad different? Perhaps? It's true the recruitment for the heavies has moved from the US abroad, but the pool is still large, if not larger. 30 years ago there were no Soviet Bloc athletes of Africans recruited to the division. Now we have seen an enormous influx of the former and a trickle from the latter (with hopefully more to come).

I like how Arreola is characterized as an unskilled bum, though he had an extensive amateur career and was I believe at least a one time national golden gloves champion. Unmotivated perhaps. Unskilled no.

 

Both brothers have fought the best out there and won, apart from the Lewis fight, the only fighters out there to fight now are Haye and maybe Tua, you can't do any more than they have done which is demolish their opponents. They are lucky to be fighting in an era where there is no Lewis, Tyson or Bowe coming through.

 

So lame.