seems his hand speed is not what it use to be..sure he is still fairly fast and hits very hard..but..i think he has slowed down just a bit..thoughts?
It just looked like "one of those nights". He did look definitively sharper to me against two much better-skilled and quicker opponents in Chambers and Chagaev. And the Chagaev fight was with an injury. He's had a pretty full career. If it wasn't just an off night, maybe he is running down a bit.
i think it was more of the tactics he changed to beat Peter. He wanted to pack power behind his punches and knock him out as fast as possible. Wlad also weighed-in a little bit higher as usual. Peter was aggressive from the getgo so Wlad couldnt range him with the jab like he did with Ruslan and Eddie. just my thoughts.
Yeah I do think he's slowed down a bit since 2005/2006... and at that point, he'd slowed down a bit compared to when he fought Mercer. Physically, Wlad is past his best at 34. However, he's become a lot of harder to beat because of his safe approach in general. Having said that, I thought he took more risk last saturday than he's done in years.
Not sure. His defensive speed seemed vastly improved to me. He was either catching Peter's punches with his gloves or leaning back quickly away from them. At one point I remember thinking "damn, he is really quick and hard to hit".