You are right about Barber being a badass. His career never really got back on track after the loss to Michalczewski but I remember him being one of those guys that came out of the Kronk gym wars that bread guys like Gerald McClellan, Michael Moorer, Dennis Andries etc. Back to Michalczewski, this thread made me want to go back and watch some clips of him today and man he was definitely a fun fighter to watch. One thing I find interesting about him that I never realized before was dispite being 6'0 tall he only had a 70" reach which is not long at all for a 6'0 tall LH. Most LH's have at least a 73" reach. Weird considering he liked to work on the outside and I think his jab and straight right were his best punches.
Ah, the old 'you disagree with my opinion, therefore you haven't seen the fight' chestnut! As for degrading Dariusz to big up a fellow Brit (or whatever it was), I honestly have no clue what you're talking about. I've seen the Gonzalez-Michalczewski fight and thought it was close, with Gonzalez being the slightly better and more deserving fighter. Judging by some comments on this thread, I'm not the only one who thinks that. If you disagree that's fine. Just because someone disagrees it doesn't mean they have some kind of hidden agenda. I don't remember that much fuss about the decision at the time and I've never heard anyone calling it a stone wall robbery until now. Even if you think Michalczewski won, I'm at a loss about how you could think it was by anything more than a slither. Truth is Michalczewski was starting to look ripe for a loss. He'd looked poor for long periods before knocking out Harmon and even Hall had given him problems the fight before. He definitely was in control of the late rounds against Gonzalez but I thought he was too tentative early and took a long time to hit the groove, which cost him in the end. Gonzalez had to throw a hell of a lot of shots to keep Dariusz off balance and stop him getting set, and had to use every inch of the ring, but he did it well. As I said before, I think the Dariusz of 1997-2001 would have turned it around, and he nearly did here...But he just didn't quite have that intensity and couldn't take the openings anymore. Genuinely surprised that anyone could have this one as a robbery.
Boxrec has him listed at 6'1/2 and wikipedia has him at 6'0. My main point was his reach of 70" reach is more like the average reach of a welterweight and not a Light heavy and is very short for a 6' plus man.
The beauty of Dariusz was his sense of distance. That's one reason reach measurments are not the be-all of measurements. Michaelczewski would use footwork and upper body movement to get in range. Then it was almost like joe louis---once inside that range he landed his punches at like 80 or 90% extension. Perfect execution. And he just did not miss. Rarely hit air. a so called missed punch would land somewhere on the torso. That was alos the beauty of his jab---he had a major league reach disadvantage--on paper--against Hill. But he would manipulate himself into perfect position to throw and land. That's how he out jabbed a jabber in Hill. So rarely seen and it is not as if his bouts were widely distributed by Universum.
Look man, your theory does not make any sense.Why should anybody rob a long time champ like Darius’s in his backyard?For my part, I scored the fight to Gomzalez who was just busier.I can’t remember anybody crying robbery at the time except perhaps the Darius’s camp
Virgil Hill was not at his best for this fight.His punches did not look sharp at all.There was a layoff before I think and some injury which impaired his training camp.
