Abraham-Ward-top level-lacking what they had in the past-15rd condition.

BD,Watching last night's Abraham/Ward fight reinforced my opinion that the quality of boxing has deterioirated greatly from the days of 1940-50s. Arthur Abraham ,strong as he seems ,couldn't hold a candle to the likes of a Rocky Graziano or a Gene Fullmer for examples.! Abraham would be a six-round fighter at MSG, in the old days,if that. He is clumsy,and short-winded, never
willing to engage while his opponent Ward was throwing punches. In short
for Abraham to go so far today at 168 pounds,speaks volumes to the quality of boxing today! Just think BD, that Billy Conn fought the great Joe Louis at the same weight, [168-9],that Arthur Abraham did last night !!!
Today, we tend to besmirch the reputation of a Rocky Graziano, who I saw
as a prelim fighter to the Tony Zale days. Graziano,unlike Abraham threw all cautions to the winds, exploding bombs in a do or die attitude for 15 rounds if necessary, without a fear of being hit ,cause Rocky was a warrior ,in a real
sense. He didn't spend most of the fight with his hands protecting his face like a pair of ear muffs...Andre Ward, who I like as a fighter and personality
is a fine young fighter, who would have been comfortable in the "old" days, I feel. Cheers...
P.S. Gene Fullmer, built like Abraham ,was also clumsy, but had immense stamina,and strength,and used his strength in an effective way, in close
quarters...

 

Arthur Abraham was rated as a world champion not long ago, and he was one of the favourites to win this Super Six thing.
I thought he did okay knocking out Jermain Taylor, although it's clear he had a very basic and crude style he came through with his strength, and at the time he looked better to me than Froch did against Dirrell on the same night.

Abraham made 10 successful defences of the IBF middleweight title. I didn't see many of those.
It's hard for me to fathom, in light of the fact that he fights like a palooka. Maybe Abraham has slipped a lot, I don't know.
I see exactly what burt is getting at. Abraham is supposed to be a top-level fighter but appears to be unable to box or fight much. I'm sure his punch is powerful, but still .....

As for Bummy's point about conditioning ..... well, I keep getting told fighters are fitter now than they've ever been. But they have a funny way of showing it.

 

Mc, I agree with you 100%, that Andre Ward is superb, and would fit in nicely with the fighters in ANY era,at his weight. He, I believe is the best 168 pound fighter today. Of course in the "old" days, Andre would be considered a lightheavyweight, as a middleweight was up to 160 pounds, and after that from then on up to 175 pounds ,you were technically a lightheavyweight.
Boxers in those days HAD to cope with heavier men all the time, as there were only EIGHT weight divisions at the time. For example, one of the truly great LH champions, Jack Delaney usually weighed about 168 pounds for his title bouts, and did well, but later on tried to cope with the bigger heavyweights of his time, and failed ala Bob Foster. Some fighters who naturally weighed in at 165 pounds were considered in "no man's land ", too
big for a middleweight, and too light to compete at light heavyweight. Of course there were exceptions as Harry Greb, Mickey Walker, Charley Burley,
proved,or a Sam Langford or Jack Dillon too... But they were the exceptions to the rule...Cheers Mc...

 

My pick to win the whole thing from the beginning was Ward or Dirrell. The other guys are not great pressure fighters and Ward and Dirrell are slick fast boxer punchers. Ward should have no problem beating the winner of Johnson Froch. Just the fact that Johnson Froch is a tough one to call goes to show you how bad those guys are. If anything has deteriorated its the level of pressure fighters. Unless a guy is abnormally strong, they seem to have no shot against todays boxers.

 

The sport is currently defunct.

 

The sport has completely deteriorated. We've got blacks fighting for titles, no jolts, no solar plexus shots, and lo, the list goes on

 

Good post. I'm with you. Ward made this fight look like an exhibition, I really like him. I missed the last two rounds as I was watching it this morning and I was smashed last night, I got to round 10 and had to get my ass back in bed before I spewed, but from what I saw, Ward is class. He's inevitably going to be hit with the 'boring' label but that's not my thing.

 

AA is just finished. He used to have better stamina. He reminds me of Kostya Tsyzu. Once his stamina went, he was finished too. Ward is a good fighter, but he needs to go for the KO more rather than look to hold in spots. I saw the same mistakes from Dirrell when he fought in the tournament, but more. Ward can improve more.

 

It makes me laugh to hear of rounds 11 and 12 referred to as the "championship rounds"...oh how boxing has been *******ized by the reduction of 15 to 12.

 

If you can fight 12 you can fight 15.

 

The mere fact that Froch, Abraham and even Pavlik could ko Jermain Taylor speaks of how deteriorated Taylor was..not how good these guys were in being able to stop him.