Alexander Povetkin vs Ernie Shavers

It's an absolute waste of time for sure, but there's a certain masochistic pleasure involved as well.

 

Shavers could stop guys if he could land repeatedly. He had that type of clubbing accumulative power that broke guys down that didn't have the legs or the defensive nous to fight off the ropes. He didn't have that one punch knockout power that a lot of historically great punchers possessed, and this is backed up by his lack of one punch KOs (just Ellis to my knowledge).

Incidentally does anyone have any footage of the Young fight? I don't believe I've ever seen it.

 

Bugner didn't get broken down, nor Norton. They were nailed pretty hard and stopped within 2 rounds.

Holmes wasn't nailed repeatedly or broken down, shavers timed him with the perfect overhand as he threw out a jab. It was one of the most beautiful clean 1 punch knock downs ever.

Williams got hit so hard he didn't know how badly he was hurt and collapsed dramatically as he walked away.

 

They weren't one shot KOed though.

 

Eh ... I have noticed around here that if fighters injure themselves in some freak way that injury ALWAYS comes back to haunt them in fantasy H2H's. Lewis always gets one-shotted, Louis has the footspeed of a mummy, Marciano's nose explodes and Vitali's face falls off just as his shoulder dislocates itself. So now here we have Earnie "hands of glass" Shavers to add to the list.

 

Neither were a lot of Tyson, Louis, or Wladmir's KO victims. Hardly anyone gets KO'd with "1 shot" with zero prior built up damage or prior punches before the KO shot lands.

Honestly the idea of a 1 punch KO artist is a vert flawed term and if you mean it literally hardly anyone in boxing history qualifies.

 

I thought you were being facetious? Now this is a talking point you want to bring uo again?

I said Shavers broke his hand in the stander fight. I didn't use that to explain all his other losses, just that one fight and that fight alone.

And yes sometimes it can be a factor and a reoccurring injury. Wilder and Mayweather both fractured their hands multiple times and their surgeries are well documented.

 

Was explaining my reasoning to George. Relax.

 

I think it's a good way of describing a fighter who can demonstrate the ability to repeatedly stop opponents with one or two shots, or render an opponent unconscious from being in a perfectly cogent state beforehand. It's obviously not meant to apply religiously in every context, but it's also a term that shouldn't be watered down too much, or applied in too lazy a manner. If that narrows down the possible candidates so be it.

To me Shavers doesn't make the grade here, which is pertinent to his chances against Povetkin since he's so badly outgunned in almost every other category. If he wants to stop Povetkin he'll need to nail him hard, then bludgeon him mercilessly before Povetkin can recover. Any notion that he just catches Povetkin and blasts him out like some are suggesting is rooted in fantasy. There's nothing on record to suggest he would do that.

 

Except there is. Holmes, Bugner, and Young have better chins (and better defense) than Povetkin and he turned their legs to jelly immediately with 1 hit. If your criteria is dramatically turning around a fight with 1 or 2 clean shots Shavers did that all the time. Idk what fights you're watching. Shavers had several early round KOs and it usually wasn't him "bludgeoning" opponents with non stop punched.

Also Whyte dropped Povetkin heavily with single shots twice.

 

As we've discussed before mate -

Shavers has 68 stoppages and you've probably seen about 3 of them. He has over 35 stoppages in the first 2 rounds and you've barely seen any of them. There would be numerous sudden KO's among them i am sure. I'm not sure how on earth you can talk about "his lack of one punch KO's" when you've barely seen any of his stoppages and simply could not have any semblance of a clue how many he has. This is a fact.

I've put this to you at least once before but you've rolled out the same old line.

 

He seems to have a vendetta against shavers and will take a snipe at him given the opportunity.

If shavers was such a bad boxer with mediocre skills, speed, accuracy, stamina, etc yet scored such a staggering number of brutal KO's (many in the first 2 rounds), the only logical conclusion is that he hit very, very, hard. That kind of power is what's commonly called an "equalizer" that makes up for his deficiencies in other areas to dramatically turn a fight around.

If his power was overrated or he was a "clubber" that needed several flush shots and multiple rounds to stop a guy his record simply would not have such a high number of KO's because he can't exactly rely on his ring IQ, Footwork, defense, etc. We've seen time and time again in multiple divisions throughout history when a guy can punch decently but sucks in every other area (Lamar Clark for instance). If shavers were just another Clark or his power was overrated he wouldn't have consistently been in and out of the top 10 for over a decade and he certainly wouldn't be knocking out contenders and ex/future champions.

People can't use basic deductive reasoning and just look at the surface. Glancing on boxrec and watching 2-3 fights or a highlight reel then drawing a conclusion would be like a defective interviewing 1 witness out of 20 and quickly browsing through a few DNA samples and notes then heading to court. It's half assed.

 

It just seems to me that Povetkin would outlast and outclass shavers. Possibly stoppage in the mid rounds.

 

He certainly has a bit of passion per the topic.

I understand where he's trying to come from and what he's trying to say but the entire lack of footage of so many brutal early KO's even if against lower tier opposition make it hard to palate. This is over and above the ridiculously consistent comments from his opponents most of whom hold his power in complete awe.

 

Their cop out is that Shavers' opponents only praise him to give themselves more credit for surviving a fight with him. But this doesn't make sense honestly with a little bit of scutiny.

-Ali beat Shavers, yes, but he also beat Foreman, Liston, Frazier, etc. How is he biased or attempting to hype himself up by praising Shavers when he beat all the big hitters of his era? This argument would only make sense if he beat Shavers but lost to the other punchers of his era.

-Similarly, Norton got knocked out by Shavers, Foreman, and Cooney and picked Shavers. So...where's the bias? What does he have to gain by singling out Shavers? Same thing with Leroy Caldwell. He fought several of the big hitters of the 70's and lost to most of them--including Shavers. What does he gain by picking Shavers over the others?

-Shavers and Cooney were the only guys to stop Jimmy Young (and Young was way past his prime and stopped on a bad cut against Cooney) and picked Shavers.

-Joe Bugner picked Shavers despite facing a laundry list of great punchers in he 60's and 70's and even the 90's: Cooper, Lyle, Fraizer, etc. Upon scrutiny we see Shavers stopped Bugner faster than any other opponent and Bugner was quite durable. He was an old man fighting guys like Frank Bruno, Greg Page, etc and Shavers took him out way faster than they did. Where's the bias? What does he gain by picking the guy who stopped him quicker than any other opponent? Isn't that the most logical choice?

-Same thing with Jimmy Ellis. No one had Ellis so badly hurt like Shavers did and it was the 1st round at that.

-Holmes was saved by the bell and had to hang on for dear life against Shavers. His legs were jelly and many refs would have stopped it (he looked like he got shot). Against Tyson, Holmes was way past his prime and coming off of 2 losses and a layoff. He also clarified that Tyson was faster, more skilled, and a better finisher than Shavers. Simply by looking at the fight we see he has a point as Shavers was very sloppy and swung for the fences when he had Holmes hurt. Also keep in mind Tyson had to drop Holmes 3x to finally keep him down. I'm not seeing why it's so outrageous for Holmes to say Shavers hit him the hardest.