Roy would not have been so freewheeling and loose and relaxed and confident vs. Tarver as he was with Hill. Tarver had a way of psyching Roy and disturbing his confidence, not to mention he has a way of upstaging Roy, making fun of him and and making him look inferior. Tarver made Roy tentative. ROy also tried to duck the rematch and HBO tried to make Roy vs. Johnson and Tarver vs. Julio G, but Tarver was enraged and bis big mouth forced Roy and HBO to do the rematch. Goodpoint on Hopkins, a HWT Hopkins would be a top 5 all time great. Hopkins is one of the best fighters P4P there ever was. Still great and still improving at 44. Look where SRR and ALi were by there late 30's. Hopkins style and mind games would give any HWT from history big problems.
If Hopkins was 35-36 and made a serious effort to get to a lean, mean version of 205lbs - I think he'd be the business. The problem most HW's make is that they think they have to match the size of the bigger boys, the 240-260lbers.
This pretty much sums it up. That's what I think too. The way I see it, a tough fighter with a very good chin who isn't afraid to come forward and try to pressure Wlad, would have the best chance to beat him. This is very true.
Which is exactly what happened with Lennox Lewis. Remember how the American media hated a HW champ that has a British accent, and hated LL for how cautious he usually was? Same old ****.
It's bizarre to me that after five years of nothing but victories, against fighters who fail to 'apply pressure', that people still argue that Wlad's opposition needs to 'apply pressure'. Obviously, they don't apply pressure because he doesn't allow them to, because the threat of being destroyed by Wlad's right hand is such that they'd prefer to wait futilely for opportunities that never appear.
southpawslick - The American media, and the American fans, hated Holmes even more. Basically, when it comes to post-war American HW boxing fans, if it's not Ali or Tyson, it's not worth a sh*t. It's only after retirement that fighters like Holmes and Lewis have gotten their due respect.
First of all, I'm a Wlad fan. Secondly, maybe I didn't express it the way I wanted. I meant, Wlad hasn't faced a pressure fighter with a good chin in a long time. Chagaev, Thompson, Rahman, Austin, Brock, Ibragimov aren't pressure fighters. All I'm saying is that I think Wlad would have a far more difficult time vs a Ray Mercer type of opponent (granite chin, big puncher, who always comes forward) than a Ruslan Chagaev type of opponent.
I agree with TP. It's hard maintaing the, "he's just so bad" position when he's handling top ranked opponents. Regardless of what people want to say about the quality of that opposition, it is the best there currently is. And in the ring against Wlad they're not even competitive. It's really funny with Tony Thompson. People want to say that Wlad took an easy fight with TT. But where was that sentiment BEFORE the fight with TT? Thompson had KOd Krasniqi, convincingly beat Guinn and T. Ibragimov & handed Yanqui Diaz his first loss. It was only after TT looked so limited against Wlad that the cries of the quality of TT came into question. Same with Ray Austin. Many felt that Austin was the winner v Sultan Ibragimov. Same with Calvin Brock, Hasim Rahman, Byrd and Brewster rematches... These are fights that if he hadn't fought them.... he would be scorned just as much if not more. And I bet if he were to fight and beat Arreola before the year is out people would be saying, "oh well, you fought too green of an Arreola. So you didn't REALLY beat him or do anything impressive".
Because my guess is that if you ask 100 boxing fans, more than 90 of them would tell you that they want to see Valuev get knocked the **** out, so the "unbeatable giant" fairy-tale would end with a bang.
All good man, you have to understand that Wladimir is here to fight all guys available. ANY fight that brings excitement he's willing to take and immediately like he proved by fighting Haye. Both Klitschkos are here to fight everyone available, can't complain about that! His style MIGHT be boring to some but it's exciting to me, at least in the end a KO is in the works with the serious power he brings. If it wasn't for the Klitschkos you would have guys like James Toney and Arreola battle in the terrible shape they're in, the Klitschkos are the best representatives for the heavyweight division.
Thank you. It's just that our era lacks that type of fighter in the HW division, so with Wlad being a fighter with amazing physical attributes, fitness and good boxing skills, it's far easier for him to dominate the division the way he does right now.
He's fighting all available, if there was someone in Mercer's style out there highly ranked I assure you he would be on Wladimir's record already. The Klitschkos get bashed on for the opponents available in the division and that's completely unfair. Hope all realize that they are both open to fight everyone available. Povetkin should be a good enough aggressive fighter he can take on soon. I'm giving Povetkin the best chance at beating Wladimir than anyone else in the division right now and guess what?, he was scheduled to fight him too.
Lennox Lewis certainly gets alot of praise now. But that wasn't the case during many points of his career. After the Tua fight people were bitching louder than ever about Lennox. Despite the fact that he made Tua look incredibly pedestrian.... it was Lennox's fault (so people said) that the fight was boring and that he takes too few risks. The difference between Lennox and Wlad? When you started getting in too close Lennox might crack you with a right uppercut as well as a Right straight.... Wlad prefers his right straight, but if you get too daring with him - he'll turn that jab into a left hook.