Better All-Around Fighter: Tony Galento or David Tua?

I voted Galento

 

Tbh, I do think that Tony is a much better and skilled inside fighter than Tua. Galento is similar like Duran, he made great use of grappling techniques in boxing such mauling, hugging, holding, smothering, wrestling, clinching, etc. These tactics are dirty but are still legal.

If you look closely, the way Tony use wrestling and holding to put him in a superior position where he could pound his opponents good shots at the same time putting his opponents in an inferior position to even throw a punch. He also made great use of his head as a tool for his success for infighting. He utilizes it by resting his head by his opponents chin and make them unbalance, blinding their vision and even make openings for his left hooks, uppercuts and usually body punches. Unlike most boxers, who usually has the same height of his opponents, they have to use their shoulder but with Tony's hobbit like size... He is comfortable hiding under their chin and has both of his shoulders free to punch and grapple whenever necessary. I called this Tony's most comfortable position. This keeps Tony's head protected, exposing his opponents body and his hands are still free to for him to use. His opponents had no choice to just try and outhustle him or threw weightless bodyshots. (although he still headbutts a lot too)

That's only first part of Tony's style, remember the grappling part that I told you? There's a lot of pattern and I can't tell every single one of them, the only way I could explain it is he just mixed it up all of his grappling and punching techniques from smothering to bodyshots to holds to left hooks to forearm smother on the chin and threw an overhand right to hugs to bodyshots to uppercuts to holds and etc etc etc... and there's a pattern to it.

When his opponents tries to break free and retaliate from the inferior position his in, Tony usually would do these 2 things:
1 - Mauls all of those punches and clinch/hug them to his comfortable position like I told you above
or
2 - Brawl with them

When against weaker competition, He usually use the second option cuz of his superior durablity and punching power but when he step up against much more physically stronger competition, he uses the first option a lot.

And you might be wondering right now, how the hell did he get inside in the first place? I already broke down how masterful he is on the inside, heck! all boxers who are good fighting on the inside must know how to get inside first, So how did Tony get inside? Duran uses unpredictable jabs and feints while Joe Frazier uses broken rhythm head movement and cross guard. It's pretty simple, you'll notice when Tony crouches so low when he's far away from his opponents and it did two things:

-Make him a harder target
-Allow him to explode his wicked left hook

When he exploded his left hook, he doesn't need to actually hurt his opponents. If he manage to tap them, stun them or maybe make them overreact to it, Tony would immediately run into his opponents and hug them (again, putting himself in the comfortable position) and would occasionally take 2 or 3 hard shots while doing so. So ez pattern, Crouch Low > Explode Left Hook > Run to his opponents > Grapple them > Comfortable Position, nothing hard to understand.

In conclusion, Tony is monstrous when he has you on the ropes. In all of his fights, all of them fought him on the ropes..(becuz that's what will happen if you fight Tony) He's the type of fighter that's weak at distance. Some of the ways to beat Tony is by running to the center of the ring, this is becuz you will not ran out of space and won't get trapped on the ropes or corner. While doing that, threw some hard shots becuz Tony is an easy target just like I said, he eats a lot of shots when trying to get inside. With that tactic, you will not remain trapped on the ropes and could easily nail him with hard shots. The way Louis beats Tony is by hitting him with clean hard shots whenever they were separated instead of brawling with him in the inferior position and threw weightless shots.

With that being said, Two Ton has mad underrated inside fighting skills, plus with his insane durability and punching power. He is one of the best contenders in boxing. He style is the definition of very dirty yet still legal. (except for the fouls tho)

 

Tua by early stoppage ,this thread seems to have been covered pretty exhaustively. To be honest I see no case whatsoever for Galento who was briefly a contender in a pretty dire era and whose only win of note is an overrated Nova, who was himself no more than a blip at the top contender scene.

 

Nova was not overrated.

 

For me he was an average contender in a poor era.

 

Excellent break down. Tony was as dirty as an old pair of boots, but incredibly effective at using his short size to his advantage.

In that regard, he was clearly a better inside fighter than Tua who often let himself get clinched or just winged basic arm shots to the body.

Tua is still better overall. He has a very sharp jab for a short guy and didn't just use it as a range finder. He had far better accuracy, timing, and was a better finisher. Unless you were a master boxer, it wasn't a walk in the park to outbox Tua he could actually try to win rounds and didn't simply swing for the fences. Tua was also much better at mid range.

 

who made this troll post dave moved way better

 

Excellent take on Galento's underrated boxing skills!