Boxing's great double standards

Yep the Douglas lost, saying Douglas didnt beat Tyson, Tyson beat himself.


Or the long count thing. I pretty sure Douglas would have beaten the count fast or slow, Buster was not relly hurt from that shot. He was clear headed. This was no Tunney Dempsey II repeat imo.

Than we have the Tyson "Prime" which ended in 89. So Douglas beat a past prime Tyson.

Tell me, what other heavyweight champion was shot at 24??

 

You cant say the Duran in the first leonard fight was the same as the Duran in the second leonard bout?

He looked like he had no drive or ambition to win the fight, or at least nowhere near the drive as in the first bout. To me he looked sluggish, half-arsed and unmotivated. He just never even looked like he was even trying to cut the ring off.

However, saying that i do generally think Leonard does get sold short in yhis fight he boxed a great fight, no doubt. Showed not an extra dimension to his game, but confirmed it solidly that he could box with the best. I also think the Duran that turned up for that fight was about 70% at most of the Montreal Duran but he was still at least the 3rd best Welter after Leonard and Hearns at the time.

 

Foreman vs Tyson.

Once the late 80's and early 90's rolled around Mike Tyson was past it. Same speculate he was shot (Ridiculous). People say he wasn't at his peak. Maybe he was physically, but all his timing and skills were diminishing as he wasn't focused or training nearly enough as he should. Oh, and there's that good old Rooney not being in his corner. This changes the whole dynamics of Tyson. He can't prefer with this lucky Irish charm behind him. Tyson's best performance is lauded as the Spinks fight. Everyone talks about the signs on the wall when looking at the Bruno fight. He wasn't moving his head as much (Non-sense). He wasn't moving his head as effective (Perhaps...) He just lunged in throwing multiple punches (Like he did against Spinks. Who he had zero respect for in the power department). He didn't set his offensive up behind the jab (Perhaps). Yet after looking at this one fight they're clear that this is a sign of his detoriation. Whether it be through a lack of focus or being mentally gone. Yet, a few months later he knocks Carl Williams out with a devastating left in round 1. He does all the same things he does against Spinks. It's the performance that makes people put the Spinks fight on a pedestal. But he does a ton of wrong things and is obviously over-aggressive. It's just Spinks was scarred to death and zero threat. But the Bruno fight was a declining Tyson. And The Douglas fight was a complete fluke.

To continue on that point. Tyson was 24 years at the time. Any fight 1990 and beyond is a non-prime Tyson. Automatically he's just washed up. Even if his speed and combos were still devastating and power. He wasn't at his all-mighty god like invincible status circa 1987-1988. People argue about how the guy's prime consisted of just a year or two. Anyway... when Foreman lost to Ali in 1974 he was devastated. I argue that Foreman changed from 1973 of Jamaica all the way to 1977. First off, he used the jab to neutralize Frazier in that fight. After he blows out Frazier it just takes 1 great performance like that for him to fall in love with his power. He just loads up against Norton, with no jab. With Ali, he's swinging like a wild man for the fences. His decline is more noticable, and obvious to the eye than Ali's even BEFORE the Rumble and the Jungle. Now after this fight with Ali everyone talks about Lyle and Young. Lyle busted him up. That was a Foreman that wasn't mentally not there, even if he wanted to show heart. This version of Foreman paced and settled back way too much. He loses to Young in PR and now he has zero chance against any boxer/mover H2H. I don't see how that's fair, given the leeway Tyson gets against opposition from 1990 onward as compared to what he could do in his prime. When talking about Foreman, he gets zero slack.

The next biggest double standards I see is that you match Frazier with the super-heavyweights and he has a good chance. But someone like Marciano is just too small or too limited.

 

Excellent points you make! This one hell of an interesting thread.

 

ranking duran's win over leonard as one of the biggest while snobbing rahman's win over lennox.

 

Tunney was almost 'engineered' to beat Dempsey, he studied him for ages and found the way to beat Jack, true he would still need the necessary skills to carry out the plan. I'm not sure Dempsey would have ever found a way to defeat Tunney, close as he came in the rematch

 

I think you're a good poster and enjoy reading your inputs, but I think this stance is a bit unimpressive.

Sure, Duran looked better in Montreal than in the rematch, but you could just as well switch around and say that Leonard looked much worse in Montreal than he did in the previous match against Benitez or in the rematch against Duran. It's just as true.

To watch it from only one perspective is not a good analysis. The simple fact is that when one fighter has a great perfomance his opponent, no matter how great, often looks sub-par.

Duran made Leonard look like a kid out in the deep end in Montreal, Leonard made Duran look like frustrated has-been in the rematch. So? Ali made Liston and Foreman look like amateurs. Norton made Ali look horrible at times, Douglas made the invincible Tyson look completetly ineffectual, and so on, and so on.

That's why I take fights at face value, if there isn't a very valid reason not to. There seldom is.

 

Floyd saying Pac ducked him by saying he would allow Arum and his Advisors to pick his next opponent rather than calling anyone out.

Floyd to Max Kellerman as Shane Mosley approached him in the ring. "I'll let Leonard Ellerbe decide my next opponent'

 

Well fair enough, but i really dont think Leonard was worse than the one that fought Benitez or Duran for the second time. He was in his prime and was always in shape. He just changed things up in the second fight tactics wise.

 

This I agree with.

The loss in Montreal is such that either breaks you or a learning experience that you come out of as a more mature fighter. It is interesting to note that Leonard's original plan before Hagler was to go toe-to-toe, but then he got KO'd in sparring just days before the fight and immediatly changed gameplan.

Ps. If one wants an example of a fighter that looks much, much worse in the rematch, one doesn't have to go further than Schmeling. He looks absolutely atrocius in the rematch, and you can make all kinds of excuses for him, but people quite rightly mainly focus on Louis' ability to come back much stronger in rematches.

 

fair enough again

I do think Leonard did not get dragged into a fight with Duran, he had a good plan but Duran was too good. The rematch was real good tactics but Duran did look rubbish but as you say leonard should get praise for coming back which i give him.

 

It is of course impossible to know exactly what goes through fighters minds or why they make the choices they make, but it's only in hindsight it seems like a bad fight plan for Leonard to go toe-to-toe with Duran.

Leonard was after all a boxer-puncher with very good power and chin as well as great speed and skill, facing an older and narurally smaller man. Why should he run? Of course he felt he would be able to duke it out with Duran. Hell, he obviously originally had that notion before facing Hagler.

 

No offense, but I just don't see these as being at all comparable.

 

Exactly, we are singing of the same hym sheet