A man who rose from scrapping with Joe Calzaghe as a sub-light heavyweight amateur, learning to fight in a basement with a ramshackle tiny half sized ring where you were constantly cornered to being a world champion in an era of super heavyweights and drug cheats. Whether or not his style is your cup of tea is irrelevant, Byrd is the sort of fighter that should be respected. It's a sad indictment of the lack of top match ups made at heavyweight that the only fighter to have almost all of the late 90/early 2000 killers on their resume is a blown up light heavyweight... Both Klitschko brothers, Ike, David Tua, Golota. Here are several previously unavailable fights and some rare early amateur footage of Chris Byrd. Enjoy! This content is protected This content is protected This content is protected This content is protected This content is protected
never been able to see it and see what happened when calzaghe stopped byrd in an amatuer tournament in 1992
Not a name I expect to see on the General Forum in 2018 but a sight for sore eyes, considering the current heavyweight landscape. I'd gladly trade more than half the contenders going (or hell, all of them) for a single prime Rapid Fire.
Byrd and Ruiz had as much to do with killing American interest in HW Boxing as Lewis being British did. then the Klitschko's took over and finished the job.
Why are people still talking about Chris Byrd? He was boring but decent and achieved nothing in historical terms. You gonna make a thread about Jeff Lacy next?
Come on - Byrd carved out a slightly more important place for himself in boxing history than Lacy. (and was 10x more skilled)
I'd agree slightly better but he wasn't head and shoulders above. At least Lacy was exciting. Byrd was alright but I don't think he left a legacy to speak of. He picked up a belt against a shot fighter and lost it to a decent one. I'm really struggling to think of a meaningful fight he won. Tua maybe, but that win's a bit too easy to shoot down. Don't forget just how much hate Vitai got for giving Byrd that win too. Byrd padded his record with a negative style then got KO'd and dominated in his prime and never rematched. Not so impressive to me and not thread worthy at all.
Crisp Tyrd used to fight a lot on the old USA Thursday Night Fights. He used to out speed the bigger fighters............
No Byrd thread is complete without the classic slugfest Byrd vs Oquendo and the barn burning Byrd vs Williamson. In all seriousness, Byrd was a decent fighter. Under-powered but had good defense and was able to hang in there with some bigger guys.
Byrd fought a lot of top guys on short notice and was also ducked by a lot of top guys. Much like Orlin Norris, who was even smaller than Byrd, who after completely schooling Tucker and getting robbed couldn't land a fight with any top heavyweights. Big Ross Purrity, who would later easily stop Wlad remarked in a preflight interview that Byrd was good, but belonged at super middleweight. Byrd preceded to school Purrity for 10 straight rounds and Purrity has nothing to say after the fight. Byrd conquered and exposed Vitali. On 10 days notice Byrd was slipping Vitali's jab and countering to the chest and body. Vitali in the later rounds was gassing out and quit rather than risk getting stopped. Vitali claimed a shoulder injury, but when Byrd offered him an immediate rematch Vitali made no attempt to win his his belt back and later that year fought Timo instead. Byrd was forced to fight Wlad, who matched up much better against Byrd than Vitali.
What win does he have that's better than Ortiz or Stiverne I? Wilder's crap record is actually much better than his tbh. Byrd got battered by his first real test (Ibeabuchi) and then dominated by his next (Quitali) right? Why are you rating him again? Shot Evander? On the rebound one time contender Tua? I'm a bit lost. I don't have anything against Chris Byrd btw. Just don't understand why people are banging on about a very negative, undersized and underpowered fighter that got knocked out and outboxed when he stepped up to world level. He might have made a better LHW, or not. Who really cares? It's Chris Byrd.
