Dmitry Bivol vs Harold Johnson @ 175

Bivol is a great athlete and harnesses the Soviet Style textbook almost to perfection. A lot of Bivol's prowess is due to his natural athletic ability, though.

Johnson is less textbook and more encyclopedia of the layered art form. A boxer of his class is very probably going to capitalize on the predictability of Bivol's systematic approach.


Johnson W UD

 

Let me put it this way. If Bivol was around in the mid 70's to mid 80s he would be near the bottom of the top 10 rankings

 

All boxing in the world today is amateur boxing, that is why guys that fight like amateurs are successful. Once upon a time there used to be a huge gap between amateur and professional boxing and it wasn't just the number of rounds. That really started to change in the 1990s and, today, they are the same thing.
Canelo, in this time, was very good. In the whole scheme of things, not really. Yes, he won titles across multiple weight classes and that is a function of early weigh in and there being at least 4 world champions being recognized in every weight class. It is like being the AWA world heavyweight wrestling champion in 1979; it sounds nice but means nothing. And, truthfully, Canelo has been called a weight bully, a steroid ******, a liar, a fraud and a protected fighter for over a decade, on this forum. And that is the breakthrough victory for Bivol.
He split 2 with another amateur named beterbiev who was close to 40. And that guy was another "world champion" in an era where everybody is the champion of something, some place or sometime.
The Soviet style got no traction in the early 90s and, since then, boxing has declined. Could Bivol bet Johnson? With weigh ins 40 hours before the fight and them fighting in an era where you fight once a year? possibly. If they fought during the time when Johnson fought- weigh in the afternoon of the fight, and you are fighting twice a month- no way on earth.

 

Love Johnson but anyone thinking he wins easily is being biased. Not to get into a discussion about the decision but just look at the amount of trouble Pastrano gave Johnson stylistically by using 'Bivol tactics' (moving just out of center + consistent 1-2s, literally what DB did in Beterbiev 2).

Whilst I personally think Bivol loses to some top level LHWs in history, alongside the Soviet Style having flaws, he's simply too good to be run over imo. The main type of person you want fighting Bivol are crushing pressure fighters and freak power punchers, of which Johnson is neither. This would be a tidy technical match up.

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It's fair to mention Johnson was 34 by then (in an era where 34 was hella old unless you were called Archie) and had lost a step even if he was champ.

 

How exactly did Bivol derail Canelo's P4P status? He beat him after Canelo revisited a weight class he had only fought in once before against the shell of a champion 3 years earlier.

And Artur being undefeated does not magically cancel out the fact that he was 41 years old and dealing with injuries. Despite all of that, Beterbiev's side of the fight was MUCH, MUCH more dominant than the winner's side, who basically just squeaked by after gramps gassed out

No fencing nerd whose claim to fame is beating an overweight version of a fighter who's already very overrated, barely edging out an old champion after getting beat the first time around in much more dominant fashion, and beating a mediocre padded Mexican is EVER beating a fighter like Harold Johnson. No chance, 0%.

 

That's fair JT. I just wanted to point out the closest stylistic precedent to this one that we already have, especially since many of the exchanges in this bout never end up on the inside despite what others are saying ITT. Johnson always had solid, stable but, to me, sometimes plodding footwork on all the film of him that's about. He was at his most comfortable in the center behind his jab. Bivol more than has the general speed, footwork,s tyle and ability to thread combos that would make this extremely difficult for Johnson imo, especially given Bivol's mental focus.

 

Fair post mate.

 

How did Johnson do against an old champ remind me?

 

Are you Bivols ex wife or something what the ****

Didn't know that even Bivol has haters.

 

1-4, different champs though. Archie Moore would put current Beterbiev in a box.

 

Not the point

 

If the point doesn't stand up to the slightest bit of scrutiny then it's not really worth making then, is it?

 

That's not scrutiny of my point it's a hypothetical that changes the subject. My question was about consistency. Why does one fighter get credit for fighting and beating an old fighter but the other doesn't? Either beating old fighters counts for everyone or it counts for nobody. You can't apply it selectively.