Earnie Shavers Vs. Chris Byrd

I couldn't say I was a fan of Young's. His spoiling style made him appear too offensively apathetic for my liking. But he competed with some of the best and biggest punchers and, while looking to negate his opposition, did take risks and put himself in harms way on occasion.

So, credit where it's due.

 

I think that one of the biggest things for me was that he was never extremely vain about his skill. He'd go in the ring, do what he could without any sort of braggadocious air about him, and still win despite his lack of physical advantages.
I'm usually not a fan of slicksters, but Young himself was a very capable and likeable underdog.

 

I'd agree with the proviso sticking his head outside the ropes a whopping times to get away from an attacking Ali is a solid knock against him.

• On six occasions, Young ducked outside of the ropes when he was pressured by Ali. He did it in the seventh round, the eighth, the 12th, twice in the 13th, and once more in the 15th. When he did it in the 12th round, the referee ruled it a knockdown and began to count. Young pulled his head back into the ring at the count of two. Mark Kram of Sports Illustrated wrote: "It was unconscionable behavior for a man who wants the heavyweight championship of the world."
• The decision was loudly booed by the crowd. Mark Kram wrote: "There was no way anyone could justify taking the title from Ali."

• "The reason I kept ducking through the ropes, seriously, was to take some of the pressure off me." - Jimmy Young.

That didn’t stop Young from doing it again when Ali trapped him on the ropes at the start of the 13th, then again seconds later. While Kelly didn’t issue a count either time, the crowd booed loudly and, worse yet, the cowardice Young’s maneuver projected couldn’t have helped his cause.

 

Byrd comfortably. Shavers, frankly, was sh!t on a world stage context.

 

I mean, he lost the bout cause of it, and he made sure not to do it again.

 

I'm not aware of him having done it before which was interesting. Overall i agree he fought with excellent heart and got in there with some monsters.

 

Well, yes, this is a fine example of why I found Young a very difficult watch and it speaks to his lacking the will to push the envelope. Young seemed quite content on simply making rounds difficult to score, through whatever spoiling tactics necessary.

That he clearly had some talent, was fairly strong and quite tough, just makes his attitude seem all the worse.

 

Very true. mcvey said it well, i'm trying to remember how he worded it. Found it - "lack of a champions mentality" which really fits what you are saying. He needed to push the envelope and he would have moved up a half level IMO.

 

Yes the "champions mentality" remark from mcvey rings a bell and sums it up, really.

This being said - and, in relation to the broader thread question - I never really got the feeling that Byrd possessed a particularly strong mentality, either.

 

Byrd, him being a southpaw alone is a big factor since fighters in the 70s didn’t have as much experience against southpaws since there weren’t as many, I only seen Ali and Foreman box southpaws and they both had stellar amateur careers, I could see Shavers having difficulty against the southpaw stance.

 

Why?

 

So, that's the sum total of your analysis - meaning every fighter from the '70s has difficulty against Byrd because he's a southpaw and they're weren't many of those around back then?

OK. Got it.

 

Obviously combined with the fact that Shavers wasn’t elite, if you read the whole thing, I said Ali and Foreman could fight southpaws because of their experienced amateur careers, Shavers didn’t have much of one + there also wasn’t many southpaws in the division at the time so he never got much experience fighting them.

 

That's fine. I thought you might have had more of a rationale specific to Shavers than that.

Quite frankly, Shavers is one of the fighters I'd be least worried about fighting a southpaw, in so far as I wouldn't consider the southpaw stance a big factor. Shavers' style, as simple as it was, aligned well with southpaws in my opinion.

He paid little respect to the jab (his own, as well as his opponent's), lived to land lead rights and left hooks that were principals in his armory, and he could deliver both of these with venom.

The bigger factors would be present in Byrd's all round focus on defense - bobbing, slips, pivoting and wrong-footing Shavers while countering him (see Byrd/Ibeabuchi). These facets are likely giving Shavers a few problems.

I would say Byrd being a southpaw is secondary to these.