Ezzard Charles vs Dmitry Bivol and Roy Jones Jr (Boxing Evolution Theory)

I don't think a fight between Bivol and Charles would look like his fight with Johnson. Johnson and Charles used their jabs to get in on eachother, set up body work and exchange at mid range and up close. They both got the clinch off the jab, they set up body work around the jabs and it was less about winning the battle of the jabs, and more about working around eachother's jabs. Charles was later on in his career, had lost a step in speed and his timing had gotten worse, he was well above his best weight. I doubt Johnson would've nicked that fight against a prime, LHW Charles.

Re: Louis; from what I remember about that fight, Charles jabbed with Louis and rather than parry the jab, he stuffed it and stepped into smother. He got tagged with jabs but Louis' jab is insanely good and it was all he had left by that point. Charles' strategy of using the battle of the jabs to get the clinch worked incredibly well and he won like 12 rounds to 3 on the cards iirc. Bivol doesn't have the firepower to make that kinda fight, and even if he did, I don't see why he'd bother because Louis lost almost every round.

I think the ideal fight between Charles and Bivol - for Bivol - would be mostly at long range with little clinching, trying to shoot it out in ones and twos with little prolonged exchanging. That's a fight I can see Bivol winning, but with some caveats. He would to have negate Charles' counters, he'd have to navigate the range against a guy at the very least as experienced as Bivol is, he'd have to impose a consistent fight at long range without Charles breaking that, win rounds consistently in that type of fight all the while constantly changing up his approach before Charles becomes wise to it. And that's all before you consider that Charles may try and force an entirely different type of fight and before Bivol has even put a stamp of authority and control over the fight.

I don't see any evidence Bivol can juggle all of those things at once and win the fight, whereas Charles can and is much, much more proven against better than Bivol has beaten and better than Bivol.

It'd be a great fight but I don't see much to favour Bivol outside of an old Charles narrowly losing to Johnson.

 

Better nutrition? Our food & water is filled with crap these days.. more advanced athleticism? Really? I don't see these fellas today managing to fight a dozen times a year (sometimes over 15 rounds) with 6oz gloves on..

I guarantee u that almost every sensible top 25 ATG list will be made up mostly of fighters who fought pre 1980s.. for good reason.. its because they operated in a purer sport .. fewer weight divisions & no PEDs meant weight classes were less diluted & no unfair advantage could be gained through enhancements..

Same day weigh ins meant you couldn't grift the divisions like Haney & Crawford do.. back then fighters went UP not DOWN... just look at todays glamour divisions.. HW, MW & WW.. they are headed by men like Usyk & Fury, Janibek & Adames & Devin Haney & Brian Norman LOL.. are we supposed to be in awe? Go look up the 20s.. you had Walker, Greb, Tunney, Canzoneri, Dempsey, Leonard, Villa.. 40s.. you had Louis, SRR, Ortiz & Pep.. 70s.. you had Ali, Monzon, Duran, Benitez etc..

Where's the evolution? Weigh grifter Haney getting splattered by a head job? Furys muffin top jiggling up & down for 12 rounds.. Janibek fighting once every two years against dustbin men... Crawford beating up on washed alcoholics & juiced up plodders..

Ye Usyk, Inoue & Crawford are excellent fighter's.. but the era is tame & soft in comparison to prior eras... they operate under easier circumstances.. those fellas above forged greater legacies under harsher circumstances & thats why they are better. Evolution my arse...

 

I think you're underselling what Johnson's jab actually did in that fight. It wasn't just two guys working around each other Johnson controlled engagements with the jab, never stood still, varied his angles, and forced Charles to dig deep into his toolkit just to create resets. Charles had some answers but not enough to win, and the fact he needed that many solutions to one problem tells you how much an elite jab at range bothered him. The 'ideal fight' you described, long range, limited clinching, controlling exchanges in ones and twos is just how Bivol fights by default. That's not him juggling a bunch of different things at once, that's his baseline.

Charles is absolutely more proven, I'm not arguing that. But being proven overall doesn't mean he's proven against every style, and the Johnson fight suggests this specific type of problem, a disciplined jabber who controls distance and doesn't give you easy entries, actually gave him noticeable trouble and forced him into a fight he wasn't as comfortable with. That's not a knock on Charles, it's just a stylistic reality. And Bivol presents that same kind of problem in a much more consistent, structured way.

 

I rewatched the Johnson vs Charles fight last night after the Fury card and I think you're right, I was underselling his jab, but after a rewatch, I can't at all see Bivol fighting like that against Charles.

The fight was half a battle of steps and jabs and how they worked with eachother; but the other half was a mauling, technical clinch fight where both men did their best work. They were stripping eachother's grips, manipulating their balance, creating openings for the body and coming up to the head as they made space. It's not a fight Bivol has ever fought. If Bivol was to fight how Johnson did; it's completely uncharted territory for him and absolute guesswork for how well he would. My guess, is not great.

However, RE the jab; there's a lot Bivol could do to get the jab working. Johnson had very little success jabbing with Charles at range. They nullified eachother, with both defending it fine; but Johnson landing a few more jabs and Charles landing a bit more of everything else. What Johnson did extremely well, was move in, move out, time a counter jab as Charles followed, then move out again before the counter came. However; this worked well on a jab front, but if Charles was lighter and younger, maybe hadn't faced a 6'3, 210 puncher 4 weeks earlier - like he would be if we put him against Bivol; then those centimetre misses would be clean counters.

Yeah, Bivol's ideal fight against Charles would be how Bivol fights. However, Bivol's baseline is absolutely not what I described. Imagine a juggler in a circus juggling 6 balls; but for the big show he's doing it in front of a lion with a flamethrower. Doing everything he likes to do against the Zinad's, Arthur's and Salamov's off the world isn't preparation for doing it against the finest light heavyweight to ever lace them up. Nobody has ever been so good that that is their baseline. Juggling the bodywork, clinch, jab and counters of a prime, light heavyweight Ezzard Charles has never been done, bar the loss to Ray which is widely considered a bad decision and I doubt Ray fought like Bivol anyway.

Not to mention, even against guys like Arthur and Zinad; Bivol didn't have it entirely his own way against guys he shouldn't have had to blink twice at. He was hurt by a body shot by one of them although I forget which; he struggled to force his style of fight on them as they insisted on holding range and gave Bivol little to no opportunities to be reactive. Bivol has never shown anything more than passable ability to free his hands in a clinch and even then, there's plenty of ways of stopping that which he's never had to deal with.

But that's just it; the Johnson fight suggests from my rewatch that Charles is absolutely capable of dealing with that style; but due to where he was in his career and life, he was just a tad too slow on the counter and his reactions; he couldn't make those last few inches consistently enough to take the win, even in such a close fight. Not to mention, that fight was far from any fight Bivol has been in, with much more clinching and infighting than Bivol has ever dealt with. I would argue the fact that Charles in the circumstances he was in, and the fact that Charles did so well, is an argument that Charles can deal with that style; not that he can't. Especially when you consider he already dealt with many fighters who were perfectly capable of boxing at range behind a jab when he was younger; like against Burley, Bivins, Maxim, Moore, Walcott and Marshall.

 

I think you’re overweighting the clinch work in that fight. It was definitely there, but a lot of it came from Johnson being comfortable operating in those phases he engaged in it, used it, and made it part of his own game.

The most effective work still came from his jab and especially his counters when Charles tried to close distance. Charles had success with his straights to the body and right hand counters, but he was getting picked off on entry often enough that he wasn’t consistently able to establish sustained inside work.

That’s the key difference with Bivol. Johnson was willing to engage in those phases at times, whereas Bivol is much more focused on denying them altogether. He doesn’t overcommit, doesn’t drift into range, and consistently resets before those exchanges can develop.

So I don’t think the inside success Charles had there necessarily translates the same way. The more relevant dynamic is how often he was being disrupted on the way in.

And on the jab, if Johnson was already able to affect Charles’ rhythm with movement and timing, a more structured and consistent version of that in Bivol is going to be even harder to deal with over the course of a fight.

To me, the question isn’t whether Charles can fight inside it’s whether he can consistently get there against someone who’s built to deny him that. The Johnson fight suggests that’s not straightforward, and Bivol is about as difficult a version of that style as you can get.

 

Charles at his best is the best there ever was at LHW. On his best day I don’t think anyone beats him. RJJ v Charles would be something.