Styles make fights and the Tua that fought Ike might have been too much for a 204 pound Frazier ... a stronger, much faster, harder hitting , concrete chinned version of Bonavena does not sound like a good match up ..
Doesnt look good for joe. He cant come straight at Tua, but what else can he do? Tua possesses too much heavy artillery for joe. Tua within 5
Tua is overrated he gets outskilled and outworked. If you are picking the 5'10 Tua over the best version of Fraizer that means you must suspect Frazier has a glass chin and would lose to pretty much any top tier puncher in history, otherwise why pick Tua ?
why pick Tua? Add to the problem Frazier is a slow starter, was bombed out by another big puncher, and you have your answer It's one gun against two This is why I like Tua This content is protected
Like Ken Norton would say "he's got a hell of a left. he's got a hell of a right. He's got a hell of a everything!"
Yeah bring up Foreman who is leagues above Tua in virtually every department and would blast him out too. Frazier starting slow is relative he wouldn't have a lower workrate early in the fight or have a stationary head compared to Tua opponents
Foreman was lightly regarded in his day also until he won the championship. Who do you know that actually picked him to win BEFORE the fight??? Up until that point, he was just a mandatory challenger, but never was he favored to beat Joe Fact is, Joe was favored 3 - 1 so I CAN bring him up i hate to tell you this, but a Tua Frazier matchup looks pretty bad for Joe and may be over before Joe can start to smoke
This is irrelevant we have hindsight and Foreman was elite at his best, he likely would have beaten Tua in his late 40s let alone prime. Plus Tua fights nothing like him, he's a compact massive puncher who doesn't throw from as many angles as Foreman or attempt to force guys to reset their balance via physicality. He would get outboxed in the pocket by Frazier because Joe had pretty good recovery all things considered