Golota's Legacy - How good was he really?

(sigh)

 

Highly skilled. Very athletic. A top shelf talent.
He made Bowe look awful. Who himself was a skilled heavyweight and only 29 at the time. Yes Bowe was overweight in the first fight. And over compensated by coming in too light in the rematch. But outside of the 4th round in the rematch he was mostly dominated in both fights.
Golota was a mental midget and looked for ways out when he couldn’t dominate. He was total front runner and it was evident when he bit Sampson Po’ua (spelling)
His best results on paper were wins over Danell Nicholson, an Old Tim Witherspoon and a draw with Chris Byrd.
However he dominated Bowe twice in DQ losses and many believe he deserved the nod over Ruiz.

He possessed (in his prime) a great jab, fast hands and he moved well both on his feet and with bending at the waist in his prime. He had a great natural feel and easily slipped Bowe’s punches all night for most of their fights.

He had an average chin and average power. But man he could box with the best of them. Punch variety, movement, range, combination punching. Very fun fighter to watch with great ability.

A car crash ruined his Jab and he didn’t mentally mature until his physical abilities declined.

A great what if.

 

he had above average power. he abused bowe. knocked down grant 4 times! were it not for his mental issues, he could have been one of the more dominating heavies of that era.

 

Did he knock Grant down 4x I forget. I know he dropped him early exposing Grant. Grant had serious glass jaw.
Skill wise Golota could of been dominant but his chin would of let him down.
He wasn’t right in the Lewis fight but even if you throw that fight out, Tyson dropped him early and Lamon Brewster annihalted him that’s 3 big punchers who all stopped him and rather quickly.
I’ll concede that his power may have been slightly above average. But he didn’t put many guys away early. He bombarded Bowe with angles and his piston jab I mean he took Bowe to the woodshed like few heavies have ever been. Shame he ruined his virtuoso performances with repeated fouls.

 

his issues, at least to me, were mental. chin was above, about maybe 6 out of 10. he went head to head with bowe. while bowe was NOt lewis or tyson, he could punch. golota's power, 7.5 out of 10. not one punch, no. but did damage! just a mental case!

 

Co

Took the words out of my mouth and said them better lol.

I feel this was a perfect summary of Gollata

 

million dollar body, ten cent mind.

 

A lotta of what and could have been with Golota to be honest. After the Bowe fights there was a feeling he could be something good here. Then of course the Lewis blow out and a few more bad losses. He redeemed him self a little later In his career but he always had a black mark against him .

 

One of the oddest cases of boxing talent. He was really damn good.
He climbed a huge mountain, and stopped short at the very last step.

You never really know whats going on in a fighters mind.
It's a crazy sport that demands a lot from the athletes.

 

Great vid @Rumsfeld It's a classic!

I think his best tools were his jab and his punching pace.

His ability to push off the back foot smoothly to jab, and then get back on his back foot was great with his body mechanics. It created a lot of distance with very minimal effort. Extremely useful tool.

And he paced his punches so that he could keep firing non stop. He didn't throw overly fast, but he could go into these long spurts of non stop punches. Good fighter! And again great work on the video.

 

Rummy makes great videos and is a true asset to this board. Glad you enjoyed my post. Maybe i’ll Get into the video making niche someday myself lol.

 

He quit against Tyson, saying something like ‘today’s not my day’ as if he was going to get another chance just like that.