Harder puncher: Gassiev or Briedis?

I mean, I wouldn't say it wasn't close. Gassiev to me clearly hits a bit harder, but of all other cruisers I think Briedis is nearest to him, outside maybe Kudryashov and Ilunga Makabu standing neck and neck as the second tier of the pyramid of CW power, with the next & tertiary below them composed of the likes of Tabiti, Dorticos himself, Russian secret weapon Yuri Kashinski, and the formerly overrated but now underrated (again, boxing fans are fickle) Krzysztof Głowacki, and Lebedev - and then a slew of "let's wait and see" prospects like Aleksei Papin, Fabio Turchi, Lawrence Okolie, Jai Opetaia, Luis Garcia, Patrick Ferguson etc who all could end up falling on any of those three tiers.

 

I rate Abdoul's chin as the 2nd hardest p4p in the last 20 years, behind only Johnny "Fenix" Ruiz, and only because Abdoul is also pretty slick for a journeyman, whereas Ruiz literally spent his entire career blocking punches with his face and still never left his feet.


...and that mystery is pretty easy to solve, really. On the surface it may appear that 14-0 Gassiev and 13-0 Briedis ought to be a pretty apples to apples comparison, and that struggling more with Briedis is evidence of his superiority h2h (at least in that one stylistic match-up) or at least maturing to his peak faster. Well, the latter is sort of true; Gassiev from 2011 until 2014 was no doubt talented but had yet to unlock his true potential. He was 18-0 (12) from his debut through his battle with Armenian-German fellow undefeated 9-0 (6) hard-hitting prospect Leon Harth. A third of his opponents went the distance with him in this span...and he wasn't exactly taking on what you'd call stiff tests relative to his experience for the most part (outside Abdoul, Harth and maybe a couple others). He was heavy-handed, but raw. Reason? He still had yet to link up with Abel Sánchez. That happened in late 2014, and their first collaboration was versus Engin Karakaplan that Halloween. Lo and behold, Karakaplan (riding a 4½ year undefeated streak and having last been stopped 5 years earlier, by Youri Kalenga - and, coming fresh off a victory over Jean Marc Monrose for the French cruiser title) was blitzed in 90 seconds. There is an interview of Sánchez bragging about his new acquisition in early November of 2014, and still aglow over the near-instantaneous progress they made together in just a matter of months. Sánchez is also clearly absent from Gassiev's corner in the Harth fight, which is up in full on YouTube:

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So the pre-Summit version of Gassiev was pretty good but probably was never going to reach the same heights that our timeline's version did, if a butterfly had flapped its wings and he never made it to Sánchez's doorstep. Under the guidance of Abel, he is now 8-0-0-1 (7), and that really ought to be 9-0 (8) including the Isiah Thomas debacle, and the only person to last the distance with him was Lebedev (and even he got plunked).

By 2015, Gassiev was a primed & ready world title contender (and growing into a gym legend already); in 2016 he grabbed his first championship belt.

Fairly obviously a whole different animal now than he was pre-Karakaplan (during which era he fought Cool Abdoul).

 

Kind of like how Wlad & Vitali weren't allowed to hard-spar after things got too hairy once?