Herbie Hide

27 ok, I guess you memorised his birthday in your diary etc but stillnot green by a fair chalk.

 

VItlai was pre-prime in this fight. He turned pro at age 25.

Hide was in his prime.

 

I doubt he could have done that.

To unify and reign for several years he would have had to defeat some pretty good fighters and avoid being sparked while carrying that glass chin of his.

 

herb had trouble holding onto the unwanted wbo title, never mind several years.

 

they were both prime, a man with 24 fights is not green.

 

Meh.. From 1994-2000, the cruiser weight class wasn't exactly bouncing with fighters that I would have picked to be a serious threat to him, i.e, Nate Miller, Fabrice Tiozzo, Adolpho Washington, Carl Thompson, Juan Carlos Gomez, Alfred Cole, Orlin Norris, an old virgil Hill, Vasily Jirov, etc... I think he could have potentially beaten all those guys.. Biggest problem I see is not so much his chin but rather his mental fortitude and ability to remain stable both inside the ring and out.

 

I don't think for a moment that Hide could have made 190 in those days. I remember him losing to Akinwande in the 1989 HW ABA final - in the amateurs in the UK then the HW limit was 200lbs (14stone 4lbs), so I doublt he could have made 190 5 to 10 years later.

Unfortunately for Herbie he never had the punch resistance to have a consistent winning run at elite nlevel, even against the 210-215 sort of weight range.

 

Prime is not just a fighter's age, it's his peak skill set. Vitali picked up skills as his professional career continued.

For Hide, that time line was about as good as he ever was.

 

obviously why tell me that..

so does everyone, or are you claiming vits was an especially slow learner?

sure hide was prime I've never been debating that, why are you?

green is nevertheless way too strong a word for a 24 fight man fighting for a title. vits was perhaps just pre-prime at the very most, that's as far as you can push it.

 

Nuclear puncher who was fast/explosive enough to land big hooks from the outside. Stiff as a board on defense however, chinny, whatever you'd like to call it.

Inconsistent to the point of being able to be upset by almost anyone on a given night however, which was a theme throughout his entire career.

A bit unlucky to of had his two biggest fights at heavy against heavies are large and good as Bowe and Vitali.

 

Nobody who gets knocked out in the second round did well, unless Rhonda Roussey is the opponent.

 

Hide also did well against Bower as well.... Stunned him a couple of times.

 

Yes he did very well for the first 2.5 rounds but once again his terrible lack of defence and terrible chin let him down again and it always would against top level opposition. But he did hurt Bowe and had him complaining to the ref early and even when he was being bounced off the canvas repeatedly he was still landing clean, hard shots on Bowe between the knockdowns.

The first knockdown he suffered against Bowe was a weird one, it didn't seem like he was hit with a shot, the ref didn't call it a knockdown but it was clear Hide was badly hurt. He just seemed to have collided his head against Bowe's chest and that seemed enough to drop Hide and stun him.

Hide's chin was as bad as it gets, Bowe had him hurt with the first clean shot to the chin he landed and it was a jab. Vitali had him down with the first clean punch he landed as well.

 

Gomez, Cole and Norris were at least as good as him, I'd say.
Even in the UK scene, Thompson and Nelson would have been serious threats.

That's not quite the same as "easily unified and reigned for several years."


Hide's resume is pretty weak. If you look at the actual names he beat. Michael Bentt, Willi Fischer, Craig Petersen... an ancient shell of Tony Tucker ... Everett Martin ...

 

I was fan of Haye's in the 90s, especially when he put Micheal Bentt away, I also thought he did pretty well against Bowe as wasn't expecting him to win that anyway.

I went off him a bit around the time he fought Vitali because of his pre fight antics, he looked unstable in the bullying tactics, came across a bit of a tool be be honest. Then when he lost in the way he did it was clear he couldn't mix it up at heavyweight. was a shame really as he had an odd way of putting really devastating punches together, he probably had the ability to do a lot of damage if it wasn't for that chin, and obviously his unstable mindset.