That's why he measures his pace extremely well and is jab oriented. He used to be crazy offensively and blew his wad routinely early on in fights (see: Brewster and his next fight after). Now he fights conservatively to compensate for that and everyone calls him boring.
Right up there with Haye / Harrison.....oh wait, that was the fight the public wanted and was "smart business"
Was throwing over 60 punches a round vs Brewster, a good majority of those being power shots. Threw 18 per round vs Pulev.
audley/gaye was a poor event agreed, but briggs would be far worse. lets not judge briggs since its not transpired, yet.
I actually thinks its because nobody has been able to walk through his shots while making him uncomfortable at the same time. Of course wlad doesnt set a pace like he used to either where sometimes it was as if he was trying to sprint a marathon which for a big man is suicide. The next time wlad tries to set a high pace with someone with the chin and toughness to walk through his fire and truly try to chop him down and has a good punch i actually wouldnt be suprised to see wlad gas and have major problems again. However hes wiser with his pace, along with his compulsive and excessive holding also helping him pace himself a bit and might prevent another scenario like that from happening.
This is it IMO. He got the jab working hideously. Probably the hardest jab since Liston. Maybe the hardest jab there's ever been. Plus, the virtual threat of the right. Bit nightmarish to pressure him and make him work harder than he wants to.
Right. Wlad is more relaxed these days too. He's a true boxing master. He's also learned how to use his weight in the clinches. Bottom line few have better conditioning today.
Wlad stamina has mostly improved with better pacing of his power punch out put, and also less nervous energy due to experience I feel. Improved training methods may be a big factor as well. In no way with Shannon Briggs versus Wlad be worse than Haye-Harrison. Granted, it would be a bad event, but at least Briggs is a "has been" whereas Audley Harrison was a shot "never was".
I felt like Pulev was able to pressure him a bit more than Wlad cares for, and also made Wlad's jab a non-factor. That's exactly what Pulev's game plan was going in. We all saw how that worked out for himatsch