http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01CCklta81g Holy **** these two look good. Its a shame that Klits didnt take these men on from 1998-1999.....This would have told us alot about the klits how do klits do vs these versions of tua and ike?
Wlad loses by KO to Ike and wins a UD against Tua. Vitali vs Ike is 50/50. Vitali wins a UD against Tua.
Both bing pressure, speed and athleticism unseen by both brothers. Ibeaubuchi is a better technical boxer than either brother has seen (old Lennox apart) I think both could KO both brothers, with Tua having a greater chance of losing UDs, although this Tua was better than the version who lost to Lewis and Tua could take Wlad out if he lands for any 10seconds of the fight
Not enough of Ike to truly say although he was terrific against a prime Tua ... Vitali has much better shot because of his iron chin ...Wlad may outbox a lazy Tua or get flattened ..
In '99? Both were too green to beat them. Prime for prime it's a different story. Ibeabuchi is hard to judge, because we never saw him against a tall opponent with a good jab. It is very well possible that he might not know what to do..... or he could be his awesome self. I did score the Tua fight for the Samoan, but it was close. The fact that he "retired" before losing might make him look better than he is. Had Frazier retired before the Foreman fight, he'd be considered invincible. Had Foreman retired before the Ali fight, he'd been seen as invincible. etc etc. Tua is another case hard to judge. Iron chin and big punch, but could be outboxed and look mediocre. Rahman was winning the first one handily until that controversial, blatant, unpunished, hook after the bell, and should've won the second one. Byrd embarrassed him, as did Lewis (who was supposed to have a shaky chin). You don't know what to expect. One thing i do know: he's gonna have an awful hard time landing that left hook on such tall fighters with good footwork, particularly Wlad.
Not sure personally....Tua still managed to land a few hard shots on Lewis even though he was thorougly out-boxed, I suspect if he landed those shots on WALDO then it'd be Sanders all over again. Ibeabuchi was a favourite of mine, the punch he made Byrd drool from was one of the best punches ever thrown at HW for me, but for all that his career was cut short so we'll never know what he could really do but the fact that he went toe to toe with Tua for 12 rounds says a hell of a lot about how tough he was. Both of them have a better shot at WALDO than VITLAY due to the chin factor, but I wouldn't say they'd definately beat him. I think VITLAY would out-box the pair of them but they're both hard headed enough to keep coming forward and land their own shots so they could force a stoppage like Lewis did. I'd say against WALDO they'd both be around 50-50, and with VITLAY it'd be more like 70-30 in VITLAYS favour.
This is one of the greatest non title fights ever and while I agree both fighters were too green to fight the Klitschkos they are the sort of fighters that would give either brother a hard time with their ability to take a punch, knockout power, and STAMINA and PRESSURE, imagine Wlad being forced to throw 90 punches a round just to keep them off.