How do you rate Tarver?

banks is his only credible hw win. that is pushing credible pretty far. i'd imagine plenty of guys you wouldn't expect beat tarver.

 

Arreola might try to eat his milk dud head. Seriously Arreola is done. Tarver would outbox him.

 

Tarver had a tight defense, patiently walked down Banks, put away Banks when he was hurt and had a good but boring win

How much of this was Tarver being solid and Banks being in fear of the left or how much was it Banks being rusty and gun shy to begin with and like the Mitchell rematch really didnt take it to the old man

I'll pass judgement on tarver when I see him in with a guy who pushes the pace

 

How, though? By knockout? You can pretty much count on a single hand (with leftover fingers) the guys with the power, speed, and timing needed to actually catch Tarver with a big shot, and big enough that you could imagine he couldn't stand up to it. (although nobody has ever knocked him out, so who knows if even a flush bomb from a powerful super heavy could do the job? Pure conjecture...and his chin is proven cast iron, albeit down at LHW)

How many outbox him? That's a pretty short list, honestly. His skill and experience trumps virtually everybody's in the division. (yes there are some guys with good amateur backgrounds floating around, but Tarver was an ATG amateur,, among America's all-time-greatest, and has literally seen it all in the pros)

Just physically rough him up on the ropes/outwork him and impose true HW size? Which top heavies possess the style and requisite attributes to have success that way?

The only guy that definitely can do any (or all three) of the above is WK. Maybe Povetkin. That's it.

 

he looked like **** against mike shepperd. jonathon banks has really done nothing at hw, except expose mitchell. everyone already knew that was a matter of time. if wlad wants an easy w, he should fight tarver. he'd damn well better fight at least three times next year if he takes a fight against tarver or briggs though.

 

Well look at the rest of the top 10. He's not there yet, but would stomp on Briggs!
I think he beats Wilder too based on current form.
#7 is too high, but if you look at their top 10, only the top 5 are solid bets to beat him.
Against the bottom 5 he's either a slight favorite, or underdog.

Edit: In case I confused anyone. No I don't think briggs is top ten, or anywhere near it. But would like to see Tarver stomp him.

 

I have him somewhere in the 20-30 range, maybe #19 tops. Hard call whether to rank him ahead of Scott, Arreola, Solis, Teper, Ustinov etc. Hard to make an assessment based on one fight with the mercurial Banks.

Klitschko is not a realistic opponent. I'd be interested in seeing Tarver box any other heavyweight in the Top 30.

 

Adamek and Cunningham always wanted a piece of Tarver but those fights never materialized. Now that Cunningham has more notoriety in the USA it's time to make that fight happen.

 

Funny stuff. The WBA heavyweight rankings are a trip...

http://www.wbanews.com/wba-ranking

Crazy to see Briggs as 6th. Maybe he and Tarver will fight an eliminator for Chagaev's belt :nut

 

Yes probably. The matchups that would be interesting are with other middle-aged former cruiserweight champions. Guillermo Jones, Mormeck, Drozd, Cunningham, etc.

 

Rankings don't mean a great deal outside the top 10 and the Heavyweight division doesn't get a fair shake. Is Roy Jones Jr really the 23rd best Cruiserweight on the planet? Of course not, a logarithm placed him there; 75% of the Cruiserweight division walks that husk down and makes it face-plant the canvas. Likewise, Rod Salka's sitting pigeon chested at number 47 in Light Welter is farcical.

When it comes to Tarver, he clearly has no place in the top 10 of the Heavyweight division. A good enough win over Johnathan Banks, but let's not forget that arguably Banks' best win is over Seth Mitchell, whose joke of a career was brought to an abrupt and humiliating end by the obese platypus Arreola, who himself has always failed when stepping up in competition.

Tarver loses to everyone in the top 20 as it currently stands, with the exception of Christian Hammer (whose ranking is itself a mystery worthy of Charlie Chan) and Artur Szpilka. He can happily sit at 21 for all I care, as the rest of the division, with a few exceptions, is big men earning supplementary income from their physical size, with little to no boxing ability. The same as the heavyweight division has always been.

 

it is possible he could beat anybody, these would be the ones where I would favour him to lose. So 26.
WLADIMIR KLITSCHKO
ALEXANDER POVETKIN
VYACHESLAV GLAZKOV
KUBRAT PULEV
TYSON FURY
BERMANE STIVERNE
BRYANT JENNINGS
CARLOS TAKAM
DEONTAY WILDER
DERECK CHISORA
ARTUR SZPILKA
ANTHONY THOMPSON
MANUEL CHARR
CHRIS ARREOLA
STEVE CUNNINGHAM
CHRISTIAN HAMMER
ANDY RUIZ jn
MIKE PEREZ
LUIS ORTIZ
ANTHONY JOSHUA
JOSEPH PARKER
DAVID PRICE
ODLANIER SOLIS FONTE
AMIR MANSOUR
GERALD WASHINGTON
BOGDAN DINU