How good was Ike Ibeabuchi?

If we knew for sure, we wouldn't argue as much in H2H fantasy threads.

 

One of the most overrated fighters. Like Tua. Those two had a good fight against each other and people act as if they would be atgs. :-(

 

His illness helped him in his career. I suspect if he was sane he would of been very ordinary...

 

The problem is that his whole career gets viewed as the Tua and Byrd fights. Everything else he did, how he performed, gets ignored.

Those were two attention grabbing fights, the Tua bout one of the best of the nineties.
But it does gloss over his rather plodding performance against journeyman Everton Davies and the frustrating time he had against Marion Wilson for example. His other wins apart from those two guys were against tomato cans and low level fighters.

Or that the Tua win was very debatable in the first place and the fight against Byrd dead level before the stoppage.

I think if you brawl with him you're taking a big risk. A tall long-ranged fighter boxing him, however, I think could nullify a lot of what he does.

If this was on General, I'd be one of the guys arguing that it's Wlad that could beat Ike, not the other way round. Ike would be giving up several inches in height and, crucially, in reach...one thing to his advantage against both Tua and Byrd was that they were not long-range fighters.

I'd most certainly pick someone like Holmes to outbox him six ways from Sunday and leave him dazed, any day of the week.

So I'd say Ike was very good. He would've been a dangerous contender. But not great, never.

And given his mental problems, Ike as a heavyweight champion could've been one of the most horrible disasters for the sport's image if he'd continued his downwards spiral.

 

He was a big scary dude for the time , but we have some big rigs now that can fight pretty good, his power is probably a bit overdone as he didnt actually have a particularly high %, it was more how he wasted Byrd but yes he had a lot of power.
He was a strong bombproof guy with decent skill and good power but IMO would more often that not get outboxed by Klit or Lewis, good fight though, he could box and he did look to be a future champion.

 

Thats a particularly stupid statement. The fight with Ike was a tossup and a draw would be a realistic result and in fact Tua has only been outpointed by Tua and Byrd. Tua hasnt been in prime physical shape since about 1998 in any case.

 

Ike was NO TUA. He had a jab. Ike proved he could track down and take out a slickster in Byrd, and go toe to toe with a the best version of Tua.

His chin, power, and stamina must be viewed as excellent.

 

People say 'he only beat Tua who many outboxed', actually at the time no one had beaten Tua, he was undefeated and Ibeabuchi took his zero, not by out jabbing and running but by outfighting him on the inside.

People say 'Byrd outboxed him before the KO'. I certainly didn't see that, they ignore Ike's pressure, his bodywork, the fact he landed all the harder punches, had Byrd running and the fact he said before the fight 'I'll let him win rounds but I'm going to knock him out'and the fact Byrd was still unbeaten at this stage

People say 'Ike's overrated he never achieved anything' - in 2 fights he scalped 2 better wins than either Klitschko

'Ike may have had nightmares with rangy jabbers' - who knows, maybe, he has a good defense and ability to slip/parry, a good jab and excellent text book pressure with the ability to close the gap fast and he could punch, not to mention he was 240lbs of ripped muscle. Its a pity we never got Vitali-Ibeaubuchi as 2 prospects squaring off

 

Pretty impossible to give a proper answer. Similar question to Valero really, know one will ever know.

 

You could certainly make that argument. And did it in impressive fashion. :yep

 

He was a bigish guy with a half decent ring work ethic.

His power is debatable , good combinations good accuracy with pritty good power. Not massive one punch power, 8 of his 15 KOs are TKOs. If he continued Lewis would have beat him as would Holyfield. If by some chance he did win a title Vit would have probably taken it from him. I think Ruiz stands a good chance against him too. Not to take anything from the guy i think he would have been a good contender who can put up a good fight with most.

 

Nah, Wlad´s first win over Byrd is better than every win of Ike.

 

Yes going the distance with an Ibeaubuchi left over who Ike knocked out in 5 is better than anything on Ike's record atsch