How good was Tarver really?

If boxing was wrestling...Antonio Tarver would be Chris Jericho...

Always needs more than one chance to get the job done but when he does it pays off in spectacular fashion....

In other words he ****in sucks but he'll get credit because of his achievements.

 

Not that good.
Roy in his prime schools him.

 

Tarver was a decent fighter despite what some may say...He's not an ATG but he was good fighter who could give anybody hell.

 

He was a solid fighter. Sometimes he could fight a good, disciplined fight and other times he came in and fought lazily. He definitely had the tools, though.

 

Pretty much. A good fighter who gets a lot of crap because he looks like an alien and because he beat everyone's fave in RJJ.

 

Well he was certainly useless after he did the Rocky film. A schooling by B-Hop, a less-than-impressive performance against a stunted Woods, a fairly lopsided defeat to Dawson: he was less than world-class. He never looked like a great boxer anyway, only a pretty bland, one-dimensional puncher with a tortoise-shell defence who didn't really outbox anyone, more beat them with an extra inch of crude work rate or power. There was nothing distinctive about him that made him a great boxer. He just edged out a lot of fighters.

And RJJ was past it.

 

He caught a weight drained and weak RJJ who should've did like he said and retired after the first fight because he looked bad.

Tarver was a great amateur, and as a pro he was decent. A good fighter, but nothing all that spectacular. He will be remembered as a Iran Barkley type of fighter -- although in Iran's case his victory over a past-it Hearns gets more credit as Hearns was still pretty damn good at that point and was still young, somewhat, 29-30 and also went on to dominate Hill to win the LHW belt.

In any case, that's my opinion on Tarver. That he could not KO Jones in the 3rd fight, imo, make him look bad. That shot version of Jones who was coming off of a terrible KO by Johnson, had moments where he could've won but being shot couldn't pull the trigger anymore.

 

very true!

 

I think you're spot on brother...:good

 

Tarver is very good. Not total elite but an A- fighter to me.

He has very good skills although I don't think he is very naturally gifted. He doesn't do any one particular thing spectacularly but he comes into fights in shape and fights very smart.

 

Most people I've heard, myself included, feel he looked pretty damn good against Woods.

 

He was no good.

B- fighter at best.

Never beat an elite in their prime, never perfromed well against the elite in his division. And no, Roy was no longer elite in a H2H sense, as he was a shot fighter by the time he fought Tarver. Griffin was shot too, and still went all 12 rounds.

 

I think Woods flattered him. He was intimidated before the fight; he was getting shouted down by Tarver in the press conference, and looked totally off his game. He hardly threw anything in the whole fight, and Tarver just stole rounds at will. Woods was a walking corpse that night; Tarver should have been able to knock him the **** out.

 

He did, but Woods is garbage, always was.