This should be the concern. Wasnt he in hospital twice with it? March is way too soon, time is against him though
His skills cannot be denied. Yes he is a decent pressure fighter really, with a certain amount of finesse & skill. Good two handed power - nice left hook. But being ranked amongst top 20 heavyweight of all time (higher than george foreman,Dempsey!!) despite having 0 title win....Cmon... If i was Boxrec , i would have him anywhere outside the top 100, i would rank him lower than Tommy Morrison (who, unlike Covidkin, held a title in the second Greatest era ever in boxing).
Yes he is unlucky and yes the fight with Clinchko was ugly af. But that does not give him the opportunity to warrant a place amongst the ATG.
Yeah he was hospitalized twice for Covid, and he have lost a lot of weight. Its one thing to get back your weight, and completely another to get in shape, esp at his advance age. Its pretty much a rematch so Whyte could avenge his lost. Povetkin will be a shadow of himself, even a shadow of way past prime Povetkin. Povetkin was a damn quality fighter. Especially after the lost to Klitschko and training coaches and start looking after his physical shape. He was in incredible shape in the period of 2014-2016. I think he start sleeping after that. In 2017 you could clearly see the sign, and in 2018 he wasn`t a 12 round fighter anymore. After you hit 37, you can simply decline big time not for a year, but from a fight for fight. As far as Klitschko fight. It was referee and both fighters fault. Povetkin shouldn`t have lunged like that, and when he see he is tied up every time, he should have trying to go with combination, not a single punch. Even he admitted that after the fight. Also Povetkin should have work way more on the clinch, and with his short arms, should have land in there, like Ruiz is doing in the clinch against Joshua for example. Its a weak point in your game if you don`t know what to do when the opponent clinch you. The clinch can work both way, defensively and offensively. Povetkin as a great fighter he was, didn`t know the sciences behind clinches. I will give another example with Joshua and Loma. They just try to fight out of the clinch and throw inside punches. You have hooks and uppercuts to use there and they are very dangerous. Also body punches as well. As far as Klitschko, one of the reasons he clinch so much, was probably because he was already very old there, and his cardio/energy starting to go, and he needed to reduce his punch output and his movement, and thats why he clinches more and more. Same with Jennings fight, as well as Pulev and Fury. Against Pulev he landed the punch he needed, but his footwork, explosivness and hands speed was just not the same. It was looking clumsy trying to land his shots. I think he made a big mistake with the coach he choose as well - Banks. I mean he even said by himself that he trained by his own, and Banks was just there ..... just for the sake of it. This is the worst thing to happen to a fighter. Why i said all this. Because people on here are comparing a very very old fighters 37+ years old, against a totally prime fighters. This means nothing at the end of the day. Lets see how Fury, Joshua and Wilder will look 37+ years old. What opposition they will fight, and will they even be active. The way i see it Wilder is 35 already and his energy is already dropping hard. Klitschko and Povetkin at 35 was a totally beats. Fury at 37 years old will probably be weight 400 pounds. And Joshua will barely move with all of his weight training.
If you not gonna give Joshua credit for beating pov then you can't give credit to pov for beating past prime hasim and byrd.
I'm a fan, and I think he would probably have stopped Wilder. An earlier version would have beaten AJ as well. But there are some fighters who IMO, at their best, would beat the best version of Pov. Ali, Foreman, Lewis, Vitali, and probably both Tysons
Byrd and Rachman weren't past prime , they were shots bits. AJ fought a dangerous Povetkin who still had plenty left in the tank.
Nah he doesn’t beat Foreman but he’s not losing to a 13 stone Dempsey who fought with a style of boxing from 1920.
