Jirov...another inactive fighter

Actually Gomez would have probably beaten Jirov, as well as Toney and David Haye. That's how good he was at 190.

 

I wonder if he made more money in his HW fights than at CW? That's probably why he went up, but the move never panned out, inactivity, the Toney and Moorer fights, and wear and tear seemed to really have hurt his career.

 

No Toney didn't ruin him. Go back and watch the Adolfo Washington fight, it was typical Jirov-he had a great chin and so he just ate hard punches and walked right through them to get to Washington's body. He took way too many punches long before the Toney fight, and thats not taking anything away from JT.

 

Fighters take punches. He was too heavy against Washington and not as mobile, but it's not like he sustained a beating in that fight. Jirov was never really challenged until Toney. Hard to argue that the grueling fight with JT didn't take it out of him, when he was never on the same level. The decision to go to heavyweight wasn't a good one, either.

As far as Gomez, it would have been a great fight in, say, 1999. Gomez was a beast at 190, but not sure he could have handled Jirov's relentless pressure. And, as good as Gomez looked, he looked that way against mediocre competition, and never faced anyone nearly as good as JT. Too bad Jirov/Gomez didn't happen.