Larry Holmes v Wladamir Kiltschko

Holmes' greater handspeed is the difference, to me.

He's going to come, and he's going to throw. A fighter as smart as Larry Holmes will know that he has to do this to win, and he'd do it.

The greater speed and the combinations would work the trick. Wlad would be on the retreat fairly often.

This wouldn't be a battle of the jabs, it would be a battle of the feet. And in a battle of the feet, look to who has the faster hands.

Holmes biggest pitfall is getting stuck in a jabbing battle. Wlad defends himself better on the outside, Holmes was often lazy with his hands and a bit heavy on the leaning, and he does NOT want to get blasted by a puncher like Wlad.

Holmes probably eats a big shot and gets into trouble(Whether or not he goes down, who knows), but by and large, he'd have Wlad looking to hold or reset while he moves his hands. He'd win a wide decision UNLESS he gets in trouble and Wlad dispatches him.

 

I wouldn't use the qualifier far, but Larry's jab, and hands in general, were faster than Wlad's.

 

Hey Magna,

My view might be right off but it seems to me that Ali & Holmes never did any type of weight training or bulking and simply kept there builds slim and cut (210-220lb area). Is this the reason why they had quick hand-speed? I notice most Heavies nowadays are 220lb and up.

 

12 rounds or 15?

At their best, I would go with Holmes via hard fought late round TKO. However pre prime, or post 33, I would pick Wald. Holmes had trouble at time with Cooney who isn't nearly as skilled as Wlad is.

 

Their speed is conditioned upon their timing, their terrific legs, and their explosiveness.

They throw the punches right, they throw the hard, and they throw then with snap.

I don't think size has a ton to do with speed as much as proper technique and timing does. Wlad has really quick hands for a big guy. So did Riddick Bowe.

Eddie Chambers is a perfect example of a sharp puncher whose speed is in his technique. More often than not, Eddie is a bit fat. He stills rips his shots.

 

Putting on muscle seems to affect stamina more than speed. There have been a number of fast and explosive punchers who were bulked up to the gills, and not especially crisp of technique, but were able to land their shots with power and regularity. Just not on a consistent basis.

 

It's like you wrote that about me

Technique has a lot to do with it, but I'm not gonna say flawless technique or anything like that. The punches aren't looping, they're crisp...It's really, really difficult to put it in writing.

 

You just gotta throw the punches straight and short.
That's the techique part I bet, or sort of.

 

That's a big part of it. Pivot when you punch, explode with the hips off your feet.

You know, body mechanics, none of that roundhouse ****, snap the shots. Voila. Speed. Insert a certain degree of athletic greatness, add a dash of gifted quick twitch muscle fibers, and you have blazing speed.

A good picture of a guy who was NOT explosive having decent handspeed is Julio Cesar Chavez. The dude is clearly not a quick twitch athlete, because his footspeed and his reaction times are pretty slow, but he moves those hands at more than a respectable clip. It's because he throws his shots perfectly, and uses his body for leverage and explosion. Probably why he hit so disproportionately hard too, on top of his big ass hands.

 

Holmes 120 -108

Wlad could only land 12 punches a round on Haye who stood in front of him.
Larry uses the whole ring efficiently and would double that output in a half a round. A 1-2 Wlad who doesn't like to engage wont trouble Holmes in the slightest and will get peppered with jabs and combinations while desperately trying to pin down Larry.
Wlad also cant come close to matching him on stamina.

 

JCC often looked like a robot because of that, so extremely efficient.

It's also very important to always be calm so you can keep everything tight and short, like Salvador Sanchez and JCC.
You can see with Wlad he's getting sloppy once he smells problems and Mike Tyson couldn't do anything against Holyfield because his mind was one big cluster because he didn't know what to do anymore, Frank Bruno also became stiff as a cardboard once he got tagged a few times, Khan also panics when he's hurt and tries to brawl out of it.

 

It is my experience that at least half of what most fans call "chin" is in fact the composure you mention.

When pressured, or uncomfortable, you can either settle in, or you start making mistakes and losing technique. That's when you get hit by something big that the other guy couldn't simply hit you with before.

Any trained fighter with skill and experience can put another man down and out. Does he get the opportunity to land that one massive shot he puts everything behind? Composure under fire can determine that.

Wlad's response is to hold or retreat. Tyson's is to wing shots and foul. Bruno's is to just stop moving.

Rare is the fighter like Chavez who takes a second, exhales, and settles back in. Rare indeed.

 

I'm not sure if that's speed so much as minimising the time it takes for your fist to reach its target. Maybe that's splitting hairs though. It all comes to much the same thing in the end.

One of the things I love when watching top class boxers is their crispness of hands. It's something you really don't see a lot of in other fight sports, and it's just beautiful to watch. Pure learned skills being applied in the combat zone to combat a potentially stronger or more athletic foe. Wonderful.

Tszyu is another fighter who's not phenomenally fast but was always able to land his shots with pinpoint regularity.

 

I'm having a very hard time communicating what I mean, but we all seem to understand eachother.

Tszyu is a great example.