lets talk about chris "rapid fire" byrd

I've always been a big fan of Byrd because I love great defensive fighters, of which he is one of the best.

The things that made Byrd a champion were his hand speed, southpaw awkwardness, and his tremendous head movement. By head movement, I don't just mean the ability to move his head to avoid punches, but also the ability to change the plane on which his head was, largely by bending his knees and twisting laterally constantly. When Byrd was at his absolute best he also added an element of lateral movement in the form of stepping around his opponent, for instance against Tua. IMO, Byrd didn't do enough of this in his career but often chose to sit in the pocket and counterpunch.

Byrd's best fights were against larger, slower men that let him stay in counterpuncher mode where his speed and slickness were most effectively utilized. For examples see his fights with Tua, Jimmy Thunder, Golota, and Jameel McCline.

Byrd had more trouble with two types of fighter: smaller, mobile fighters who would force Byrd to take the initiative and had the speed to at least not be completely overwhelmed by Byrd's sharpness and rangy fighters who made it tough to counter against. Chris was not comfortable dictating the forward geography of a fight and you could see he was not always comfortable when someone else fought a negative type fight against him. Examples are Mo Harris, DaVryll Williamson, and Fres Oquendo.

Both Klitschkos troubled Byrd just because of their tremendous reach, outstanding jabs, and larger physicality. Ibebuchi was also a big guy but fast and not as bothered by Byrd's speed.

To the Lennox Lewis sub-thread: I really think even a declining Lewis would have beaten Byrd just stylistically. Lewis had the height and reach and more importantly the jab. Byrd had a hard time when Wlad and Vitali were at range with finding the distance to counter off those jabs. When Byrd did slip and fall in to find the distance, both guys put something behind it. The only exception were say rounds 6-9 of the Vitali fight when Vitali's jab rate slowed down. You won't find a better long-range heavyweight fighter than Lennox Lewis and I think he takes a wide decision or maybe even stops Chris in 8 or 9.

To conclude, I do think Byrd was extremely under-appreciated solely because he wasn't a killer puncher. But for the fan of pure boxing, he was fun as heck to watch. I don't see many guys incorporating his style, particularly at heavyweight, and we might not see one for many years.

 

Great, great post Augustus.

How did you see Byrd's close fights going?

 

I pretty much think most of the decisions were good.

Oquendo beat him, but it wasn't a blowout. 115-113, somewhere in there.

I thought he sneaked by Arthur Williams and Byrd was dropped in that fight. The Golota draw was a fair decision. I had Byrd over McCline too by a couple points.

 

Chris Byrd vs Jimmy Young could either be a very boring contest or an exciting tactical match.

Byrd's strengths were fast hands and feet, and solid head movement, using the angles to set up his punches. What he didn't do was make his opponent pay after making them miss punches.

What happened to the proposed fight between Byrd and Jones Jr? Why didn't it happen? This could have been a good fight.