Max Baer vs David Tua

Yes, Shavers was a level below Tua, that's true.

 

Based on what?

 

More questionable as a puncher at the highest level. All the best opponents he fought kept getting up!

 

David Tua generally lost against the best opponents he faced.

At least Shavers won some and lost some against them.

 

Moorer and Ruiz vs Norton and Ellis. Not a huge difference really.

 

There is between the versions they fought respectively.

Norton and Ellis were key contenders when Shavers beat them, while Moorer and Ruiz were not even close to being that when Tua beat them.

 

I fail to see how this affects their standing as power punchers.

 

It doesn't.

Power punchers are ten a penny throughout history.

Fighters who can do it against the elite of the division, are somewhat rarer.

that is what separates Baer, and to a lesser extent Shavers, from men like Tua.

 

Apart from Primo Carnera, which elite fighters did Baer stop ???

 

Max Schmeling at the risk of stating the obvious.

He stopped the two best heavyweights in the world in back to back fights.

Now when you are comparing him to a guy with a record like Tua, then any sort of win over a man ranked in the top ten becomes relevant.

Baer was stopping men ranked in the top ten over a span of eight years.

He stopped Grifiths in 1932, and he stopped Galento and Comiskey in 1940, and various people betwixt.

 

Neither was very skilled

 

I agree, but Baer is the right kind of unskilled here.

 

So Shavers didn't punch as hard as Tyson by that reckoning. And plenty of punchers hit harder than Shavers that could never make their power count against the top opponents. Is this where you're going with this line of argument?

 

No.

I am saying that power on its own, is not worth two bucket's of warm spit, and that Tua is a case in point.

 

Got Tua plenty far in his career.