Prime Ray Mercer vs. Prime David Tua

Dude, I got that fight somewhere in my garage. I look for it this weekend and let you know if I find it.

 

Tua at his best was very good and very under rated. His left hook may be the hardest single punch of any HW, ever and if he lands that flush on anyone they are in serious trouble.

 

Ibeabuchi and Tua is what I thought of when I saw this intriguing match-up. It is also the reason that I'm leaning towards Tua in this one. Ike did not set that punch stat record all by himself. Tua was quite active in that fight as well. Tua use to throw a considerable higher volume of punches than what we began seeing from him around the time he faced Lewis.

I have no problem with anyone picking Mercer. I just think that Tua would land the harder blows, and win a decision.

 

With the huge amount of punches prime Tua threw, imagining him throwing a barrage of follow up punches is far from a stretch.

I reverse from my original pick, after thinking about it I think The Tuaman's workrate would be the difference, Mercer was never fleetfooted.

 

Prime Mercer had good skills - he had close fight with Lewis and Holy who were more or less at their primes.

Tua was always limited. A lot of his opponents "almost won" with him and some of them were definitely worse than prime Mercer (like Maskaev or Oquendo - although I agree it wasn't always prime Tua). Most probably Tua won't land anything useful - and even if he does, Mercer survives it anyway and gets wide UD.

 

Prime Tua was very good, tremendous workrate. Prime Mercer was very good at absorbing punishment. Prime Tua wins an easy 12 round fight but Ray makes a good losing showing.

 

Think about the fighters that Mercer did well against. He likes to take boxers and make them fight him. Tua would ablige that and no way hes outslugging Tua. The fight would look like the Ibeabuchi fight, but Mercer didnt have the skills of Ike, but definitely the chin. I cant see Mercer fighting from the outside with Tua, that wasnt his style.

 

i would go with mercer but a very good match up