Prime Mercer vs young Wlad, yea, I'd favor Mercer. Steward trained Wlad, Klitschko by split decision. Wlad never did well with aggressive type punchers. I'm sure Mercer would make it a war, win the late rounds, but Wlad would have built a huge early lead and gassed out in the end.
It will definitely be an intriguing fight and a highly competitive one too. I see both fighters having their moments in this one with Wladimir winning in a very close SD. Wladimir is extremely good against smaller opponents and uses his physical advantages masterfully well. He uses his reach to its maximum by constantly jabbing and keeping smaller opponents at bay, off balance and inevitably vulnerable to his right hand. One thing's guaranteed, Wladimir isn't going to hurt or drop Mercer. He couldn't drop an old ancient Mercer so a prime version is definitely taking those punches all night and dishing out his own. I wouldn't be surprised to see everyone picking Mercer now that a 40 year old Wladimir finally lost to a highly skilled and underrated opponent. Seems to be the usual with the majority of foolish fans that simply follow recent event while completely disregarding physical factors(Fury's height, fighting style, reach...etc) involved. My prediction is based on Steward's(Rest in Peace) Wladimir. The Wladimir prior to Steward(Rest in Peace) gets iced in three rounds tops against prime Mercer.
Wlad dropped Mercer in round 1. After that, Mercer seemed to "get used to" Wlad's punches, more or less, and ate them and stayed on his feet.
I'm not really sure how this plays out. Mercer was so hot-and-cold. Just a few months prior, Mercer was getting beaten soundly by Damiani before landing a miracle uppercut that just caught him right on the nose and broke it. Mercer was getting soundly beaten for 3 rounds by Morrison, then came back stronger in the 4th, and stopped Morrison in the 5th. While Morrison had some similar weaknesses to Wlad, I think Wlad would fight smarter and pace himself. I think nerves may have gotten to Morrison against Mercer, I think it played a part in him getting tired pretty quickly. Not that Morrison's stamina was the best but he showed against other opponents that he could certainly do better in the latter rounds and come on strong as opposed to what happened against Mercer. Wlad would likely to a lot of clinching and leaning down on Mercer, which saps energy from Wlad's opponents to have a strong 245 lb. guy like him holding and leaning down on them. Old Ray did manage to use his jab fairly effectively against Wlad and mark his face up for what it's worth. Mercer was coming off inactivity and almost defeated a Steward-trained Lewis, so I don't know how to predict this one.
