Flowers was a legit MW/LHW (where he started) his weak chin wouldnt have been a factor against the smaller Graziano. He would have been all over Graziano like a wet blanket. Probably a stoppage for Flowers in the mid to late rounds either on cuts or by simply wearing Graziano out. I dont think Graziano was any better than smallish middleweights like Bogash, Malone, and Robson, all of whom Flowers handled fairly easily. He would handle Graziano.
Peak Tiger mowed down Johnny Wilson in highly impressive fashion. Nobody ever whooped him like that. Graziano wouldn't fair much better.
Right, He said that in the Heller book but is it true? He's active enough that year, his job is to stay in fighting shape and the fight reads like all the training in the world wouldn't have changed things much.
I buy it. He signed to fight Flowers on November 30, the fight was the ninth, so yeah, he had about a week to train. You said it yourself, nobody did that Wilson. I doubt a prime Wilson goes down like that. In fact a lot of people thought it was stopped a tad early. Wilson was so irritated by the stoppage that he signed to fight Flowers a rematch in Boston in January but I think he thought better of it. By then he was already fading fast. Compound that with the fact that Wilson had plenty of "extra-curricular" interests and I think you can see how one week to prepare for Flowers could generate a pretty poor performance. Im not saying he would have EVER beat Flowers, I just dont think he gets beat that bad. I also wouldnt count him completely out against Flowers either. Wilson was one of the best body punchers in the game during his prime and he definately beat some fighters that I personally wouldnt expect him to beat.
Well looks like prime Flowers dopes out over prime Wilson. Prime Flowers over prime Graziano. Now ill put down my prime label for a bit.
