I started the thread so now I'll give my take. If Tim is motivated and in reasonable shape then I think he can win this in a close fight. He did after all fight Holmes to a standstill and beat some of the better young heavys of the 80's. Nothing Povetkin's ever done surpasses that in my eyes. In addition, Witherspoon was awkward, durable, hard hitting, difficult to figure out and not easily intimidated. He was a nightmare for most men. On the other hand if Tim shows up only half trained and distracted, Alexander Povetkin is certainly a fighter who could take advantage of it.
On their best 3-4 nights, I'd pick Witherspoon. On the other nights I'd pick Povetkin. It comes down to Witherspoon's shape, motivation and focus. But on overall ability, I do think Witherpsoon was better and good enough to rate as a top 25 all time heavyweight.
Good post, but Alexander has looked a completely different fighter the past few years. He's not the guy that had to beat Chris Byrd to death way back when. Not sure if you're up to date on his career.
Mythical matchups should always be on their best nights. It is about who the best fighter is. Who cares if somebody beats an unmotivated out of shape Witherspoon or Toney or anybody?
Let's not forget Don King's down slide on Witherspoon's career was already in effect by this point and Tim was clearly not in the best of shape for this fight (although this was his own fault). You can use the Bruno fight as a measuring stick, but let's not forget he got the job done. I'll take the fighter who showed up on the biggest night of their life. The fighter that was more than competitive and almost sneaked a decision over the best heavyweight in the world. I'll also concede this would be by no means one sided and a very close fight.
Witherspoons right hurts him late in a close affair and he doesn't let him off the hook. Ko late for Witherspoon. Just look at Tims pay cheques to realise why he was un motivated. He got involved with King and he totally robbed him in every fight. I think he come away with less than 100,000 after the Bruno fight while frank got nearly 10 x that.
I'm not sure Bruno was that close to toppling Spoon. As I recall it (though it has been an age since I watched it, to be true), Bruno was giving a reasonable account of himself but Terrible Tim had the upper hand (And, I would add that this was not the best version of Witherspoon, in my opinion).
I saw him fight Klitschko, Cedric Bozwell and some other dude more recently. He looks sharper than he did 10 years ago, but that experience and improvement also came at the cost of old age.
He wasn't. It was just Frank being Frank and the vast majority of us were rooting for him. He gave a really good account of himself and looked to be in with some sort of possible chance at times but he was never that close.
I think Frank Bruno, Tony Tubbs, Greg Page and Renaldo Snipes were better measuring sticks of talent than a 37 year old Chris Byrd, 42 year old Cedric Boswell, 40 year old Larry Donald, a green and passive Eddie Chambers or Johann Duhaupas.
In the Tyson book, theres a chapter which talks about King. King once 'accidentally' added an extra zero on Witherspoons expenses for his sparring partners so he ended up paying $7,000 instead of $700.
