Tszyu - where do Australian persons rank him amongst the all time best -questionmark-

Discipline, dedication, natural and acquired talent, speed, timing, power and ring generalship are qualities you can rarely see in such high supply for one particular boxer - hell there are a lot of champions who are missing quite a few of those attributes altogether. Tszyu has them all in abundance. His boxing intelligence is phenomenal and it all means that when he gets in the ring, to beat him you need to play a perfect game (Why Hatton deserves alot of credit... he took away alot of Tszyu's advantages to do what he did, whether he used his skill, strength and Warren's money - he did it... (Phillips was before his prime)

So in all, I put him in the top 15. I dont really differentiate on an individual basis because it's just too damn hard...

Call me a hugger, but the guy was a fighting machine and on an average night, could beat some grade A dudes!

 

Phillips WAS NOT before his prime mate. Sorry to break it to you.

 

okay... let's just agree to disagree here and save 8 - 10 pages of back and forthing Roy

 

Im leaning towards agreeing with Pork Chop on this one. KT may have been in his physical prime against Vince but I think he refined his game better after that.

 

All time great for sure.

I remember watching him lose to Philips, man that was a huge shock at the time.

 

You have to be kidding right. A world champion with six defenses behind him. A string of victories against world class opponents before that. And an amatuer career spanning 248 fights. 28 years old and in the normal physical prime for the average fighter. How could that not be his prime.... He had probably more skills technically at this stage of his career then any other, and had the physical attributes to go with it. Basically, he took Phillips too easy, fought a VERY DUMB fight, and ended up losing to a guy who was underated. The fight itself wasn't one sided, just more gruelling then he probably ever expected.

 

Kostya was a great fighter. Talent wise I would say top 30 probably, although its SO hard to measure, and a massive part of it is bias. I don't think he is better talent wise then Jones Jr, Whitaker, Chavez, Hagler, SRL or Hearns. Maybe close to a level playing field on talent alone with guys like Prime Duran, Taylor, Hamed, Floyd, Fenechect. Its too tough to call. Some guys were MUCH more talented then resume suggests, and had relatively short primes. He was a great fighter no doubt. Sometimes he just wouldn't use his great boxing mind which was his downfall. A brilliant technician. Probably one of the best to come from Europe. The way he would bait his opponents, and then counter with brutal accuracy was unreal. Very awkward the way he would hold that lead hand out yet counter with the lead hook and jab from this position. Defensively underated IMO. Awesome conditioning for the most part. Great timing. Unreal power. Tenacious finisher. Very tough to beat for anyone. Extremely cagey. I will always remember Kostya by his win over Gonzalez and his second over mitchell after coming back from injury.

 

Not even close to top 20 or 30.

 

I rate Tszyu Top 50 All Time and
140 All Time

1. Aaron Pryor
2. Kostya Tszyu
3. Julio C Chavez

In terms of his Amatuer career aswell he is in the top 10 all time as a amatuer with a unbelievable record.

 

You obviously haven't read the thread properly. Based on talent NOT RESUME. Surely not a top 30ATG. But we are being asked to assess ability alone. Who would you rank higher? (Apart from the ones I listed?

 

How would you rate him solely in terms of ability

 

he had great talent and his boxing ability was great and right up there in terms of he could do everything.

But he had one weakness and that was busy bigger type fighters with the style like Hatton,Phillips etc.

Boxing ability though i would say in the last 20 years he is in the Top Ten easy on ability with names like
Pernell Whitaker
Roy Jones
Bernard Hopkins
etc