Tua is he shot or never was

I agree, but sadly that's probably because they'll give him the softest of soft touches next to try to get his morale back up and add a knockout.

 

tuas big problem was he carried too much weight id have liked to have seen him face lewis weighing no more than 15 10 instead he turned up weighing 17 and a half like bowe he ate himself out of contention.

 

Shot.

He "was" against Ike Ibeabuchi, and in several other late 90s fights.

 

Even the 225lb Tua had problems with a consistant jab, lateral movement and a tight guard.

No doubt Tua's had a long battle with the bulge, but he just never developed the right skills to handle those problems. I don't think turning up even 225 against Lewis would've made any difference, as turning up 233 for Byrd didn't make any difference later.

 

-Johnson blew out a confident top 10 Oleg who was on the hottest run of his streaky career...coming off career best KO wins over Jefferson and Rahman. Tua was never that impressive against a top 10 fighter...not even against the upstart version of Oleg.

-Had Ruiz fought these guys? Oh come on Lefthook, your normally a better poster than this. Ruiz did fight Oquendo and beat him easier than Tua. Maskaev? Ruiz beat Kirk Johnson who had just sent Oleg into orbit. That leaves Izon and Ibeabuchi..whom Tua is 1-1 against. I would take old Holyfield over Izon and Oquendo anyday, they never beat a serious contender like Rahman. Ibeabuchi who the hell knows?

-Yes, Tua destroyed Ruiz in the long time ago. Not surprising given the stages of their career, Tua has always relied on raw power while Ruiz found success through experience. Big slugger Abe Simon Koed Walcott early in his career, should Abe Simon be ranked above the man who would be a crafty Champion one day?

-Mandatories are rarely the most deserving contenders. Grant and Tua were more deserving...though Lewis had no problem defending against Botha, so who knows. Still by the time of the Holyfield/Ruiz conselation prize, Tua was already set to face Lewis for the REAL title so hardly something to complain about. Tua got his shot, Ruiz didn't, despite frustrating the top 10 for several years. He had to cash out in a high risk-low reward fight against Jones Jr and become a gatekeeper for the next generation of belt holders...Toney, Valuev, Chageav, and Haye.

-Ruiz is probably the most successful heavyweight of his era, behind Lewis. Byrd is right there too....than you have old Holyfield, Tua, and Rahman types you can juggle, contenders that made individual strides but just couldn't pull away. Than you the odd flair ups like Ibeabuchi, Oleg, Johnson, and Grant, ....maybe Golota, Donald, Jefferson, Oquendo, and Izon are that next level down. I think that sounds fair?

 

Short heavyweights dont stay at peak for very long........... At age 37 tua is yrs past his peak

 

Tua beat Oleg first and in my opinion Johnson was completely overated. I watched Tua coming up pretty closely. He had a different style, you cant really compare. He was facing big men who were young, and he was almost always getting outboxed, but his relentless pressure allowed him to catch up in most cases late in the fight. Ruiz success came in most part from careful matchmaking and I dont believe he would have ever gotten a title shot had they switched opponents. Tua on the other hand was matched pretty tough, and there was no avoiding fighters who gave him trouble. Lennox Lewis was probably the worst champion he could have gotten a title shot against at the time as well.

 

-Doesn't matter it was a breakthrough win that established Johnson a step above Oleg and most of Tua's propsect level opponents at the time including Rahman, who was considered a huge bust until the miracle Lewis KO.

-Inbetween Tua and Holyfield, Ruiz was matched carefully. But he more than made up for that by doing a mini-top 10 clean out of Holyfield, Johnson, Oquendo, Rahman, and Golota. Here you have a pretty diverse mix of boxers, punchers...what have you, every active contender of the time save Byrd...who was a conflict of interest with King. So who was he avoiding? Or really who was avoiding him? .....you know who.

Jones and Toney were terrible match ups for Ruiz, very low risk/high reward. He still faced them.

Fighters like Johnson, Oquendo, Golota, and Grant may have been busts overall but they at least broke through to that level. Are we really at the the point where Izon, Nicholson, Oleg, and Sullivan are better than the guys that used them as stepping stones?

 

Cmon you know very well that just because you beat a guy who beat another guy doesnt mean that makes you better than the guy they beat. Johnson couldnt beat Ruiz who Tua blew out. Using your logic that makes Tua leagues above Johnson.
Tua was facing some tough up and comers. Ruiz was struggling with the same fighters until King took him and fed him a steady diet of has beens to get a title shot for what he thought would be an easy defense for Holyfield. I believe Ruiz did improve, but his style would have never gotten him past Tua.
Jones and Toney were big paydays for Ruiz thats why he faced them. More like high risk and high reward, because noone really thought Ruiz could win.

 

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Oleg and Izon were olympians, and fighters like Rahman, Ibeabuchi, Sullivan were good solid young fighters. I dont think Ruiz would have been able to beat the Rahman that Tua faced down in Miami in the first fight nor do I think he beats Ibeabuchi. These guys were young and strong and fighting for title contention and with more desire and less persuasion than Kings guys. Izon had dropped a decision to Mo Harris, but Harris was a pretty solid guy regardless of his **** record.
I think the timing of some of Tua's fights and the level of some of those fighters abilities at the time if you knew the fighters and watched them closely was better than fighting faded veterans like Tucker or guys that for the most part disappeared after Ruiz beat them, similar to Darrol Wilson and Gary Bell after Tua beat them.

Again I believe Ruiz improved, but I dont believe he would have ever had the chance if he didnt hook up with King, nor do I think Tua would be held in such low regard if he signed with King.
King would have matched him better because he knew he brought excitement.

 

Laugh at me all you want but I dont think Tua is shot. The man never took any kind of beatings. If he gets his weight under controle and gets some motivation to go with it he can hang with anyone.

 

-Again, once he got to Holyfield I don't see any evidence of soft match making for Ruiz. For 6 years, he fought 11 straight fights against top 10 opponents of diverse talents. Tua got to cash out against Byrd and Lewis with only 2 top 10 wins and a draw to his credit. Who really got the easy paydays when all is said and done? Tua faced some good fringe guys but that doesn't equate to six years of battling top contender after top contender.

-Izon and Sullivan got knocked out by Oquendo whom Ruiz and Tua share stoppage victories over. They are both fringe guys that couldn't break through no matter how you spin it. Izon, Sullivan, Jefferson, Harris...all interchangable, winning some, losing some. Oquendo actually beat most of these guys and only lost to top 5 guys. Probably Tua's best win along with Rahman and a good one for Ruiz as well.

-I don't think Ibeabuchi and Rahman are convincingly on another level than Kirk Johnson at the time of their respective fights in question. Your looking at the same level of undefeated fighter, though Johnson was a bit more proven at the time with at least one big win to his credit going in.

-Seriously, Izon, Sullivan, and are a tough class of fringe prospects but ultimately, they are simply not as good as the contenders of the era nor are they even as good. Otherwise, they wouldn't be on the fringe getting beat by the standouts.

-In a hypothetical situation where Tua gets with King...I think he would just have easier fights before cashing out against Lewis and maybe even Holyfield, who still had enough in the tank to get past the limited Rahman. Tua dropped the ball three times while on top against Lewis, Byrd, and finally the Rahman draw that was suppose to be a gimme..managment doesn't matter, ultimately the fighter has to deliver.

 

His career was nothing special post Holyfield and including Holyfield. His wins over Golota and Johnson were less stellar than Tua's late round KO's after trailing on the cards unless you like acting for extra points, (although Johnson mentally fell apart from it). Look at Ruiz's record post title against non King mandated contenders. Not so hot.
Many of the fighters that Tua beat were moving up at the time, as opposed to Ruiz who faced guys who were moving down or on the downside of their respective career. I believe that represents a tougher challenge and accounts for more than certain ranked opponents, especially if they are put there unfairly.
Again swap their resumes and Ruiz never comes close to a career like he had, and Tua is just as, or more successful.
I believe Ibeabuchis fight with Tua and Byrd established him as better than Johnson, who showed he couldnt handle any adversity in a tough fight. Rahman as I said, was a better fighter when Tua faced him and not coming off of a couple losses and a draw.

 

-Do you want to go there? Post King, Old Ruiz lost to top 5 fighters, some close decisions. Forget about even losing to top 5 guys, Old Tua got a gift against Barrett. Oh, in typical Tua fashion he beat a tough for a fringe guy in Friday.

-Izon and Sullivan weren't on the up...they never went anywhere. Holyfield had seen better days but he still held his own against Lewis and beat Rahman inbetween the Ruiz Trilogy. Can't say the same for these guys, the guy that beat them in some cases more impressively than Tua..Grant got mauled by Lewis and McCline.

Of course knocking out fringe guys is more impressive, against like competition, Ruiz decisively beat the Rahman that jabbed Tua's eyes close in a "draw" and didn't have to come from behind to stop Oquendo.

-Johnson handled adversity against Oleg, getting badly rocked in the first round and coming back to win by KO.

-One of those draws Rahman was coming off was against Tua..kind of circular logic. :nut