Just when Wladimir is supposed to be establishing himself as the clear #1 heavyweight and doing so impressively, he's failing. Call me a hater if you must just because I didn't like his last two fights. We'll know if Wlad is really #1 soon, after he fights the likes of Povetkin, Chagaev, Valuev. Ruiz has the skills and experience to confuse the crap out of Wlad since Wlad seems easily confused in the ring lately.
Holding is illegal, and that's why the ref is rightly empowered to call for a break at every embrace. If a fighter is good at cheating, he can get praise from his corner no thte public.
There is a fine line between normal clinching between two fighters and holding. I mean if a ref bulldozed his way between two fighters every time they clinched and briefly held onto each other you would have a comedy act. He would, in effect, become the third athlete in the ring. It is as George Foreman pointed out continuously as HBO commentator almost always better to let the fighters punch and battle their way out of the clinches. He hated refs who were constantly interfering in the ebb and flow of a fight. As you have pointed out in previous posts Ali was very aggressive in the clinches and bent his opponents over and lay on them to tire them out. For years the refs let "the greatest" get away with this tactic and now it seems to have become a standard, accepted technique. It will be tough to get that genie back in the bottle.
Well he didn't look confused knocking out Thompson late in the fight. I like how his stamina held up and his punching power remained intact up until the eleventh round K.O. He kept his composure throughout that fight and effectively employed bodyshots and power jabs to back Thompson up and break him down. I called you a hater because no serious, unbiased observer of the heavyweight scene would question Wlad's no. 1 status at heavy. The only other fighter to come near to Wlad's accomplishments at heavyweight is Sam Peter who Wlad outboxed a few years back. Since that time Wlad has defeated a much more talented array of top ten fighters than Peter. Toney, in fact, was robbed in his first fight with Sam. As I stated in the previous post Wlad is not just going to knock everybody senseless in every fight. He fights far too many fighters with far too many styles to do that. From smallish defensive wizards like Chris Byrd was at heavy to huge dudes like Thompson and Austin to powerpunchers with iron jaws like Brewster and Peter, Wlad gets the victory and thats all he needs to do to be considered the man at heavy TODAY.
lol at some posters here....what do u want from wlad...he's cleaning out the divsion and knocking almost everyone out. FACT: faced 6 top 10 ring ranked fighters in his last 7; knocked out 5 of his last 6 opponents. can't argue that away don't forget his last 2 opponents porbably won 3 or 4 rounds off of him in 23 total rounds. they were both defensive minded southpaws on top of that? how many southpaws did Lennox, Hoyfield and Tyson face in their reigns? wasn't evander like 1-4 against them?
Good luck with making WLAD's resume appear impressive...in the absence of any ATG's names, let's just note that he did good against southpaws...
Seriously man, NOBODY should use the Thomson fight to promote Wald. I watched the fight live, and it was ****ing awful. AWFUL. Thomson stood there, dead still, with his hands over his ears throwing about 3 punches a round (that my mother could have avoided) from about Round 4 onwards. Wlad could stand there, and tee off with right hands at will. And it still took him practically the whole fight to knock him out. THere was no way Thomson after about round 6 was ever going to throw anything than a super slow, wide as **** punch, but still Wlad woudln't finish him. It was awful. Thomsons own corner were pissed off with him, you could tell on the coverage. Now, I'm sure Wlads jab (n grab) had something to do with that. But when Thomson actually threw punches early especially to the body, Wlad looked all at sea. Then, Thomson stopped. And the end of the fight took forever. (and IMO,Thomson in essence gave up when he started complaining about his knee after he hurt it in yet another clinch).
He fought the best avaliuable. THere are no good ATGs left to fight. They are either washed up or have given up boxing. No way to blame Wladimir for that. He fights the best, what could he do else?
Did you ever watch Lennox Lewis vs. Mike Tyson? Lewis hold and hit at the same time. And he hold until Tyson was tired. Holding is a part of boxing. The great Muhammad Ali also hold and grab.
Valuev looked like ****. That's general opinion on Russian forums as well, the decision is considered wrong by majority of people who had seen the fight here. Valuev's jab looked good against tomato cans or during training, but whenever he faces someone top-class he misses with his jab most of the time. He was landing maybe 1 jab solidly out of 10 vs Ruiz, the rest either missed or barely grazed Ruiz' head. He looks totally inept at infighting, doesn't know how to fight in close at all, just holds until the referee orders 'break' without doing anything useful.
Dont waste your time. They just wont give credit where credit is due.:-( All Wlad needs to do is just keep winning. Line em up and knock em down 1 after another. His legacy will take care of its self