Was Gassiev the most overrated active heavyweight?

"I never claimed majority of the forum or polls agreed on Zhang demolishing some all-time greats"

"while noting how it's still reasonable to think he wins against the likes of Sullivan or Marciano."

You reject the idea out of hand that Zhang, with his historically unique attributes, could beat the top fighters from eras that were 30-60-85 years ago and seem to think it's terrible that people like me disagree with this religious fanaticism. You're not the arbiter of reasonableness.

"Zhang was knocked out cold by Anthony Joshua"

Are you really going to resort to blatant lies?

"Do you realize the hypocrisy of continously bringing up Holmes being stopped by a southpaw in the amatuers?"

No. Zhang losing to Joshua or Solis in the amateurs doesn't suggest that Holmes wouldn't have massive problems with southpaws, given the fact he got KO'd twice by a future journeyman cruiser-sized southpaw and never fought one in 75 pro fights.

"Southpaws are annoying, and easy to look poor against. A well known fact. It's unlikely for fighters like Holmes or Louis"

They're not just "annoying", they win at 2-3x the rate of orthodox contenders. Holmes and Louis never fought a southpaw of any note as pros, Louis openly admitted to ducking them and even fighters with experience against them, including trainers with experience against them, and good southpaw sparring (which didn't exist back in the day) tend to struggle with them. There were no athletic skilled SHW's in those days (with the partial exception of Cooney, who gave Holmes a life and death) and no good southpaws. Over time new styles and body times come into existence at the highest level and fighters who never experienced them couldn't be expected to fare well against them.

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threa...d-as-victors-against-top-heavyweights.700438/

Saying a fighter from the relative sports dark ages of 85 years ago who never fought a southpaw and admitted to ducking a LHW southpaw should be favoured over any elite modern southpaw is lunacy. Yet that's probably the position of most of the forum in their popularity contest polls.

"what elite southpaws emerged that began troubling Vitali and Holyfiled?"

I don't need to hear the typical myriad of excuses for why they lost. I didn't include the Byrd-Holyfield loss in my calculations because I gave Holyfield the benefit of an age cutoff, even though he got completely schooled by Byrd and there's a good chance any version would have lost. Holyfield admitted that he didn't want to fight Byrd because he had a bad style for him, same with Ibragimov in fact. Byrd and Moorer won against those ATG/H2H nightmares because they were the better men on the night, world level blown-up LHW southpaws they were.

"Southpaws became more common, but they existed through the history"

Mildenberger was probably the best back then; the first southpaw world title challenger and he was a Euro champ. He gave Ali a lot of trouble despite his limited credentials, with southpaws accounting for at least 25% of Ali's amateur losses. Prior to blown-up LHW Moorer there wasn't a southpaw titlist in 112 years of heavyweight championship boxing. It's a gaping hole in the record's of past fighters if this game of comparing vastly different eras is played.

Southpaws aren't unbeatable, that's an absurd strawman. But they are far more dangerous on average, especially if you lack experience against them as old heavies did.

"Every single sentence you write on George Foreman is hillariously off the mark"

Yeah you're right. Young Foreman had a great engine, wasn't the type of guy to consistently win inside 2 rounds and didn't gas out and lose to Ali and Young. Thank you for educating me.

"Ali was extremely tough to hit clean"

Compubox and my eyes say otherwise. He was a big athletic fighter, not a defensive wizard. Mike Tyson on his hero Ali: "He doesn’t have a good defence"

"Ross Purity is another man who beat an all-time great"

True but there's no belief that the best Puritty beats the best Wlad. There is however a significant belief that Sanders was all wrong for Wlad. Sanders was the most dangerous southpaw heavyweight puncher of the 20th century and according to Steward, probably the most dangerous one-round fighter in heavyweight history. And while he lost to Rahman and Vitali, he hurt/dropped them early. Someone with these attributes would surely have the number of other great fighters, especially those who'd never fought a southpaw or a good 6'4 heavyweight, facing a southpaw with Sanders' size, power, athleticism, counter-punching skill, ferocity and experience.

"significant part of the forum scored it for him, then the burden of proof is on you."

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/oleksandr-oleksandrovych-usyk-vs-anthony-oluwafemi-olaseni-joshua-ii-hrgović-vs-zhang-rbr.691070/page-98

"Not entertaining the fat and inch worship."

It's like a virago saying "not entertaining the **** worship" if someone informed her that men were stronger, more durable and could punch harder than women.

Heavyweight history disagrees with you. The best heavyweights in most eras are bigger than average, if not the biggest in the field, while still retaining athleticism relative to the rest of the field: Liston, Ali, Holmes, Bowe, Lewis, K2, Fury. It's almost linear. Tyson is the most conspicuous exception but that's 35 years ago when the top heavyweights were generally a lot smaller and he struggled badly in the 90's. Small heavyweights have had their successes and won battles but they've been losing the war.

 

"The argument of old-timers not consistently fighting southpaws is silly, because there are so few fighters that consistently battled southpaws."

Fury's fought seven of them so far as a pro, Wlad I think fought even more, Wilder's fought about as many as Fury. And they've been sparring southpaw heavies and cruisers in camp for those fights, with trainers who have experience against southpaw heavies. So their experience level vs southpaws is vastly greater than the likes of Louis, Holmes, Ali, Lewis etc., who either never fought any except in their amateur days or fought maybe one as a pro, usually of no note. And even these top modern fighters have more trouble than usual with southpaws, who are objectively much more dangerous as my stats prove.

"Cold was an overstatement, I agree. Dropped and stopped"

Stop lying. You claimed that Joshua KO'd Zhang cold, now you've changed your story to "stopped". Where was the Joshua stoppage of Zhang? I know that Zhang was stopped by a southpaw in the amateurs but he wasn't stopped by Joshua.

"already outboxed before by lesser fighter in Hrgovic (with his extensive career fighting top level southpaws?"

Hrgovic has a lot of amateur southpaw experience yes. It's a massive assumption that Hrgovic would lose to Joe Louis, who never fought anyone close to Hrgovic in terms of size + athleticism + durability + pedigree. And Zhang did the lion's share of the damage on Hrgovic, especially in the first 6 rounds, losing a very controversial A-side decision.

Experiencing the styles/body types around in your day doesn't mean you can handle another style/body type that's radically different and problematic even for modern fighters with a lot of experience.

How many southpaw heavyweights would you favour over self-confessed southpaw ducker Joe Louis? Could you name them?

"smaller men with granite chin and stellar power"

What you're saying is relative to a given era. Marciano had a good chin and stellar power in his era 70-odd years ago, I think he'd have a weak chin and be featherfisted at heavyweight today. The same applies to Joe Louis and everyone else back then to a greater or lesser degree. The evidence from Shavers' record suggest he wouldn't be an effective KO artist today, he'd be failing to KO much bigger men and getting starched regularly himself.

"a poor resume"

You can't have a good resume if you are heavily avoided. I think Tony Thompson was probably the 3rd best heavyweight at one point but the 6'5 southpaw doesn't get mentioned very often among Wlad's best wins because he was ducked. Ortiz likewise probably would have beaten Joshua in my opinion but who wants to fight a skilled southpaw power puncher? And if your opportunities overwhelmingly start coming at 38+, you're in a tricky position.

"where a thread would be made claiming he beats every ATG from before"

Any fool can make a thread, it doesn't mean anything. Would Zhang probably beat every 20th century heavyweight? No. Would he beat a lot of the top guys, especially when his stock was at its lowest? Yes. He's a good fighter with too many attributes they'd never experienced and in many cases couldn't hope to handle in my opinion.

"114-113 seems to be the most favorable consistent scoring for Zhang after rewatches and passage of time"

Stop moving the goalposts, you said "RBR" and I provided the evidence. Either a large minority or a majority had Zhang either winning or getting a draw. And those who had Hrgovic had him usually by 1 point. Those official 8-4 cards for Hrgovic were A-side favouritism which would have been reversed if Zhang had been promoted by the right guy/was 10 years younger + Hrgovic was 10 years older.

 

"You do realize Louis was knocking out the likes of Primo Carnera, Abe Simon, or Buddy Baer"

Jess Willard was a borderline SHW too, I don't consider any of those remotely comparable to the post-90's crop. The dominant champions have consistently got bigger while retaining skill and athleticism. Louis was big, skilled and athletic in his day at 6'1, 205 lbs but not by modern standards.

"of an over century old sport. Whiskers and dynamite in the gloves"

It's all relative to a given era. Being a big puncher in the 1940's or 1960's doesn't mean you'd be a big puncher among the PED enhanced behemoths generations in the future. The same can be said for chin.

In the future there may well be genetically engineered heavies who are 7'+, 320+ lbs with skill and athleticism. But there will no doubt be a few guys on boxing forums claiming that Louis/Ali/Tyson could beat them because Ed Jones, Julius Long and Valuev weren't very good.

"Joe Louis is roughly the size of Alexander Povetkin"

He's about 20 lbs lighter than Povetkin for a start. Povetkin is a modern athlete who was juiced to the gills and lost to the best big men he fought. Along with Tua he's a good example of the failure of small direct heavyweights since Tyson.

"Look no further than Usyk."

Usyk is a southpaw mover (the best cruiser and southpaw heavyweight of all time) who has almost identical dimensions to Ali: a very big 60's/70's heavyweight, though Usyk is heavier. Usyk's style is more conducive to success compared to shorter, stubbier, more direct fighters like Povetkin. We'll have to see how Usyk gets on with Fury, who is the biggest Ring/lineal champion in history.

"showed legit shortcomings, and had painful lossess on their records"

This can be said for most "ATG's".

"and fighters had to deal with them"

No they didn't. Most heavyweights never fought a southpaw as professionals, certainly no southpaw of note and the most accomplished prior to blown-up LHW Moorer was Euro champ Mildenberger, who gave 66' Ali a very tough fight. Southpaws are 2-3 times more dangerous than orthodox fighters when examining Holyfield, Vitali, Wlad and Joshua and these are fighters with much more southpaw experience than those in the distant past.

"If there was a top notch southpaw to challenge Joe Louis for the crown, he would have entered the ring with him"

"I don't want absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with no southpaws. Bettina is out." It's like picking John L. Sullivan to beat any top black fighter who has ever existed.

Of course you didn't come up with the name of one southpaw who you think would beat Joe Louis. Because ultimately it's a religious belief. 6'1, 205 lbs, 1930's/40's American domestic champion Louis beats any southpaw heavyweight or super-heavyweight who has ever existed and will ever exist until the end of time.

"My argument was Zhang had blemishes during his amateur career"

Sure, and that may provide some indication as to how he may lose in the future. Joshua for instance struggled with southpaws in the amateurs (Wallin, Cammarelle, Nistor) and he's lost to Usyk twice in the pros, admitting they are nightmare opponents for him despite all of his amateur experience and sparring.

Holmes' amateur record of losing twice by KO to a journeyman southpaw suggests that he especially struggled with the stance, had a hard time landing his vaunted jab, struggled to position his feet against them, couldn't see the backhand coming etc. Holmes never fighting one in 75 pro fights suggests he knew this and didn't want to fight them but at the very minimum he had no (positive) experience in this regard and thus could only be expected to struggle badly.

Your desire to bend the facts to find some faux equivalence ("Zhang got KO'd cold by Joshua, ok he didn't he got dropped and stopped, ok he didn't get stopped but he got dropped") suggests desperation.

"easily skewered by the faux knockdown"

That's your opinion. I don't know how you can deny that a least a large % didn't think Hrgovic won the fight, both immediately after the fight and since. The fight is highly controversial on Eyeonthering, Boxrec, the RBR, threads. And even if you think Hrgovic won by a point or so, Zhang did massive damage (especially in the first 6), which few heavies could take. I also don't think a rematch was offered to Zhang.

"Gladwell"

I don't rate him at all.

"If Shavers would start throwing at the bums Deontay Wilder faced, he would likely be 43 (42KO) as well"

Nonsense. Bum-slayer Shavers struggled to stop the heavier, less mobile palookas he fought. He wouldn't have won the WBC title off Stiverne, probably not even got into a position to fight for it.

Shavers failed to stop: Stan Johnson (Shavers lost), Ron Stander (Shavers lost), Vicente Rondon, Jerry Quarry (Shavers lost), Bob Stallings (Shavers lost), Jimmy Young 2 (Shavers drew), Ron Lyle (Shavers lost), Henry Clark 1, Muhammad Ali (Shavers lost), Larry Holmes 1 (Shavers lost), Larry Holmes 2 (Shavers lost), Bernado Mercado (Shavers lost), Leroy Boone, Randall Cobb (Shavers lost), Ali Haakim, James Tillis (Shavers lost), Walter Santemore (Shavers lost), Rahim Muhammad, George Chaplin (Shavers lost). Brian Morgan and Brian Yates (Shavers lost) were ill-advised comeback fights.

If Shavers did have big power then he was poor at delivering it. And he clearly didn't have big power by modern standards.

He did however stop a 7-3 Young the first time, former middleweight Ellis and Norton, who got KO'd by every big puncher he fought, along with dropping Holmes.