What would be the odds on Frazier unifying the present day belt's?

Who are the most powerful punchers Frazier beat?

Of the men listed, I think Joshua would be the worst stylistic matchup.

 

The chances of any genuine threats and top fighers facing Wilder are remote to non existant.

AJ may have got in the ring with him, and Parker would. But Wilder would not. Thats just being realistic folks.

As neither AJ or Parker have finished boxing I am not going to try to predict how they would fare.

For the WBC belt to become an open belt again, its going to require Wilder to get old and retire or lose it in the ring. He will not be challenging the very best.

When Gassiev or Usyk make the move to HW, none of the top guys will be queueing up to face them trust me on that. It would be the same Frazier.

 

He'd destroy Wilder. Need to see more of Joshua although that would be tough for Frazier. Joshua is huge and proved his mettle against a past prime Wlad. I think Frazier would beat Parker too. So he has a shot.

 

Literally every single one of the top guys will be queuing up to face them, probably.

 

Literally every single of the top guys will be queueing up to face them. Yes sure mate, sure.

There is no reason why a really good fighter of 6 foot 3 cannot explode all over the jaws of these 6 foot 6 fighters and ICE them. 3-4 inches in height is not a big deal. Force is speed times acceleration and you start to lose speed and mobility as you start to become gigantic.

Mike Tyson was only 5 foot 10- 5 foot 11 and would go through AJ and Parker like a knife through butter in his prime.

 

Well they say that cruiser's are 215-225 pounds on fight night anyway. If that's true, then it could be possible I guess

 

I think it's because cruiser's supposedly come in at 215-225 pounds on fight night. If that's true, you could technically class Ali as a cruiser today if he was 210-215 pounds on fight night.

Then I have to ask the question.....what's the difference between a 215 pound heavyweight and a cruiser that weighs 215 pounds? Why is one a cruiser and the other a heavy?

 

I don't know. I've stated in other posts that many thought Frazier would destroy Foreman. I know in hindsight, it seems silly to think Frazier would destroy Foreman, but hindsight is 20/20. I would argue that if this were December of 1972 and we were discussing the upcoming Foreman/Frazier fight, people would think you were on drugs if you predicted Foreman to massacre Frazier in 2 rounds. The best anyone would've predicted Foreman to do is probably floor Frazier early and lose in an effort similar to what Bonavena put up.

Then again, most would've thought that Bonavena was superior to Foreman, anyway. I say that to say, Wilder has the tools and power to pull a Foreman on Frazier. And he's no more unproven than Foreman was going into the Frazier fight. Honestly, I don't know if he would just plow Wilder down. Either Wilder is plowed down by Frazier or he plows Frazier down. In either case, someone gets plowed....and badly.

 

People call him a cruiserweight because he was 5'11 and fought the vast majority of his fights at 204.5lbs or less, without cutting weight or even looking particularly gaunt or shredded. Little doubt that he could have made 200lbs fairly easily (even in the same-day weigh-in era, but especially now).

Mostly just an aside, but I think that internet people significantly exaggerate how much weight many fighters put on before stepping into the ring. But to answer your question-- you're right, guys like Joe Louis and Ali really weren't bigger men than many of the top cruiserweights of recent years.

 

If Joe Frazier turned pro today, they'd make sure he drained to Cruiserweight for the lion's share of his career. No way we see what constitutes what people consider "peak Joe" at HW for a career run. Zero.

Frazier only lasted 37 fights in his own era, of which 12 were against fighters who weighed in at 210 or higher. That number drops to 7 if we raise opponent fight weight up to 220. Peak Joe himself never weighed more than 210. That matchmaking career template followed the pattern great Cruiserweights did once that division began (mostly Cruiser sized guys, some choice fights vs larger fighters at the right time)....it just happened before the Cruiserweight division officially existed, but the matchmaking practice was the same. Don't fight larger guys all the time if you don't have to. Today, he'd have to.

Forget about the size mismatches he'd face at HW....this generation of Cruiserweights would, mostly, be bigger than him on fight night as well. Look at Denis Lebedev, who is 5'11 with a listed 71 inch reach. Joe is listed at 5'11 and one half, with a 73 inch reach. Lebedev is routinely the smaller man in the ring, vs Cruiserweights.

That's to take nothing away from his achievements in his own era, which are exceptional. His size and style represented the last breath of the "classic heavyweight" archetype, and full sized guys like Ali and Foreman were the new breed. Fittingly, the old school won one sensational fight before the torch got taken away, but it got passed nonetheless.

It's not Joe's fault the division outgrew him, but it's also crazy to pretend that isn't exactly what happened.

 

People fall into the "resumes fight fights" fallacy when it comes to H2H stuff. It's what counts when ranking guys on paper, but it can be really misleading when the real matchups get made. Not misleading all the time, but it's not close to foolproof.

Based on resume, there was no logical reason for anyone NOT to favor Joe. Yet, we all know what happened.

 

Punching power isn't just a matter of physics, sorry. But let's be clear here--are you arguing that these men hit harder than the bigger heavyweights because they're faster?

Of course a 6'3/210lb man is big enough to hurt a bigger heavyweight. The premise that those bigger heavyweights would be afraid to step into the ring with them seems pretty silly though, and completely baseless. Makes you wonder how guys like David Haye was ever able to get any big heavyweights to fight him.

What's Mike got to do with this? If those men could fight like Tyson, they'd already be fighting heavyweights.

 

What about guys like a young Tyson who's best weight was 217-218 or a prime Holyfield who's prime weight at HW was 208-217? Could they realistically be classed at cruiser today or is it that cruisers aren't actually that big on fight night?