why joe frazier beats lennox lewis

Both Corrales and Castillo showed better defensive skills than either Ali or Frazier. Ali was never good at infighting, and Frazier was all about throwing punches, not about defending against them, so it is understandable that the first pair showed better skills, even though neither was that great at defending themselves.

 

******

 

Frazier could never stand up to Lewis righthand.

 

No,you keep pushing your own opinion as an absolute fact - has nothing to do with me ignoring anything.

Again,this is your opinion that you are pushing as a fact.I've cited the Bonavena performance and I'll point to the second half of the first Frazier fight,but you'll just ignore that and put your own spin on it.

Bonavena fought nothing like Frazier,either - didn't apply the same level of pressure,didn't work as hard,and yet,he had Ali gassed early enough in that fight.Ali gassing in the Bonavena fight had nothing to do with Bonavena's work.


His weight may have been high for that fight,but he was nowhere near as soft and flabby as he was when he fought near that weight in the second half of the decade.

You think there was no evidence of rust shown by Leonard in the Hagler fight? Tell me,how does a fighter like Ray Leonard,a fighter noted for his stamina,go from finishing strong in fifteen round fights against Benitez,Duran and Hearns,to exhaustion in a fewer number of against Hagler? The man that fought Duran,that had the absolute **** smothered out of him for fifteen rounds,fought at a tremendous pace throughout,and still manages to finish strong - how does he end up so tired after just six rounds? You don't think the fact that he had been so inactive in the last five years had something to do with this,do you? The fact that a world class athlete,a man that was used to fighting regularly,taking off every couple of months to participate in an intense training programmes - you don't think a lengthy break from such a schedule may have hurt him in the long run?



But if Mr McGrain says ring rust doesn't exist,who are we to challenge his claim? I mean,it's not like we have any sources of fighters making reference to ring rust or anything like that.

 

McGrain is a fine debater ,but he hasn't convinced me here.He has put his points in a somewhat arrogant manner that suggests he is absolutely right and everyone who disagrees is too stupid to grasp his argument.
I think I'll leave this now.:hi:

 

What a coincidence!

'68 through early '70 was Joe Frazier's prime, too.

 

What you're providing are mere opinions - It isn't possible to refute them.I can disagree with them,produce my own argument as to why I think you're wrong,but I can't actually prove them wrong.But as you're so adamant,I'll play along:



1) Glad we're settled on that one.


2) Samuel Peter is a slow,stationary target with zero speed,zero head movement and showed up as a bloated whale.Vitali absolutely deserved credit for handling him in the manner that he did,but one must acknowledge Peter's limitations.I don't think Ali could have done the same,but Peter was made to order for Vitali.There was a huge difference in Vitali's performance in his next fight against Gomez compared to the Peter fight.



3 & 4) Bit of a difference between a 13 month layoff and 43 month layoff,don't you think? Inactivity serves no great purpose for any fighter,but I think most would agree that 23 rounds after just over a year of inactivity is greater than 18 rounds after three and a half years away.And keep in mind that he was in there with a man that had fought just a minimal amount of rounds in the last five years himself.



Evanders tactics against Tyson involved conserving his own energy while wearing Tyson down in clinches.As the Bowe fight showed,he simply wasn't capable of sustaining the type of pace that he was able to fight at during his prime.


5) And now I've answered them.Happy?

Conditioning,for one thing.Regardless of how washed up,shot and physically deformed as you may think(and I suspect that you do) Frazier was,Ali's stamina help up over the course of the twelve rounds.He boxed at a good pace,used consistent lateral movement and maintain a pretty high punch output throughout - and he still looked as fresh as a daisy after the twelve rounds.


He certainly hadn't improved as a fighter in the three years that Frazier spent avoiding a rematch,but he had fought on a consistent basis and stored many rounds in the bank during that time.

No,I said that Ali gassed out during the middle rounds(as early as the fifth round,in fact)against Bonavena,not Frazier.Ali started tiring by the tenth round of the Frazier fight,and his work after the ninth round became less noticable and less effective.



I'm not here to argue on who Ali should have fought instead;all I'm saying is that Bonavena is a completely different type of pressure fighter compared to Frazier.

He wasn't in bad shape,that's the point.When he fought near that weight later in his career,he was much softer.Against Foster,he wasn't in bad shape at all.And there's more to in-ring conditioning than what weight you are at and how you look.

Again,that's merely your opinion.And considering Leonard was fighting on a part time basis at that point in his career,there isn't a lot to compare it against.Leonard was clearly a different,diminished fighter following his layoff.

You claimed that Leonard didn't need to shake off any ring rust that he had picked up during his inactivity.Regardless of the fact that he won,Leonard clearly showed signs of a fighter that hadn't boxed in years.If Leonard's decline in the second half of that fight isn't enough to convince you,then I really don't know what else to say.

 

Jesus christ! This post is like something outta the ****** commission

"If you look to the right you can clearly see the trajectory of........."

EDIT. why did they edit out W arren

 

Your kidding me? Can you say or is it a no-no?

 

I think Leonard's best fight after his comeback clearly was the first one; against Hagler. He prepared for this in a very unusual manner, though. In an interview on On the Ropes he said that he fought actual fights, not just sparring, with pro boxers when training for Hagler. The same equipment as in a fight and with a ref, judges - the whole shebang. Actually he got knocked out just days before the fight, which made him rethink his whole fight strategy.

This probably prepared him clearly better for that one fight, but might actually have shortened his career in the longer perspective, due to the wear and tear of the many unofficial fights he had while preparing for Hagler. That he retired directly after the fight and took more than a year off can't have helped either.

 

You're asking me to prove your opinion wrong - do you understand the deinition of refute? I can't do that.

Vitali had much greater difficulty in connecting cleanly against Gomez.Unlike Peter,Gomez used angles,moved his head and didn't set himself up to be a punching bag for Vitali.He was still dominated and lost the fight,but he made him Vitali look far slower and far more uncoordinated than what Vitali looked against Peter.


If you think I'm going to sit through that dreadful fight simply for your purpose,just to pick out brief segments to provide to you,think again.

It isn't a matter of applying a rule,it's just basic common sense.It's truly troubling that you fail to see the gap between just over a year and three and a half years.


I've already explained the effects that the inactivity had on Leonard,and you've continually ignored them.Regardless of the fact that he won,he was exhausted through the second half of that fight.As was the case with Ali,Leonard found himself resting on the ropes and he was getting punished for it.The amount of training that he did didn't prevent him rom getting tired as hell,and that was because of the layoff

I'm sorry,did you actually read the post? Doesn't seem that you did,otherwise you wouldn't have bothered making such an inquiry.I explained why Holyfield fought the type of fight against Tyson that he did and I listed the Bowe fight as an example.


Petty nitpicking on your part.

I apologize for not offering an essay long rebuttal to your response,but I clearly already explained why I thought he was in better condition.I don't feel the need to repeat myself on the matter.

There was a clear decline following the ninth round.His offense wasn't just becoming infrequent,he was arm-weary and losing real snap on his punches.There's being tired,and then there's just completely falling off(save from one round,perhaps).

You're making an argument out of something I'm not even arguing.All I did was point out the differences between Bonavena and Frazier.Bonavena offered no real,sustained pressure,and his punch output was low - and despite all this,Ali was still tired very early in the fight.

I've seen his performance against Foster and I've seen what shape he was in for that fight.And as I already stated,there is far more to being in-ring condition than just looking in shape.The pace of the Foster fight was as slow as it was against Bonavena,and he breezed the fifteen rounds easily.Whether he trained hard for the fight or not is irrelevant.He was competing on a consistent basis,stayed sharp and the rounds themselves provided him with greater preparation than what training would have done.



And there are pictures available of Ali just prior to the first Frazier fight.Needless to say,he doesn't look in very good shape.And this was just a month before the fight itself.