Would Vassiliy Jirov dominate light heavyweight if he were around today

By that rational I guess Felix Savon sucks. I couldn't disagree with you more on this stance and it is clear you have zero idea what you are talking about if you think a guy like Lomo who was 396-1 as an amateur and winning world titles within his first ten fights wasn't a seasoned fighter. Plenty of amazing fighters never turn pro but are seasoned fighters.

 

Exactly, felix savon is worth nothing in the pros. Just that. Because he never fought in the pros. Amateurs mean nothing at all. I see you got it, congratulations.

 

Lol, another idiot.

 

Your insults will not change facts. And that's the reason why salido, whose talent is nonexistant, kicked "the best amateur ever" arse and proved you wrong. And everything taking into account that "the best amateur ever" already had 6 hidden fights as pro in the WBS. Had he jumped directly from amateurs with headgear and tshirt to fighting salido, salido would have wooped his arse even more. The only thing salido brought to the table was experience as a pro, nothing else.

Insults don't change facts.

 

Garbage, Loma was one of the greatest amateurs of all-time, a very rare talent, Savon was never proven in the pros, he only won 3 rounders.

 

The only fact is that you are an idiot of you think Lomo wasn't a complete fighter when he turned pro. He was a complete fighter because of his years of facing and beating the best international competition. Only an idiot would say that the amateurs mean nothing.

 

On another note, I always thought it was a minor crime he didn't get another shot at a cruiser title after Toney. He loses a razor thin fight against Mesi at heavyweight after pummelling him the last couple rounds (had it been 12 he would of more than likely won), then loses by KO in a come from behind fight against Moorer.

 

People don't understand Jirov's style. They think he would just get annihilated because he had been punched. He only lost once at CW and that performance revitalized Toney's stagnant career trajectory (at that point relative to his illustrious past). Also Toney was a top 5 CW as of December 2002. The fight was a banger, it was close as **** and one of the best CW fights of all time along with Qawi Holyfield I. Toney had to pull out all the stops and Jirov still basically threw the fight away by deciding to brawl and getting knocked down when he got tagged late. If Jirov holds I think he wins.

Sure Jirov is hittable, because he's lining you up and you have to actually throw to hit him, in process exposing yourself to his awkward strong punches and relentless style. He hits you all around, hits your body and then can go straight up the middle with a crazy power shot. His offensive output was awesome and he was built differently in terms of being able to take punishment. His trainer would dump him in the middle of Lake Balkhash (I believe) in Kazakhstan and then paddle away and make Jirov swim to shore. I don't think Canelo would fight him. I don't think Benavidez would beat him. I don't know if Bivol has enough power to keep Jirov off of him. The only one I'd favor by a fair margin is Beterbiev and what a fight that would be. Jirov would be good at either LHW or CW in any era. Whether he would dominate or not, depends on the era.

Jirov is a bit underrated because he lost in some high profile fights (2 of them at HW where the dudes had to basically retire after). Make no mistake Jirov would have been a big player today in either 175 or 200. Not saying he clears the table, but somebody would get their ass kicked by Jirov in that round robin.

 

Yea he was a 6'2 volume punching southpaw with power and a really good engine. He was also had an outstanding amateur record (val Barker trophy and gold medalist in 96, 200+ amateur wins).

I was actually hoping he would fight Juan Carlos Gomez at some point in a unification, but it wasn't meant to be.

 

The tall southpaw aspect is underrated. I feel people hating on him for the Toney loss don't understand that is one of James' best wins, best performances and one of the times he really had to dig deep and harness the potential that eluded him in many of his bad outings. And it was a classic fight. People just reductively say "loss, no credit." Like Joe Frazier gets no credit for pushing Ali to the brink in Manila because he lost? I can't abide

They were both camped out with their respective CW titles and then got lured into HW with the big checks. I don't think Jirov would have halted that fight from happening as much as Gomez, but I don't remember any specific talks and I didn't really follow Gomez was only familiar with his nice record.

 

Ali and Frazier simply brawled in Manilla, they were both past tyheir best, Ali was out of shape.

 

In what parallel universe did Salido "kick" Loma's ass??

It was a split decision win for Salido that could have just as easily gone the other way.