Heavyweight Boxing

squinn2912

I think after watching his 2 fights at HW any of the giants would be licking their lips at the thought of a crack at Usyk he was far from impressive. He couldn’t tire out Chisora and take him out late so I wouldn’t expect him to do that to Joshua. I was surprised that Hearn was trying to steer the conversation away from him tbh.
I think Usyk beats Ortiz for sure for Whyte I think it’s a toss up. He’s that bit younger and more aggressive but his fundamentals aren’t great, especially the footwork which is very poor. He seems to put more into slow-mo power training for before fight trailers than he does to improve as a boxer.
I think Usyk Joshua is a hard fight to watch but I’d expect Joshua to be too heavy and wear him out in the clinch before winning by a very hurtful ko. I think Usyk is on borrowed time. I see him getting knocked out and then his options are to retire or go back to CW.
I’m surprised that Joe Joyce isn’t clamouring about fighting Joshua. Given his age and the experience he now has and with this gap in the market he should be making the noise if he’s ever going to. I think he likes to take the safer option.

walshb

yourdeadwright wrote: »

To be fair he had no choice but to rematch Ruiz,


If he had off walked away from the second fight he would have been done for the general public ,


Ruiz was seen as a walk over & looked in worse shape than your average punter, If he ran from that he'd be done ,

But he still matched him. A man that had crushed him. A man that hurt him

AJ wasn't to know what shape Ruiz would come into the ring as....

For all AJ knew, he could have been facing an even better venison of the Ruiz that beat him

Boxers who suffer bad defeats always deserve kudos for stepping back into the ring with their conquerors

Whyte the same for re-matching Povetkin after that brutal loss last year

yourdeadwright

walshb wrote: »

But he still matched him. A man that had crushed him. A man that hurt him

AJ wasn't to know what shape Ruiz would come into the ring as....

For all AJ knew, he could have been facing an even better venison of the Ruiz that beat him

Boxers who suffer bad defeats always deserve kudos for stepping back into the ring with their conquerors

Whyte the same for re-matching Povetkin after that brutal loss last year

If AJ didn't fight him thought he was done finished good night ,
He had no choice at all from Hearn to everyone else he would have been pushed straight back in there ,


You could actually tell in the fight AJ was a nervous wreck he panicked & stiffened up anytime Ruiz got inside & close ,
To this day I think if Ruiz came in the same shape as the first fight he would have ended AJ,

He didn't and AJ got his Mojo back ,

walshb

yourdeadwright wrote: »

If AJ didn't fight him thought he was done finished good night ,
He had no choice at all from Hearn to everyone else he would have been pushed straight back in there ,


You could actually tell in the fight AJ was a nervous wreck he panicked & stiffened up anytime Ruiz got inside & close ,
To this day I think if Ruiz came in the same shape as the first fight he would have ended AJ,

He didn't and AJ got his Mojo back ,

Can you not acknowledge that he, and any others getting into the ring with a man that has crushed them is worthy of praise?

I am not sure why you are giving excuses...

Its simple: Fighters who rematch fighters that have beaten them badly deserve credit. End of.

As to AJs performance in fight 2. He did what he had to, albeit it appeared to be very cautious and negative. I criticized him for his performance, and praised him for it.

Well, the likes of PBF gets lauded as the GOAT, and he has been doing similar, and worse as regards negativity and cautiousness for years....barely landing decent punches a lot of the time, and folks falling over themselves to praise him for not getting hit

OmegaGene

i cannot see aj dropping a belt at all tbh and i think the hearn chatter on ifltv about ortiz and whyte is just ****e talk to get the % in his teams favour. Whyte is looking at a tide over fight before a bigger challenge later this year according to his fake brother dean and aj v ortiz in the states could be a banana skin
may as well take the usyk bout and get ready for fury

yourdeadwright

walshb wrote: »

Can you not acknowledge that he, and any others getting into the ring with a man that has crushed them is worthy of praise?

I am not sure why you are giving excuses...

Its simple: Fighters who rematch fighters that have beaten them badly deserve credit. End of.

Anyone who gets in the ring deserves credit.


When a world champion gets upset by a late replacement who is a complete underdog, I would be shocked if they didn't want to get back in there ,

I'm not a critic's of AJ's tactics in the second fight do what you think give you the best chance, to win

I'm saying that within the performance you could clearly see him panic & stiffen up when Ruiz got inside, He did not look comfortably at all ,

squinn2912

Funny at the time there were plenty of voices on here calling for Joshua to take a tune up before going back in with Ruiz. That would have been the end of him I think. He did well to take on Ruiz surely. I do think Ruiz got lucky in the first fight too but Joshua went into complete panic mode after one decent hook - made worse because he didn’t dream it would come. I’m not so sure they’ll ever go back in with Ruiz as much as Eddie might spout. In the rematch he was a slug and was still the one carrying the fight in the 12th. Joshua should have been able to tag him and stop him in that condition. It was even worse than Stiverne vs Wilder II.

Morrison J

Rematch was well set up for Joshua to mitigate a lot of the risk to be fair. Massive ring and Luis Pabon as ref who's notorious for breaking up any inside fighting. Was obvious come fight week that Joshua was going to fight the most negative fight possible and play it safe. Ruiz obviously coming in overweight helped too but can't blame anyone but himself for that.

Good tactics and execution from Joshua that night but nothing much more than that. Feel like as time goes by you hear people talk about it being some sort of masterclass which it definitely wasn't. Bit like Fury-Wlad in that regard. The narrative takes on a life of its own as time goes on. Goes from being a good, effective performance to some sort of one sided masterclass in some people's minds.

squinn2912

Morrison J wrote: »

Rematch was well set up for Joshua to mitigate a lot of the risk to be fair. Massive ring and Luis Pabon as ref who's notorious for breaking up any inside fighting. Was obvious come fight week that Joshua was going to fight the most negative fight possible and play it safe. Ruiz obviously coming in overweight helped too but can't blame anyone but himself for that.

Good tactics and execution from Joshua that night but nothing much more than that. Feel like as time goes by you hear people talk about it being some sort of masterclass which it definitely wasn't. Bit like Fury-Wlad in that regard. The narrative takes on a life of its own as time goes on. Goes from being a good, effective performance to some sort of one sided masterclass in some people's minds.

Yea I agree with you about fight week. IT was dreadful to watch it all unfold.

Not sure about your second point. The masterclass nonsense came mainly from Tony Bellew who has been reincarnated as an agreeing puppet. I’ve not heard that performance mentioned very often in that type of light since. Fury vs Wlad wasn’t that great to watch but it’s worthy of rememberence by virtue of the fact that Fury took the titles from the guy who had ruled for a decade and he did it using Wlad’s own game.

Cyrus

squinn2912 wrote: »

Fury vs Wlad wasn’t that great to watch but it’s worthy of rememberence by virtue of the fact that Fury took the titles from the guy who had ruled for a decade and he did it using Wlad’s own game.

In his backyard as well.

yourdeadwright

Personal opinion Fury V Wlad was an absolute master class ,

Wlad with all the experience he had had no clue what to do or what was happing, ,

Fury talked himself up so much & disrespected Wlad , It made Wlad think Fury was coming for Fight & to try take him out

When Fury turned up and was happy to just win rounds & make it a non even Wlad was totally bamboozled

Fury's greatness for me is the fact he has so many ways to skin a cat its so rare at that weight , Very hard to predict what you'll be facing ,

walshb

Interesting take is this masterclass

I guess it's down to tastes and subjectivity etc

I only watched again When We Were Kings last night...

I think Ali's performance that night is the dictionary definition of masterclass

squinn2912

walshb wrote: »

Interesting take is this masterclass

I guess it's down to tastes and subjectivity etc

I only watched again When We Were Kings last night...

I think Ali's performance that night is the dictionary definition of masterclass

A fantastic documentary

Fury is excellent at getting into another man’s head; Ali invented it! “You out sucker”

Morrison J

squinn2912 wrote: »

Fury vs Wlad wasn’t that great to watch but it’s worthy of rememberence by virtue of the fact that Fury took the titles from the guy who had ruled for a decade and he did it using Wlad’s own game.

It's 100% one of the great modern wins in the sport and I definitely wouldn't play down the significance of the achievement at all.

I just think some look back on it as if Fury completely schooled Wlad and won easy. Think I had it scored 8-4 with Fury having a point deducted too. Lot of competitive, cagey rounds in there. Fury definitely the clear winner but I just don't think you can call that type of close fight a masterclass or a schooling personally.

yourdeadwright

Morrison J wrote: »

It's 100% one of the great modern wins in the sport and I definitely wouldn't play down the significance of the achievement at all.

I just think some look back on it as if Fury completely schooled Wlad and won easy. Think I had it scored 8-4 with Fury having a point deducted too. Lot of competitive, cagey rounds in there. Fury definitely the clear winner but I just don't think you can call that type of close fight a masterclass or a schooling personally.

Its context though Wlad was unbeaten in a decade & no one saw him losing on the cards in Germany ,
Round after round Fury nicked on Wlad & then when added up won the fight with ease ,


Fury had the Floyd mentality you don't have to outbox someone , you don't have to knock them out, you don't have to be flash ,
You just have to win more rounds ,

Morrison J

yourdeadwright wrote: »

Fury had the Floyd mentality you don't have to outbox someone , you don't have to knock them out, you don't have to be flash ,
You just have to win more rounds ,

But at the same time when I think of a Floyd masterclass the first fights that I think of are Corrales and Canelo. Two fights that he was completely dominant in and hardly lost a second of. Two of the best performances in modern day boxing against top tier opposition.

I don't want to take away from Fury's win as I've always rated it to be brilliant in the circumstances but it wouldn't come under the definition of a masterclass for me. The Wilder rematch would be much closer to the definition of a masterclass to me anyway. All depends on your own definition of a masterclass though I suppose!

walshb

Looks like we will get Usyk-AJ now. AJ has brought in Wadi Camacho as a sparring partner. Southpaw cruiser weight..

OmegaGene

walshb wrote: »

Looks like we will get Usyk-AJ now. AJ has brought in Wadi Camacho as a sparring partner. Southpaw cruiser weight..

makes sense to fight him rather than dropping a belt

walshb

OmegaGene wrote: »

makes sense to fight him rather than dropping a belt

It does

It's just a fooking fight.....some the shenanigans and posturing and all that in pro boxing would make you sick...

Eddie, as far as I know has uttered things about dropping WBO belt.......along the lines of the fight making financial sense......utter crap!

But, I reckon the fight gets made

FileNotFound

AJ v Usk

Fury v Wilder

Winners then get to go ahead for unification - not bad all said. Assuming AJ and Fury win again.

Would be nice to think they could still fight towards end of this year/ early next year.

I think both AJ and Fury will win their respective fights.

squinn2912

I think it makes good sense. Fury vs Wilder & Joshua vs Usyk are much bigger fights before the undisputed match, whatever form that ends up taking. If they fight first for all the belts you lose at least one good event

walshb

squinn2912 wrote: »

I think it makes good sense. Fury vs Wilder & Joshua vs Usyk are much bigger fights before the undisputed match, whatever form that ends up taking. If they fight first for all the belts you lose at least one good event

Usyk and Wilder to win

You heard it here first!

Butson

walshb wrote: »

Usyk and Wilder to win

You heard it here first!

Wouldn't be one bit surprised!

I said it earlier, Usyk is a nightmare for Joshua technically.

Tazium

squinn2912 wrote: »

I think it makes good sense. Fury vs Wilder & Joshua vs Usyk are much bigger fights before the undisputed match, whatever form that ends up taking. If they fight first for all the belts you lose at least one good event

With the negotiations and inevitable rematch clauses should either champ lose, that unification bout could be some distance away yet.

squinn2912

walshb wrote: »

Usyk and Wilder to win

You heard it here first!

Can’t see it lad. I think Joshua will brutally ko Usyk. Wilder Fury is a bit of a toss up for me. I’m not convinced we’ll ever see as good a version of Fury as we did in the second fight. Thing is that Wilder needs a ko to win and he has huge mental barriers to overcome, don’t see him doing that

walshb

squinn2912 wrote: »

Can’t see it lad.

Nor can I.

squinn2912

walshb wrote: »

Nor can I.

Can’t see either of them winning let alone both! But for the craic... which of them has the best chance?

walshb

squinn2912 wrote: »

Can’t see either of them winning let alone both! But for the craic... which of them has the best chance?

I am 75-25 AJ to win

53-47 Fury to win

Odds wise I think AJ 5-1 on is accurate

4-7 Fury is accurate

squinn2912

walshb wrote: »

I am 75-25 AJ to win

53-47 Fury to win

Very similar myself but I’d have Fury a good 60-40

yourdeadwright

squinn2912 wrote: »

Very similar myself but I’d have Fury a good 60-40

The big thing for me is how does Fury feel about this Wilder fight ?

He has to be 100% motivated like last time, he has to be ready to get hit & be completely on point with everything he does , he has to be on it from round 1 ,


The big problem fighting Wilder is if he catches you slipping for one second he can end it ,


AJ can preform poorly against Usyk & still win , Fury doesn't have that comfort against Wilder ,