The Official Boxing Thread!!! - Part 5

[HammerDown]

I felt like this fight was like a leopard vs a buffalo.
If the cat was stationary he would be trampled but he just kept biting and moving constantly.

Also was it just me or they ringed the bell early? There where like 5 or 6 seconds left and it just rang. Maybe it was the timer on the transmission that didn't line with the one in the ring. Odd though since i didn't notice the issue with all the other rounds. Anyways Usyk even pulled the foot out of the gas in the very last seconds when AJ was on the ropes.

AJ is going to activate the rematch and i could see the fight happening next summer maybe in Saudi like the Ruiz fight. He'll probably have to be more aggressive and rough in the rematch, not too different from what Chisora did. The problem then would be that AJ will probably gas out and could even get KO'ed in the later rounds.

I think the fighter with the best chance of taking down Usyk is Fury because of his size, reach and awkward skill. He'll rough Usyk up and play dirty without gassing out as quickly as AJ. Even Usyk admitted that out of AJ, Fury and Wilder, Fury was the one who could give him more problems.

 

[Iceman]

Wow, didn't see the fight, but I am always curious with Joshua and his questionable chin. But a straight decision win? One that looked easy? That ain't no fluke. A real bad look for Joshua.

I think he lets himself get beaten mentally when things aren’t going his way or when he feels surprisingly hurt. That isn’t a champion’s mentality or a fighter’s mentality. You can see the difference in his approach to earlier in his career where he had all that confidence and knew his power could take anyone out (* it still can but he no longer believes it - or is no longer willing to risk throwing a full power committed shot now that he knows he can’t take a big hit himself).

Usyk is coming up from a lower weight class where you need to be able to box unlike at heavyweight (if you’re big enough or powerful enough). Joshua’s tactics were all wrong as he was playing Usyk at his own game. If Joshua gets involved in a no holds barred brawl with anyone he always has a chance of knocking them out. He can outbox those who can’t box like Ruiz, Wilder, Whyte or use his reach advantage if the ref protects him as with Joseph Parker, but boxing against Usyk or Fury will mean a loss. He’s an average boxer with massive power and should be taking advantage of his reach and weight to bully smaller fighters and not let them settle and control the fight.

He has let his belts go with a whimper here. When you are the champion and obviously down on points going into the last couple of rounds and have that kind of power, you should be throwing everything at your opponent.

 

[Iceman]

I'm no expert at rating the rounds, it's just my opinion and there's plenty of room for interpretation on the "draw" rounds. After reading a bit more on how the judges rate boxing matches it's pretty clear why Usyk got the unanimous decision. Most of these things below where leaning to Usyk. Also when we see the graph for the punches landed... that should be pretty conclusive as well. It was a fully deserved win.


It's also worth mentioning that Usyk didn't put on weight as speculated. Just a marginal increase from the Chisora fight.
He simply trusted his own strengths and went to battle with it.

It’s the direction the “draw” rounds go that make all the difference and also the reason (apart from any underlying corruption ) why the scorecards of experienced judges can be different by more than just a couple of rounds. Some may reward aggression say 5% better than others which could for eg switch 3 of the tightest rounds from one fighter to the other. Your opinions are as valid as anyone’s but as a judge you’d be pushed to decide a winner of a round more often than not and when you’ve taken punches landed into account already (when calling a round a draw), the boxer showing more intent usually gets the edge.

 

[Iceman]

I felt like this fight was like a leopard vs a buffalo.
If the cat was stationary he would be trampled but he just kept biting and moving constantly.

Also was it just me or they ringed the bell early? There where like 5 or 6 seconds left and it just rang. Maybe it was the timer on the transmission that didn't line with the one in the ring. Odd though since i didn't notice the issue with all the other rounds. Anyways Usyk even pulled the foot out of the gas in the very last seconds when AJ was on the ropes.

AJ is going to activate the rematch and i could see the fight happening next summer maybe in Saudi like the Ruiz fight. He'll probably have to be more aggressive and rough in the rematch, not too different from what Chisora did. The problem then would be that AJ will probably gas out and could even get KO'ed in the later rounds.

I think the fighter with the best chance of taking down Usyk is Fury because of his size, reach and awkward skill. He'll rough Usyk up and play dirty without gassing out as quickly as AJ. Even Usyk admitted that out of AJ, Fury and Wilder, Fury was the one who could give him more problems.

Yeah, leopard and buffalo covers it lol. In this case the buffalo had just eaten 50 tonnes of grass and was due a nap.

I agree that Fury would cause the most problems for Usyk. Even as a better boxer it it is very hard to win a boxing match by outboxing someone with such a big reach advantage, excellent and uniquely unpredictable head movement and strong self belief, if they can also box. It can work against someone who can’t box like Wilder if you can evade his big guns (an aged Ortiz showed how before succumbing).

To beat Fury you have to hit him very hard early IMO and Joshua was well placed to be the fighter to do that a few years ago until he discovered the weaknesses of his own chin and his confidence and willingness to unleash the big hits went with it. Joshua was a good enough boxer (average - which is decent in modern heavyweight terms) to be able to land a few power shots on Fury within a match and let those set up a win but not good enough to win a boxing match against him on boxing alone. That all seems out the window now though.

 

[HammerDown]

 

[Iceman]

The stats don’t lie here.

 

[HammerDown]

Adding to the “conspiracy theory” about the timer in the AJ vs Usyk fight, they actually never rang the 10 seconds left bell in that 12th round. They went straight to the final bell when there was like 6 seconds left on the DAZN timer.

I think the way to clear things up would probably be to time on a separate clock the whole round, from beginning to end and then see if it lines up.

Regardless they didn’t ring the final 10 seconds bell which is dodgy and then when AJ was on the ropes they seemingly stoped the fight early. It could very well be just an error but the circumstances make it very dodgy.

 

[B]

Usyk put on a superb performance vs AJ, drew him into his sort of a boxing match & picked AJ apart.

For a guy the size of AJ he doesn't use his height & weight advantage to it's absolute maximum. Look at Fury, he's a tall guy & he fights long, he uses that size advantage he has over the majority of fighters he faces to it's absolute maximum, hitting guys at a range in which they can't return the blow without over extending.

Usyk used all his advantages properly, speed, stamina & agility over the much bigger man. AJ needs to act like the big man in the rematch & try to bully him more. They should do something about these rematch clauses in contracts, I don't like how Usyk has to give AJ a rematch even though he won convincingly. AJ could win the rematch in a razer close decision by 1 round or a majority decision & never have to give Usyk a rematch.

 

[Iceman]

Adding to the “conspiracy theory” about the timer in the AJ vs Usyk fight, they actually never rang the 10 seconds left bell in that 12th round. They went straight to the final bell when there was like 6 seconds left on the DAZN timer.

I think the way to clear things up would probably be to time on a separate clock the whole round, from beginning to end and then see if it lines up.

Regardless they didn’t ring the final 10 seconds bell which is dodgy and then when AJ was on the ropes they seemingly stoped the fight early. It could very well be just an error but the circumstances make it very dodgy.

Imagine if Usyk had been down a couple of rounds and needed a knockout.

 

[HammerDown]

Imagine if Usyk had been down a couple of rounds and needed a knockout.

Yeh that would’ve been even more wild. In this case Usyk didn’t really need to do more to secure the victory, it just felt like they feared AJ was going to be KO’ed.

 

[Iceman]

Usyk put on a superb performance vs AJ, drew him into his sort of a boxing match & picked AJ apart.

For a guy the size of AJ he doesn't use his height & weight advantage to it's absolute maximum. Look at Fury, he's a tall guy & he fights long, he uses that size advantage he has over the majority of fighters he faces to it's absolute maximum, hitting guys at a range in which they can't return the blow without over extending.

Usyk used all his advantages properly, speed, stamina & agility over the much bigger man. AJ needs to act like the big man in the rematch & try to bully him more. They should do something about these rematch clauses in contracts, I don't like how Usyk has to give AJ a rematch even though he won convincingly. AJ could win the rematch in a razer close decision by 1 round or a majority decision & never have to give Usyk a rematch.

Yeah, for his talk of ring IQ he doesn't have it/use it - or just gets way too flustered from being hit or the threat of being hit to execute any gameplan. Especially compared to Usyk who very much does have a boxing brain. Joshua let all his advantages (reach, weight and power) go to waste.

 

[Iceman]

Boxing legend Pacquiao retires
True legend of the sport.

 

[InCali]

Boxing legend Pacquiao retires
True legend of the sport.

I hope he stays retired.

 

[Iceman]

I’m surprised to actually like some of what Fury’s saying here.

Fury 'wounded' by Joshua's loss to Usyk

 

[Iceman]

Good to see respect and boxers getting on outside the fight rather than the lack of class some show.

 

[HammerDown]

I saw a recent clip of Fury in the ring and he looks pretty massive.
To me he looks very similar to the second fight with Wilder and he's probably even heavier. In the second fight he weighed in at 273 pounds and it looks like he's around 275 now.

 

[InCali]

I saw a recent clip of Fury in the ring and he looks pretty massive.
To me he looks very similar to the second fight with Wilder and he's probably even heavier. In the second fight he weighed in at 273 pounds and it looks like he's around 275 now.

Was that before or after lunch?

 

[HammerDown]

Was that before or after lunch?

After lunch for sure.

He actually said in an interview that he was gonna come in the heaviest he had ever been.
And just recently he still maintained that he was trying hard to come in heavier but it hadn't been an easy task.

 

[Mandon Knight]

So, do people think Fury again or Wilder win this time ?

 

[HammerDown]

So, do people think Fury again or Wilder win this time ?

Fury won the rematch in a conclusive manner so I gotta give him the slight edge. But Wilder has enough power to change things in a blink of an eye, so that has to be always taken into consideration and can’t be underestimated. Percentage wise I’d say it’s probably 60-40 to Fury.

Wilder also changed his trainer and will try to implement a different game plan, specifically working Fury’s body more to try and slow him, he will also try to disguise the right hand more and not be so dependent on it.

Fury on the other hand should have pretty much the same game plan, pressure Wilder to make him go backwards and try to overwhelm Wilder again.

 

[B]

So, do people think Fury again or Wilder win this time ?

Still Fury for me, the pair of them have fought nearly 20 rounds & in those 20 rounds I think Wilder's only won at most 4 or 5 of those rounds.

Fury is just all round the superior boxer & fighter, Wilder does have the power to change a fight in an instant but DW now knows TF has the power to hurt him also.

Only way I think DW beats TF is via a flash KO/TKO, I would be absolutely shocked if he went in there & outboxed TF for 12 rounds.

 

[HammerDown]

 

[Iceman]

Still Fury for me, the pair of them have fought nearly 20 rounds & in those 20 rounds I think Wilder's only won at most 4 or 5 of those rounds.

Fury is just all round the superior boxer & fighter, Wilder does have the power to change a fight in an instant but DW now knows TF has the power to hurt him also.

Only way I think DW beats TF is via a flash KO/TKO, I would be absolutely shocked if he went in there & outboxed TF for 12 rounds.

Wilder is not going to win rounds against Fury unless he already has him hurt. Fury is one of the only heavyweights who can box at all while Wilder has no boxing skills of any sort. The default is that Fury wins nearly every round until (if) Wilder manages to land his heavy left right combo. If he doesn’t land then it will just be a boring gradual defeat.

 

[InCali]

So, do people think Fury again or Wilder win this time ?

Unless Fury gets caught, he wins easily. There's about a 1% chance that Wilder has become a better boxer, but even if he's been working to improve, he'll never be at Fury's level.

I said quite some time ago that of the current crop, Fury had the most potential to put a good fight together. I'll be shocked if he loses.....but I've been shocked before.

 

[InCali]

Wilder is not going to win rounds against Fury unless he already has him hurt. Fury is one of the only heavyweights who can box at all while Wilder has no boxing skills of any sort. The default is that Fury wins nearly every round until (if) Wilder manages to land his heavy left right combo. If he doesn’t land then it will just be a boring gradual defeat.

Or a KO. If Wilder had a good jab, he could be formidable.