HW prospects..

[THE PHILOSOPHER]

I see Mitchell getting KO'd if he moves up a level now. I just don't see him living with guys like Arreola, Chambers and Adamek. Klitschko would kill him!

Mitchell is a schooling waiting to happen....a tarvoris cloud/jeff lacy type fighter! Im a fan but he's not ever going to be great.

[rjj tszyu]

I agree with Rafael on things here and there and he does have a favorable view of Wladimir, but Wlad already fights pretty often usually 2 times a year and he's running out of opponents. Wlad has 13 successful title defenses (or there abouts) so far and to get 25 would only be difficult in terms of finding guys ready & willing to fight him. Rafael writes like if Wlad wanted to he could break that record tomorrow.

You know what is a scary thought? What if Wlad had gone straight to Manny after the Olympic win. I personally believe it took Manny around 4 years to get Wlad fighting as well as he is now and I know he still pushes him to improve and move in for the kill more. Well imagine he did take him under his wing in 96, he would have had regular sparring with Lennox Lewis and what's more what took him 4 years to teach a fully grown man might well have taken him half that thus leaving much more time as a youth to develop even further.

It's all what's, if's and maybes now but it's worth thinking when you talk about how many defences Wlad could have made. I personally don't think he'll catch Louis now because he's not as active as he was a few years ago mainly due to injury, but had Steward taken him from the Olympics I think we could have had a 30+ defences man in the HW division.

[TitoFan]

No denying Wladimir Klitschko is already heavyweight royalty - ESPN



Here you go, Lyle. I know you'll like this article by Dan Rafael. He and I agree on one thing.... Wlad could be busier. Let's hope he picks up the pace and, in doing so, finds someone who will push him and make for an entertaining and competitive fight. Tony "Where's the Nearest Exit" Thompson certainly didn't fit that description.

Dan rafael is a terrible boxing scribe, ridiculed worldwide.

And yet ESPN keeps him on. There must be a shortage of good boxing writers, I guess.

[El Kabong]

Seth Mitchell is rough around the edges and yes Wlad beats him easily, but the guy got a late start in boxing and given that he's done rather well for himself I must say. It is amazing how quickly the American heavyweight boxing scene deteriorated after Tyson, Holyfield, & Bowe....a quick & precipitous drop off in talent & skill, but one that was exacerbated by the end of the Cold War and that begs the question "If the Cold War was still going, who would be heavyweight champion and how good would they be?"


As for ESPN, they are going all MTV on us, they report more on speculation and gossip than actual stories. The main thing that irks me is how quickly announcers will jump all over boxing for bad fights, bad match ups, bad scoring/judging....they are very quick to say what is wrong in boxing while offering few if any solutions and they rarely if ever say that anything good is happening in the sport.

[Freedom]

My picks for the best HW up-and-comers are Price, Dinu, Mitchell, Jennings, and Glazkov.

Pulev and Fury are also very good, but I think they've already reached contender status.

[THE PHILOSOPHER]

begs the question "If the Cold War was still going, who would be heavyweight champion and how good would they be?"

It also beg's the question 'what if the eastern europeans had always fought pro?' imagine the fighters (with the right management etc) we have missed out on! The americans would not have been so dominant...

-Aleksandr Miroshnichenko stopped lennox lewis as an amateur. Also beat riddick bowe up (flooring him twice!).
-Igor vygotsky twice defeated the great cuban teofilio stevenson. Also stopped tony tubbs and mitch green etc.

One of the best came in the form of a potential challenger to Joe Louis, who could use all he could get in al honesty!

That was legendary Soviet Korolev Nikolai Federovich, Born February 14th 1917 and died February 12th 1974. He was a 4 -time Absolute Soviet Champion (1936,1937,1944, 1945), a 9 time Champion of the USSR (1936-1939,1945-1949) and Champion of the 1937 Socialist Olympics in Antwerp (The Russian alternative to the boycotted 1936 games in Berlin hosted by Nazi Germany), but he never got to go pro to really prove his stuff settling for a 110-14-2 record as a Russian hero.

See? What if.....

[THE PHILOSOPHER]

Also...cubans like stevenson, savon etc....Damn the fighters we have missed taking on the americans!! Borders open (approximately in the year 2000) and Eastern-Europeans enter the arena.
Within a decade Americans lose all their titles to Eastern-Europeans.

We have already seen what has happened the first wave of fighters, wlad, vitali, povetkin, chagaev etc! Now we need a few more to follow in odlandier solis footsteps too...

Even the klitscho predecesors like B level alexander Zolkin, was robbed over and over again by American judges even tho he was clearly beating top ten fighters when only a novice in the pro's himself. And he still made the top 10 by 95. Oleg Maskeav, with only 4 pro fights was pushed into a match with Oliver McCall a 30+ fight vet! With the right management and momentum there is a talent pool to die for in the block...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUDB2ruGRAQ

[Mega]

begs the question "If the Cold War was still going, who would be heavyweight champion and how good would they be?"

It also beg's the question 'what if the eastern europeans had always fought pro?' imagine the fighters (with the right management etc) we have missed out on! The americans would not have been so dominant...

-Aleksandr Miroshnichenko stopped lennox lewis as an amateur. Also beat riddick bowe up (flooring him twice!).
-Igor vygotsky twice defeated the great cuban teofilio stevenson. Also stopped tony tubbs and mitch green etc.

One of the best came in the form of a potential challenger to Joe Louis, who could use all he could get in al honesty!

That was legendary Soviet Korolev Nikolai Federovich, Born February 14th 1917 and died February 12th 1974. He was a 4 -time Absolute Soviet Champion (1936,1937,1944, 1945), a 9 time Champion of the USSR (1936-1939,1945-1949) and Champion of the 1937 Socialist Olympics in Antwerp (The Russian alternative to the boycotted 1936 games in Berlin hosted by Nazi Germany), but he never got to go pro to really prove his stuff settling for a 110-14-2 record as a Russian hero.

See? What if.....

didnt read

[THE PHILOSOPHER]

begs the question "If the Cold War was still going, who would be heavyweight champion and how good would they be?"

It also beg's the question 'what if the eastern europeans had always fought pro?' imagine the fighters (with the right management etc) we have missed out on! The americans would not have been so dominant...

-Aleksandr Miroshnichenko stopped lennox lewis as an amateur. Also beat riddick bowe up (flooring him twice!).
-Igor vygotsky twice defeated the great cuban teofilio stevenson. Also stopped tony tubbs and mitch green etc.

One of the best came in the form of a potential challenger to Joe Louis, who could use all he could get in al honesty!

That was legendary Soviet Korolev Nikolai Federovich, Born February 14th 1917 and died February 12th 1974. He was a 4 -time Absolute Soviet Champion (1936,1937,1944, 1945), a 9 time Champion of the USSR (1936-1939,1945-1949) and Champion of the 1937 Socialist Olympics in Antwerp (The Russian alternative to the boycotted 1936 games in Berlin hosted by Nazi Germany), but he never got to go pro to really prove his stuff settling for a 110-14-2 record as a Russian hero.

See? What if.....

didnt read

Roughly translated: 'I am actually quite stupid!'

[Mega]

begs the question "If the Cold War was still going, who would be heavyweight champion and how good would they be?"

It also beg's the question 'what if the eastern europeans had always fought pro?' imagine the fighters (with the right management etc) we have missed out on! The americans would not have been so dominant...

-Aleksandr Miroshnichenko stopped lennox lewis as an amateur. Also beat riddick bowe up (flooring him twice!).
-Igor vygotsky twice defeated the great cuban teofilio stevenson. Also stopped tony tubbs and mitch green etc.

One of the best came in the form of a potential challenger to Joe Louis, who could use all he could get in al honesty!

That was legendary Soviet Korolev Nikolai Federovich, Born February 14th 1917 and died February 12th 1974. He was a 4 -time Absolute Soviet Champion (1936,1937,1944, 1945), a 9 time Champion of the USSR (1936-1939,1945-1949) and Champion of the 1937 Socialist Olympics in Antwerp (The Russian alternative to the boycotted 1936 games in Berlin hosted by Nazi Germany), but he never got to go pro to really prove his stuff settling for a 110-14-2 record as a Russian hero.

See? What if.....

didnt read

Roughly translated: 'I am actually quite stupid!'

cool retort bro!

[El Kabong]

Having great amateurs doesn't translate into having great pros because there is a difference in styles, but also the age differences aren't so drastic. Americans turn pro younger, get more experience as pros so you bring up good names like Savon and Stevenson and they were great amateurs, but if they fought pros their own age I'm not so certain they would have been that great. Look at Odlanier Solis, and look at the failed fighters from the former Soviet states....they put out some duds as well.

George Foreman had been boxing for only 1 year when he won Gold in 1968 and he hammered the absolute dog crap out of Ionas Chepulis. So it wouldn't be all sunshine and lollipops for the Commie's in the Pro ranks.

[THE PHILOSOPHER]

George Foreman had been boxing for only 1 year when he won Gold in 1968 and he hammered the absolute dog crap out of Ionas Chepulis. So it wouldn't be all sunshine and lollipops for the Commie's in the Pro ranks.

Foreman won gold over a 31 year old! That's ancient in amateur terms! And frazier only narrowly defeated a 30 yr old amateur too...

Also the soviets only started competing in the games in the mid 50's.

[El Kabong]

George Foreman had been boxing for only 1 year when he won Gold in 1968 and he hammered the absolute dog crap out of Ionas Chepulis. So it wouldn't be all sunshine and lollipops for the Commie's in the Pro ranks.

Foreman won gold over a 31 year old! That's ancient in amateur terms! And frazier only narrowly defeated a 30 yr old amateur too...

Also the soviets only started competing in the games in the mid 50's.

My point exactly because Foreman & Frazier were just kids at the time and they were fighting full grown men.

[THE PHILOSOPHER]

George Foreman had been boxing for only 1 year when he won Gold in 1968 and he hammered the absolute dog crap out of Ionas Chepulis. So it wouldn't be all sunshine and lollipops for the Commie's in the Pro ranks.

Foreman won gold over a 31 year old! That's ancient in amateur terms! And frazier only narrowly defeated a 30 yr old amateur too...

Also the soviets only started competing in the games in the mid 50's.

My point exactly because Foreman & Frazier were just kids at the time and they were fighting full grown men.

The amateurs are a young man's game. What a shame these men could not turn pro rather than fighting youngsters well into there 30's...

Times have changed now though.

[TigerFan]

Here's Andy Ruiz Jr's last fight. Like I said he's one of those quick fisted chubby guys

What do you guys think?