F--- boxing

Oof.

Just brutal and perfect.

 

Tyson was a MARVEL. The balance, the speed in both hands, the power and accuracy. In hindsight he's even more impressive.

One thing about Foreman, he wasn't fast per say, but the snap on his left jab made it one of the most difficult punches to defend. And when he connected it hurt. I think Joe Frazier said he felt like he eye was going to explode.

 

I agree with pretty much all of this. Peak Tyson, and even post-peak Tyson had a very solid chin. Even in the loss to Buster Douglas, he took 10 rounds of punishment against a bigger guy that was on his game. So he's not going to be afraid of the heat coming back.

Lewis' size was only part of Tyson's issues with him. Lewis was so accurate and very good defensively, he had an accelerated fight IQ. He was tough to hit and hit much harder than people expected so Tyson could even brawl with him. It wasn't a headbutt that destroyed Vitali Klitchsko's eye, it was a brutally hard punch.

I don't think any of the three could beat Lewis. Fury would probably have the best shot because he could make the fight really slow and ugly. The other two leave themselves far too open.

 

No worries . I agree, I think Joshua would have to work to get to Fury but he would get to him and he's not going to be concerned with Fury's power. With Wilder he would just have to avoid getting too comfortable.

 

Agree with that, could say the same about Liston. Holmes could completely control a fight with his jab which was as good as the heavyweight division ever saw but Foreman and Liston could really hurt you with it.

 

Not to change the great subject on Tyson and former greats, but do you guys have any thoughts on Lomachenko? He’s taking on Pedrama tonight.

 

He's a remarkable fighter. Dazzling. But he's only fought a dozen professional fights. And lost one of them.

So, like Inoue, he's in my P4P top ten.

With the weird caveat that I'm not entirely sold on him.

 

I like Lomachenko too. He had such an extensive amateur career that I don't hold his small professional numbers against him. Especially given how many professional records are bloated. The first 15-20 of Canelo Alvarez's "professional" fights were against guys three times older than him just looking to get enough funds to feed their family for a couple of days.

Back to Lomanchenko, he is so fun to watch. Slick puncher, good power at 126 and 130, we'll see how good it is at 135. I hope he can get to 140 where the future matchups can be very exciting.

 

What will it take?

 

Something I don't get about televised boxing, why do the broadcasts on ESPN run long so often? i'm recording the ESPN fights while watching the HBO ones. I checked on ESPN between rounds and the main event didn't even start until 11:40 or so, 10 minutes after the broadcast was scheduled to finish. There's no overtime or extra innings in boxing. You know how long a fight will last barring some unusual circumstances. So why is it so hard to fit all the fights into the time allotted? Either block out more time, show fewer fights or cut back on the filler between fights. I'm sure there's a good reason to err on the side of running long but it sucks when you're trying to record these things.

 

And one of the three fights was even a (devastating) first-round knockout.

 

Right. There's no excuse for this. Cut back on the filler or block out more time.

Actually a guy from UFC once explained to me that they do this because if there are a lot of early knockouts and they end early people switch channels but if it runs long, the ratings from the fights count for the show after it.

Does that even make sense?