Put Sonny Liston in Tyson/Holyfield's era

[The Old LefHook]

Warning: Same old opinion coming.

OK but it was like watching Leonard avoid engaging Hagler for 12 rounds.

We need 45 round championship fights and then tell me Young would have won a decision.

More realistically it's hard to judge, but there is effective boxing and there are fights/fighters who intend to do nothing more than win a punch count with ineffective blows.

As a fight wares on we fans can (if we want to) recognize that strategy at play and what was suspose to be a prize fight becomes a stall, that bores.

Young and Leonard were masterful those respective nights, as the CW goes, but I never once thought they had the wherewithal to beat the man in front of them.

Yea, Young outboxed Foreman. I was hoping a fight might break out. But it didn't.

You should have written a letter asking him to commit suicide. He beat people the way he knew how.

[Willie Pep 229]

You should have written a letter asking him to commit suicide. He beat people the way he knew how.

Fair enough. But if I knew going in I wouldn't have bought in.

[them_apples]

Warning: Same old opinion coming.

OK but it was like watching Leonard avoid engaging Hagler for 12 rounds.

We need 45 round championship fights and then tell me Young would have won a decision.

More realistically it's hard to judge, but there is effective boxing and there are fights/fighters who intend to do nothing more than win a punch count with ineffective blows.

As a fight wares on we fans can (if we want to) recognize that strategy at play and what was suspose to be a prize fight becomes a stall, that bores.

Young and Leonard were masterful those respective nights, as the CW goes, but I never once thought they had the wherewithal to beat the man in front of them.

Yea, Young outboxed Foreman. I was hoping a fight might break out. But it didn't.

Yeah good ass points.

The aspect of winning a losing has been distorted over the years with the hit and don't get hit idea, which makes sense if you said it in 1930, but saying it today it takes on a whole new meaning of "i don't even need to hurt my opponents at all, I just need to sell this win. We saw rumblings of this thinking years ago sure, but it blossomed into this entirely new creature we define as a boxer.

It's funny you brought that up because I thought this recently watching the Hagler SRL fight. Hagler probably feels he never lost a fight in his career because never once was he broken, discouraged or even hurt in his entire career. Meaning all his opponents "survived". This is what Leonard did, and could only do because the system allowed. They of course used to have old sayings like "you have to beat the champ to take his title" but that of course dissolved quite fast. Had the fight gone longer with Hagler, it looks as though it would have turned into an SRL collapses type of stoppage.

[Anthony342]

That's the guy. Slugged the late Emmanuel Yarbrough with a single shot that he couldn't crawl back up from. Lost to Royce and got RNCd by Marco Ruas "The King of the Streets", one of the first to truly to synthesize grappling and striking in early modern MMA. 600 llb. Yarbrough was actually African American, and you're thinking of Gerard Gordeau knocking out Teila Tuli of Hawaii at UFC I in 93'.

Dude, that was brutal. Gordeau knocked some teeth out in the first ever UFC fight and the event ended with a nice rear choke on Gordeau after Gerard bit Royce on the ear, showing both the possible brutality and artistry of martial arts. Ruas showed the significance of leg kicks in UFC 7. They can chop down a fighter, a lot like body punches in boxing.

[billeau2]

Warning: Same old opinion coming.

OK but it was like watching Leonard avoid engaging Hagler for 12 rounds.

We need 45 round championship fights and then tell me Young would have won a decision.

More realistically it's hard to judge, but there is effective boxing and there are fights/fighters who intend to do nothing more than win a punch count with ineffective blows.

As a fight wares on we fans can (if we want to) recognize that strategy at play and what was suspose to be a prize fight becomes a stall, that bores.

Young and Leonard were masterful those respective nights, as the CW goes, but I never once thought they had the wherewithal to beat the man in front of them.

Yea, Young outboxed Foreman. I was hoping a fight might break out. But it didn't.

He hit with effective counter punching. He did so consistently. He took Foreman's punch, I don't know... what else should the guy had done? The fight was stopped because of the effect of his punches on Foreman... My mother used to say about my sister "she wants toasted snow!" lol.

Edit: My bad the fight was not "stopped" He knocked Foreman down the last round...

[billeau2]

You should have written a letter asking him to commit suicide. He beat people the way he knew how.

He knocked down big George... So I figure his punches had some effect.

[QueensburyRules]

He hit with effective counter punching. He did so consistently. He took Foreman's punch, I don't know... what else should the guy had done? The fight was stopped because of the effect of his punches on Foreman... My mother used to say about my sister "she wants toasted snow!" lol.

Edit: My bad the fight was not "stopped" He knocked Foreman down the last round...

- - Running like U britches on fire ain't effective counterpunching.

George carried the Curse of the Sluggers in that any time they can't knockout a fighter, that fighter exceeds expectations to win in spite of doing nothing else noteworthy. George from day one of pro debut knew he was onto something big, so big he and Ali doubled the previous purse record of Ali/Frazier 1. He wouldn't fight unless he got the Ali rematch, so when finally understanding after the Canadian exhibition where Ali publicly announced. "you ain't never getting a rematch," he returned to massive accolades with the Lyle FOY and kept his Big Dog demeanor, so King knocked him down a peg putting him on a Puerto Rican Featherweight undercard and paid some judges. He told George he could get Ali if George could KO Young who had become an instant celebrity after he clowned and exposed how shot Ali was as if the Wepner fight wasn't enough evidence.

Without the KD that happened as a last ditch effort by Young on his last legs where he turned to catch George rolling in like a train, George was gonna win that fight in spite of King massaging the officials.