Odlanier Solis vs a '92 Riddick Bowe

Can you compare Lennox Lewis to him?

 

To Wlad? Or Ali?

 

Ali. I think you can. Not favourably per se but I dont think the conversation is ridiculous. Lewis not only got KOd by a mediocre fighter but IN his peak period after Steward had come in and developed his style like he would later do for Wlad. And Lewis sure as fuck was a great heavyweight.

For the record before somebody fascetiously and lazily misrepresents my position again: Ali>Lewis>Wlad.

But just saying 'Wlad lost to so and so, he can't be compared or even mentioned in the same sentence as Y or X' is just offensively simplistic and boring boxing reasoning. Some guys are more inconsistent than others, some have certain stylistic vulnerabilities, some improve late in their careers etc. The arc of careers is often kinda complicated, thats why the sport is so interesting.

Many outstanding fighters have lost to mediocre fighters for all manner of reasons. FWIW, Wad would have dominated Jimmy Young or Doug Jones (and that doesn't mean very much, because boxing is too interesting for any interesting conclusions to be drawn from that fact).

But anyway that's the last Im gonna say about this before I get painted as some frothing Klitschko fan. Which if anyone who's been paying any attention to my ramblings these last 10 years knows isnt the case.

 

Absolutely. This attempted Ali-Wlad comparison doesn't work even a little. it's amazing to me how far some folks are willing to reach to make the Klitschkos, especially Wlad, look better. And before the Klitchsko spin doctor mafia tries to bury me in endless posts, that doesn't mean Wlad can't fight (because he obviously can), but comparing him to the very best is off base.

And yes, there is a big difference between getting knocked down and getting up to win and getting knocked senseless.

 

Ok, so what was the problem with my or HutHut's comparison, since nobody has claimed Wlad was as good as Ali?

 

Ezzard Charles got knocked senseless by Lllyod Marshall, Lennox Lewis got knocked senseless by Hasim Rahman, Roy Jones got knocked senseless by Antonio Tarver, Mike Tyson got knocked senseless by Buster Douglas, Archie Moore got knocked senseless by Leonard Morrow, Emile Griffith got knocked senseless by Rubin Carter, Kostya Tszyu got knocked senseless by Vince Phillips....

Better be careful who we ever compare any of these guys to :boring:

 

Who compared Wlad to Ali btw? Where did this happen? More lazy straw manning on this issue.

 

Sounds like you're straying from the Ali-Wlad comparison. Good for you, because it wasn't working.

 

Yawn.

 

Ugo.

 

As far as I can see Ugo just brought up the Cooper, Banks and Jones fights as an example of how a fighter can improve & develop. It was illustrative of a process, not the direct comparison of two fighters in terms of quality or ability. That discussion was invented by Joe.

Again, it's just lazy half assed stuff. So much so that he then says it was me who made the 'comparison'.... a non-comparison made by a totally different poster in the first place.

 

Yes but I mentioned Wlad and Ali in the same post so I deserve no pity.

 

Joke thread aside, Bowe alternated between class and pass depending on his mood, diet, opposition etc. Prime Bowe, keyed-up Bowe, would eventually beat Solis up in 4 or 5 rounds, like he did Herbie Hide, but not before he was buzzed once or twice.

 

This is especially funny from the poster who recently claimed that I think every fighter since 1996 is shit, which is, of course, a bullshit post. The are plenty of outstanding fighters from the last 15 - 20 years (Jones, Hopkins, Trinidad, DLH, Mosley, Mayweather, Pacquiao, etc...) they just don't reside in the heavyweight division.

I do think the heavyweight is division crap (and it is), but to expand that out to all fighters in all divisions is the type of gross exaggeration and half-assed posting that I have come to expect from posters who are willing to go way past the extra mile to defend fighters they are fans of.

And you guys (whether it was you or ugo, and to be honest...if I was confused, you two have become pretty much indistinguishable over the past few days in your Klitschko love and being snarky about it) were trying to build a comparison between Ali and Wlad, and I wasn't the only poster to think so. Sometimes I find myself expecting Esk59 to appear and pile on with you guys.

Oh, shit...I shouldn't have said that assclown's name out loud. Maybe only one time isn't enough to summon him. ::

Like I said...it sucks because you guys used to be better posters than this. Groupie posting is beneath the both you of you, because you both usually strike me as pretty sharp folks. It's become like having a discussion with Tyson fans.

 

Probably about as lazy as calling Solis a quality contender based on his amateur career. That's fair.

 

Mate, of those you mention, Pac & Mayweather are the only guys there who won their first titles after 1997 (12 years ago, each of them). And for every good thing you say about Floyd you say about 20 critical things. Marquez won his first in 2000, which is 11 years ago.

So essentially you've got a positive take on 1 or 2 boxers who won a title in the last 12 years and very little positive to say on any world titlist of the last decade at any weight.

That may be a slight exaggeration, but it certainly isn't an egregious straw manning of your outlook.

If you think my recent postings on the Klits are 'groupie' postings it's only as filtered through THAT world view, and my friend that's your slant, not mine. I'll happily acknowledge that this is a weak era for both boxing and the heavyweight division (of course it fucking is), but Im not so reactionary in that acknowledgement to paint everything that happens in the sport a speckled shade of brown.

'Waaah, these gifts aren't as good as the ones I got last christmas, Im not gonna play with them, Im just gonna pout and point out all their faults'.

I've never even been a Klitschkos fan, I'm just sick of that silly shit.

 

Bullshit post. Many of the fighters I mentioned fought the bulk of their careers from 1996 on and had many of their most significant wins past your arbitrary line in the sand. Nice try at splitting hairs so you can try to pigeonhole me a some sort of hater...but your argument is, at best, self serving and at worst, a big fat lie.

So...you are wrong...I think highly of plenty of fighters who have fought from 1996 until now. You can make up things about me and hide behind Stafford-like exaggerations, but that doesn't hold water.

AND...I don't criticize Mayweather as a fighter, but I DO criticize his opposition at 147, which YOU HAVE DONE many, many times. So...Mr. Pot, you may want to stop calling the Kettle black when it comes to Mayweather. I DO think he's a douche (which you have also called him), but that doesn't stop me from recognizing his skills.

So...to sum that up...If I call Mayweather a Douche and accuse him of cherry-picking his opposition at 147, I am a bad, bad man who hates every single fighter who has stepped in the ring for the past 15 years. BUT...if YOU do the same (Which you have done repeatedly), it's all good. I think I get it now...for a minute there I thought we had a double standard there...oh, wait....

So please stop talking out of your ass. Trying to PRETEND that I put down every fighter who fought during the last 15 years is just plain wrong. But it seems like you are more interested in shoving your opinion down my throat than anything else during this "discussion".

Ugh. Whatever. I don't think I have anything else to say to you right now because you will just try to misrepresent it and spin it into something that you think works better for your arguement. It's too bad, because i used to really enjoy reading your posts.

I probably won't be back in this topic again, so I guess we'll have to wait 'till the next time I don't deify the Klitschkos and their medicore opposition to have this "discussion" all over again.

 

This was lovely.

 

I should point out that Solis is the first of Vitali's opponents I've had any regard for. You'd think I'd defended Mengele.

 

I will tell you what is "Lazy" Steve_Dave......:- before Solis fought Vitali, the word was out that Vitali was regressing, which he is, and that Solis was a Cubano Amatero Maestro Chain-Snatcher to the motherfucking maximum and was going to do this, that and the other.

Then when it was over, Solis was a fat slob and amateur careers meant nothing.

Thats lazy. Journalists, as a rule, are lazy. Boxing journalists have it refined down to a particular special reserve of laziness.

The glib ease with which the boxing press can have it both ways is an annoying aspect of following boxing. It means a guy can be a bum as long as they decide he is a bum, no matter who he has fought and beaten, thanks to the fact that contenders can be retrospectively downgraded to "bum" status once they have failed to turn the desired trick.

 

I agree with your point about career-curves.

Guys like Arguello and Benny Leonard and Henry Armstrong all suffered early reverses in their pro careers.

Its obvious now that the Wlad/Steward combination, from the first Sam Peter fight out, is not the same as the old Sdunek/Wlad combination of old.

Its less offensive, less flashy, less entertaining, but much more reliable.

Likewise, the losses Wlad suffered are no more indicative of his overall quality or of his overall career than those suffered by Emile Griffith versus Hurricane Carter, or Gerry Quarry vs George Chuvalo, or Lennox Lewis vs Oliver McCall.

 

This is just it. People want to add factors to one side of the equation and then run away.

You can't do that. What you do to one side of the equation you must do to the other side of the equation.

It might be the case that Lewis stopped Briggs in 5.

But examine the pertinent Criteria. First, the referee stopped it after Briggs swung with a haymaker and missed. Secondly, Lewis had taken 2 more rounds to get rid of Briggs than Darrol Wilson had, if we want to go down that route. Third, Lewis was himself buzzed and hurt in that fight and seemed woefully short of puff at the end, throwing scuffing shoeshine shots like his hands were made from lead and he was 100 feet under water. Fourth, Lewis was 33 when that fight took place. Vitali was 38, 39 when he fought Briggs. Briggs was 262lbs when he fought Vitali. Briggs was 228 for the Lewis fight. That 40lbs, do you think it hampered his ability to take a shot?

Who had the more impressive win? Lewis, I would say. But the gap is nowhere near as big as people think it is.

How would a 39 year old Lewis have looked vs the same Briggs???

As I say, people can pick and choose but what happens on one side of the equation must happen on the other.

 

The HW division is presently completely farcial.

Most of these guys wouldnt be ciontender 10-15 years ago. Honestly , except for the klitchko and maybe haye, I cant think of another fighter that would beat John ruiz. (and dont give me Pvetkin. I used to be high on the mf, but he seemes to be completely unconcerned about his career, and he's fightng bum after bum after bum, and he's 6 years into his career)



and what is this notion that Solis is a good fighter?

Even when he was beating bum handily, you could see that he was fairly limited, and frankly not very good

 

This thread made me laugh. Unfortunately, all the talking in the world isn't going to change the fact that Vitali sucks and Solis is a fat bum.

 

exactly

It's not hard to see that most of the clowns who passed as HW contenders presently , are not nearly even as good as the guys Larry Holmes was beating, in what was considered one of the weakest era.

 

If fact a medicore contender Ruslan Chagaev did beat John Ruiz clear.

 

that was Chagaev before he got HepC and kidney problem, and he didn't beat Ruiz easy at all. In fact, a lot of guy's had Ruiz winning

 

Oh yeah, who? Some kids working the bag down in Gramercy?

If you want a shit division then Welterweight from Oscar-Tito on is your division.

 

Take home message of this thread: The best heavyweight in the world for 8 years sucks and a Cuban olympic gold medalist is a bum.

Considered, intelligent stuff.

 

being an olympic gold medalist doesn't means that you'll be a good pro.

Theres a world of difference between succes in the ams and in the pro .

Tyrell biggs and henry tillman were distinguished amateur( gold medal at olympic, world amateur world champion), yet both were average, as pro, . There's thousands of exemple of this kind. Solis did nothing in his pro career to demonstrate that he's a good fighter