The specialties of (heavyweight) boxing

Derived from Fury vs Ngannou discussion of course, but since there is a larger phenomenon behind the discussion than that one fight, I’ll start a new thread.


Now, I realize I am pretty much alone with some of my thoughts. Maybe this all is a defense mechanism from my mind, as suggested . But I truly believe this following to be true regarding boxing as a sport and I’d like to hear some countering views, which definitely exist.

So I began to wonder, does Ngannou’s success prove that the level of hw is in ruins, as many have suggested. The mainstream media and casuals will definitely view it that way, and thus it definitely damaged the reputation of boxing. But I believe there is more to it

IMO boxing and especially heavyweight boxing has some peculiarities which make it difficult to evaluate on the scales that are usually used.


1) According to a friend of mine, who now is in sports science and earlier was an international level amateur boxer, heavyweight boxing is, along with track-and-field, among the most talent-dependent sports in the world. So if a fighter has explosive power, size and chin, he will automatically be pretty good, and guy with no explosiveness is never going to make it despite his best efforts. A semi-talented guy like Helenius made it briefly to top-5 despite his lack of interest in training, and was able to give a fight to Joshua without training for a year.

Same with track-and-field. Some failed American football players have taken up discuss throwing or hurdling and reached the world level in two years with their physical talent only. A Kenyan guy just scored the WR of marathon running, in his third marathon ever. (Nobody is saying marathon must be crap btw.)

It has happened in boxing too: Foreman was a clumsy near-novice when he won the Olympics, and back then boxer could really box (in the traditional manner). In amateurs the physicality should mean even less than in pros. Yet he dominated with his talent.

The Marathon runner mentioned had naturally ran a lot despite it being his third official marathon. Just like Ngannou has trained shitload of boxing and other fighting before his “debut”. It was well known that he has enormous explosive power, and apparently he has a chin too. Talent takes you far in heavyweight, especially in single fights.


2) The best basketball teams of the history, record-breaking Bulls and Warriors, both lost several games in their best seasons. They shouldn’t have: they were definitely better than their opponents, but they did. They had bad days and lackluster showings.

Even though there are 10+ guys in a basketball team, in some days they all do underperform. Same with every other team sport. Manchester City loses to Crystal Palace, although they should win even if they had nine players on field.

A boxing match only depends on one person. If the guy has slept poorly, has been throwing up during the day, has a mental issue or whatever, he will definitely underperform. Anybody who has hit the gym at least once that some day you just don’t have it, even though nothing is wrong.

For some reason, we read results of fights as more “absolutes” than those of any other sport.

Fury is a dude with serious mental issues, so naturally the difference between his god and bad day is going to be enormous. That will affect his standings once we evaluate his status in the history, but his worst day does not tell us much about his best day. Just like Mike Tyson’s all best abilities were probably not on display in his fight with Buster.


3) Derived from the last point. For some reason, in boxing there is a habit that if have a surprise result, it proves that the loser has to be crap, instead of the winner getting props. The other possibility is that the loser was past prime, and the winner is still crap. In boxing, both fighters are never good.

It has happened for long: Holyfield was written of after the Cooper fight (which he won), as was Lennox after his losses.

Now of course, sometimes fighters are exposed, but in boxing we conclude that much easier than in other sports. When a smoking low-league player Jamie Vardy became one of the best players of Premier League, that should have proven that the level of Premier league is crap, if we use the boxing logic. Or when Haaland scored goals in Germany, there were doubts that he wouldn’t make it in England. Yet he kept scoring even more. Nobody in their right mind would say he exposed Premier league. Bolt’s appearance did not prove that Carl Lewis was nothing special.


Holyfield regained his respect after his Cooper fight, and Tyson is not remembered from the Douglas fight only. But I am thinking, could we for once skip this “initial shock” phase and look the fighters’ career as a whole?

Now, Fury does not have a record to match the greats, definitely not. But he has had 30+ fights, he has beaten a long-reigning champ and top contenders, and since the McDermott fight the bout against Ngannou was the only one where his superiority was really in question. So is it fair to assume that this fight only, and not the ten previous years, revealed us the truth?


4) For some reason, we have also forgotten that fighters do struggle (I blame mainly Roy and Floyd and their superiority). Boxing fights are supposed to be evenly matched. Larry Holmes was a dominant champ, yet at least ten of his prime bouts were difficult battles, and at least three times the decision could have gone the other way. Prime Ali struggled too.

No, Fury isn’t at their level. So what? Does that make him crap by default?

If Lakers wins a game 110-92, we don’t bash their performance, even if it was even after three quarters and they failed to defend their basket 40+ times. We don’t bash Djokovic for winning a game in five sets, although you are not supposed to lose sets.

Why do we watch boxing differently these days? I repeat, this is not a case of this particular fight but a larger phenomenon.

5) And there are the rose-tinted glasses. We often hear how these guys are all garbage and wouldn’t be even contenders in the 90s. Well, Bruce Seldon was 4th ranked hw in 90s, and guys like Zolkin, Thunder, Gonzalez and Etienne all made it to the top-10 of The Ring. So if everybody outside of to 3 is garbage, there is plenty of garbage in the world.

I have plenty more to say, but maybe I’ll stop now Would be interested to hear your takes.

 

Nah, you're missing the point once again. The debate about the current hw division was whether they looked like garbage because they are skilless trash where the main deciding factor is size (my take) or because they are a new kind of breed of athletes who are as good as their predecessors but look clumsy since they are much bigger (basically your take, which conveniently ignored that giants in the NBA move as swiftly as light heavyweights).

As we saw last Saturday, the best guy of the current bunch couldn't convincingly outskilled an outright novice when he didn't enjoy his typical size/strength advantage. The debate his settled once and for all imo, and it can easily be explained by the NFL/NBA theory.

Take 2 randoms goons at the bar and make them fight, overwhelmingly the winner will either be the bigger, stronger one or the one with the bigger punch. That's hw boxing right now...

 

Nah, one fight hardly is convincing evidence. It has never been, and isn't in any other sport.

And you still can't explain why better-skilled small guys haven't taken over, if all these guys have is size

 

1) ''Smaller'' sized hw and cw are big enough to be poached by other sports too, which also explain why cw (and lhw to a lesser extent) is also devoided of talent. But at least since there's a weight limit, skills do play a bigger part in a typical cw fight.

2) Smaller ''skilled'' cw (at least compared to the current oafs that abounds at hw) haven't done badly at all at hw when you think about it. Haye, Usyk and even Breidis all had success during their hw forays. Even a fairly mediocre guy like Huck nearly beat one of the best hw of the era (Potvetkin).

3) True one fight isn't compelling evidence, but Fury-Ngannou wasn't a fight, it was a showcase between an established champ and a complete beginner. It's basically the equivalent of a prime Federer having a competitive tennis game against some dude playing pickle ball. It was beyond embarrassing

And considering there's a reasonable explanation to justify the lack of talent and skills in the division (once again the NBA/NFL theory), it's hard to not put the 2 together and conclude that heavyweights indeed really suck after last Saturday. Moreso than even I expected in fact.

 

Btw, Ngannou would be carved up by Seldon imo unless he'd manage to catch him with a lucky punch. Seldon, for all if his mental issue and lack of confidence, could box. Unlike the goons disgracing the division right now.

 

I was mostly in your camp before last saturday. But now we have to be honest, hw boxing is awful and devoided of talent. A guy like razzor ruddock would have ruled the division pretty easily

 

The bigger person will normally win. Unless the bigger person is a Frenchman, in that case all bets are off

 

Heavyweights are unique. They generate power out of all proportion to their size relative to the other divisions. Accordingly, skill is simply less relevant. The HW will always be generally unskilled compared to much smaller opponents. He gets by on power and the imposing of it on the other guy.

Plus you have cultural demands. People won't pay a HW guy who goes out and outboxes his man.

Then when he looks like an unskilled goof, they complain.

 

I know you're only using the example to make a point but i think a better comparison would be a billiards player beating the world champion of snooker. (playing snooker obviously)

Either way it's only one match involving two contestants. It wasn't 10 MMA practitioners sweeping the board against 10 boxers. The state of the heavyweight division sucks ass yes, but that was known already. It's not like this was some sort of eye opener. Maybe it was for those thinking Fury as a modern time ATG.

The result didn't surprise me as much as it has so many others as i've just never been very high on Fury. Pretty much everything about him has to have "for his size" added on. If it makes any sense I think he's unique but not special.

 

It is a good question for the future how much "experience" counts for.

In marathon running it didn't. A near-novice broke the WR.

If the billiard player has trained shitload of snooker without competing in it, and has tournament experience from his own sport (so that he can keep hold of his nerves etc), could he win a match? I have no idea

 

Btw UGTBK, I don't think your comparison with track and field or marathon running help your case much.

1) These ''sports'' (imo they are athletic competitions, not sports) are much more dependent on physical abilities than boxing is. They have nowhere near the amount of skills, abilities and strategies boxing has. Yes I agree, even in a good era HW boxing is a bit less skills dependent than the lower weight classes, but the difference isn't as dramatic as you're implying (it is in the current division, but once again because it consists of skilless B level athletes at best). Throughout history, we saw numerous time smaller hw dominate even with the presence of giant sized (but lesser skilled) foes. As I stated previously, giant hw ain't a novelty of this era.

2) I'd also argue that the talent pool in those sports is pretty awful too. Just like we saw with Nathan McKinnon (nhl hockey player) beating Charles Hamelin (wc in skating) in a skating race, people sticking to those fields are imo mostly the ones not cut to make it in a major sport (where they would earn real money instead of barely making months end).

 

As I pointed out as my first point, I believe (as did the scientist) that hw boxing is among the most talent-oriented sports out there. Not as much as track-and-field, but almost. Only in hw boxing do we see guys reaching the top despite starting in their 20s. Also, a guy with Foreman's skills would never have made it without the astonishing physique.

I don't believe the skating example means anything TBH. There are some sports that demand very specific attributes but that doesn't say anything about the talents of these athletes.

 

Agree with OP on all points. Bravo

 

You are basically attacking a strawman now with your Foreman example, as no one claims athletic abilities and size are not very important factors in hw boxing, even in a deep era.

However, the hw have been failing the eye test for a good 20 years and, once again, there's a perfectly reasonable theory to explain their suckiness. Joshua was shown to be trash (which was obvious all along imo) and now the only valid argument for the ''they are not as bad as they seem'' crowd was Fury since he at least looked like he knew how to box a little bit, despite how slow and clumsy he was.

But as we saw Saturday night it was all smoke and mirrors as his ''skills'' and experience couldn't even carry him to a convincing win vs a plodding novice who was as big and strong as him. And if Fury is borderline skilless, how exactly is he better than a Primo Carnera, a Buddy Baer or a Tyrell Biggs ??

 

Even Hardcore BLACK Boxing Fans LOATHED Chris Byrd Fights, to Your Point...Skilled, Fairly Successful Heavyweight......and NO ONE Gave a Fuck...

No THREAT Of a KO Begets No INTEREST...



REED

 

I have a theory that is actually related to this in some way and specific to not just boxing, but HW fighting in general.

I made post after post on sherdog suggesting that Fury KOing Ngannou just wasnt going to happen and regardless of an accurate analysis, nobody cares about the boxing specifics, so I'll give it a shot here.

IMO fighting in general is alot less skill based then people realize. The reason historically that it doesn't seem that way is because people are matched by weight so strength / size variations are almost never dramatic enough to impact the fight. There was a study of several olympic teams on "punching power" and it essentially went in order for all 3 teams by size...the bigger guys hit harder. All the way from 108 - HW. Physical strength also ends up being a big factor.

At some point if someone can take your punches without being hurt, hurt / knock you out when they hit you, and are strong enough in comparison to you that it is difficult for you to get a hold of them there is only so much you can do. This applies even in MMA.

Guys like Derrick Lewis do light sparring and get beat by FW, and do BJJ and get submitted by intermediates who they have 50 LBS on, but when they "go live" they can hurt and knock the people out easily, and even when they end up in a disadvantageous sparring positions they can essentially just close their eyes and muscle out of it.

I think someone like Deontay Wilder (who is a borderline fraud) is onto something here that has actually been around for a long time. How much different really is Ron Lyle from Francis Ngannou? (Other than the fact that PEDs are mainstream now) He was 6 or 7 years from his first time in the ring to being up 7-3 or 8-2 VS a faded Ali. Ngannou had more time boxing than that by the time he fought Fury (he fought an even exhibition with the then top 15 HW Carlos Takam in 2014 before even entering the UFC). Did Earnie Shavers really have any solid delivery system? Or did he just wade in and throw fight ending bombs and was game enough to take some along the way? The people who beat him were actually able to absorb alot of shots, nearly noone ever beat him by outskilling him...they had to take it to him.

Obviously someone like Mike Tyson was extremely skilled and quick. But if he were a slightly weaker puncher, or had a more suspect chin, he wouldve never found success regardless of his amazing technical ability.

Even the arguably most skilled heavyweight of all time Ali, got hit alot and was extremely durable or wouldve lost 15+ fights. Joe Louis possibly the technically greatest of all time (especially on offense) was constantly put down by scrubs who had a significant size advantage.

This is where this subject gets murky to me. PEDs are highly effective at adding size / strength / durability / stamina.

I have trouble envisioning Rocky Marciano giving trouble to Wladimir Klitschko. But say Klitschko was around in the 1950s not 2000s and weighed 220 rather than 250+. Guys like Foreman, Lyle, Norton, etc were naturally 220-230 and very powerfully built... with modern "nutrition" they would likely be closer to 250-260 with similar attributes. Is it realistic to suggest that the 1970 220 LBS version, beats the hypothetical 2000s version who is the same guy with a stronger chin and more power?

I think both can be true. In a hypothetical head to head as they were...the newer generation is better... but on a level playing field the quality is obviously worse. There is a reason nearly everyone even at the lower weight classes cut 20+ LBS and nearly always have.

Punching power / punch resistance / fighting "will" seem to be far and away the most 3 important skills in boxing. Certain guys like Fury (and at the lower weights Whitaker / Mayweather/ Ward / etc) are essentially experts at turning fights into non fights which allow them to beat physically superior opponents.

It isnt a surprise Ngannou did well against Fury, and people will be butthurt when he does the same against the next top HW he fights as well (only guy I see beating him easily is Zhang)

As stated by OP, guys have always shown up as all world HW based on intangibles (chin, power, determination) and it seems Ngannou had all 3 (he is also clearly juiced to the gills)

I would posit that if it were truly measurable, timing(reach as well) / punching power / chin would be deciding factor in nearly every boxing match. Obviously tactics as well as speed / stamina are important...but alot of those factors never even come into play when the one punch KO is in play. There is a reason there has never been a welterweight Klitschko....or Foreman.

 

I would also like to add I did BJJ for years and this applies there as well. As a blue nearly purple belt at 165-170 I would regularly grapple with and easily submit a newcomer who was 240 and jacked, and literally by their 3rd month would have close to no chance, and if they stuck with it for maybe a year or two consistent any hope of beating them was essentially out the window. It is definitely different than boxing especially with the gi as you can use it for leverage and set traps that actually dont work without it. but even the times as a purple belt when you do submit a bigger stronger less experienced guy, you can tell if they just didnt wanna grapple you, or decided to throw punches / attempt to slam you they would still handle you.

 

I'm not bloodthirsty but i have to admit if there is not even the slightest "threat" of a KO a fight doesn't interest me as much. That's certainly magnified for heavyweights but not exclusive to them. Out of all the differences boxing has with other major sports (other than MMA) is that it can potentially end at any moment.

If you know 10 out of 10 times a fight is going to be decided by the judges it doesn't mean it isn't quality, but it also doesn't have an edge of your seat factor.

 

Point Fighting Has its Place; the AMATEURS...Professional Boxing is the HURT Business, However...Your Opinion is Not Only Valid, it's SHARED w/REED...

This is Why Deontay Wilder Achieved Heights and Riches His Skill Level NEVER Warranted...This is Why Tank Davis is a Bonafide Draw Despite His SHIT Resume....And This is Why Devin Haney Will NEVER Be a Draw, Despite CHALLENGING Himself More Than Anyone in the Current 135-140 Mix...

This is Why Andre Ward, for All His POLISH, CHARM and ABILITY to Remain Undefeated Since Middle School, Managed to Win a Gold Medal and Retire Undefeated Without EVER Becoming a Star...If Ward Could Punch Even a LITTLE Bit, He'd Have Likely RIVALED the Mainstream Popularity of Floyd and/or Canelo, Conceivably...

When You Can Copy and Paste, Rinse/Repeat "UD12" to the End of a Guy's Fights BEFOREHAND, it Kills Any Semblance of SUSPENSE...



REED

 

I don't really have the time to go through Ugos post on detail, though it goes without saying that I disagree with most of it.

One point I will make re: his marathon runner comparison. Pretty much all middle and long distance running records are currently being thrown into the bin because all of the runners are now equipped with cheat shoes. Modern running shoes are effectively trampolines, with carbon plates in the soles which transfer energy back into the foot on impact with the ground. They are the 2020s version of the 2005-2009 era swimsuits, which were so obviously cheat suits they banned them and expunged all the records set by those wearing them.

Comparing old running records to the current ones is a complete waste of time. Even the former record holders have come out and said they feel cheated by the situation.

Ugo knows all of this, of course, but I'm sure he 'forgot' to mention it by accident...

MTF

 

Well you obviously didn't read it, since this point is completely irrelevant in this case.

A fact is that there are top class marathon runners right now (Olympic champions and such). Also a fact is that there is more money in marathon running now than ever before. And another fact is that a guy who was running his third marathon defeated all the best runners of this moment, smashing the world record.

It doesn't matter how he compares to past generations. He beat all the much more experienced runners who have the same shoes.

Goes to show that talent is worth more than experience, on this particular field.

 

And then when a lug loses to Chris Byrd.....it's Byrd's fault!! Then when they go all in and gas like Wlad Vs Puritty or have cardio like Tua Vs Byrd or almost die like Jefferson Vs Izon...people are like "these guys are big bums!!"

Culturally, the division has been driven by demands which make advanced skills redundant.

Ironically, the two guys who epitomized the killer mentality, Dempsey and Tyson, had to first develop and perfect what (at the time) were unique skills for the big men.

Bobbing,weaving,stooping,peekaboo etc....all to enable the big KO.

 

I think the most interesting thing said in this long wordy post is that Etienne the Black Rhino was ranked in the top 10 in the 90s. If today's fighters are such crap compared to yesterday's fighters how does a limited fighter like Ettiene get ranked in the top 10? There is recent bias among casuals hence the dumb youtube comments calling Mayweather the GOAT. But think something needs to be said about those that tend overrate the good old days.

 

Now that this fiasco happened do you think boxing promoters will think twice before accepting challenges from wrestlers and MMA fighters?

 

Not if it makes money.

 

That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever read. What difference does it make if a guy is French? I remember Larry Merchant was a disrespectful asshole that would call all French fighters , french pastries. French fighters are people with feelings too.

Signed a "Bleeding heart liberal woke good doer."

 

That's a horrible example most people don't know what the fuck billards is(you mean pool?) Let alone who the top guy is. Heck why don't you use another obscure sport like the professional darts or curling while you're at it. That'll get your point across .

 

Tiozzo had some good fights.

 

Shockingly bad loss to Hill

 

I don't know what billards is either.

Did you mean billiards?