Yeah, Nard was uber negative from round 4 onwards. Slappy simply outworked him every single round after that.
Yeah Sillakh has got some skinny arse legs. Foster is slim obviously, but looks like a pretty solidly built guy all round. I don't see him as a middleweight at all. He looks bigger than Pavlik, and Pavlik is a big middleweight.
If Bob Foster Got w/Kevin Rooney, Worked on his Head Movement & Learned the Numbering System, he'd Make 135 EASILY... REED:hammert:
I suggest Hut watches Foster-Tiger, and notice how HUGE Foster looks compared to Tiger, who was a short, yet VERY solidly built and strong MIDDLEWEIGHT man. Foster was not no goddamn middleweight! Supermiddle is the lowest possible weight he'd be at today.
Pavlik, and G-man are the two BIGGEST middleweights of the last 20 years or so. Foster was much taller, bigger, and more solidly built in the legs than both. Both those guys had chicken legs.
Tiger was built like a brick shithouse, too... He wasn't like a Hagler where a guy who's basically a smaller guy just happens to be ripped, Tiger had a big frame for a 160 pounder Foster was narrow-shouldered but wide-hipped with unexpectedly thick legs for such a tall man
His legs aren't big at all they just look big compared to how skinny his upper body is. Proof's in the pudding innit - heavyweight fight, no weight limit, no weight cutting at all he comes in at 180. QED, ya bams! If 168 had been worth anything in those days Im sure he'd have campaigned there, same day weigh ins and all
Tiger was a legit middleweight, who would still beat the Hell outta most supermiddles today because he was so good. Foster dwarfed him. Bob Foster was no middleweight.
A guy who comes into the ring at 171 ain't a modern light heavyweight either. I agree he could bulk up to one but short of that he'd be at 168 tops.
Hell, junior middles come into the ring weighing 171 today. There are very few guys fighting at or near their actual weigh-in weight, most notably Pac & Floyd.
the two most successful fighters of the last decade... which calls into question just how much of a benefit there is to this
This isn't necessarily true... There was a school of thought for a lot of years that a Lt. Heavy shouldn't gain much weight when trying to fight a heavyweight... the belief being that his advantage in speed would be compromised too much... I think it's a leap to look at the weight and assume that was some sort of topping out point for Bob Foster, as if it would be impossible for him to weigh more and still appear to be a boxer... It's just as likely that he and his handlers thought 10 pounds would be "just right" or some shit like that
which, again, was not unprecedented for the time and really didn't become unprecedented in the sport until the last 20-30 years or so (when the proliferation of weight classes made all of this largely irrelevant) There was no super middleweight in Tiger's day Go through the history of boxing and look at the weights for guys jumping up in class to challenge a champion... you'll be surprised at how many weigh in at a very low weight by comparison to the champ... This wasn't unusual, it was strategy. For example, Emile Griffith was about 150 or 151 for his challenge of Tiger for the Middleweight crown... Tiger was 160... Now, we know Griffith had no problem getting to 160... He weighed lower for the fight because the thinking was he would be faster that way and speed was going to be the key to winning (he certainly couldn't trade with Tiger) If we just went by that and assumed he just weighed 150 because that was his size, we could say "Emile Griffith would be a ligthweight today!" ...
granted, I'm not saying these guys were correct about any of this... It was just what was assumed to be true, like it used to be assumed that lifting weights in any way was terrible for boxers
but they're not the most successful fighters because they don't cut weight, if anything they've had more difficulties and had to fight differently as they moved up in weight. they're the most successful fighters coz they're the best. take two ordinary fighters, both are 135 at the weigh-in. on fight night, one guy is say, 136, and the other guy is 151. barring an enormous gulf in class (see: mayweather, pacquiao), the bigger guy has a major advantage (see: gatti, gamache).
Except Foster had very little fat on him in the 170 lb range. He'd have to cut 30 lb of water to hit 147, which is unrealistic. But cutting 10-15 lb of water isn't.
Some of you seems to have forgotten that Calzaghe was a shit fighter who needed crooked judges to get pass Robin Reid. Ward is a much better fighter than he was, and would beat him rather easily
