Greatest mismatches

First topic message reminder :

we on here all like to go through the possible great match up over the generations that could/should/wished/dreamt to have happened and how the best of the match ups would have gone. we have gone through many a great match up but what match ups between the greatest boxers would have been all wrong? try to keep it to the best in the divison (top 20ish) and prime v prime, we all know that ali v valuev would have been a mis match!! few examples starting with the heavies:

george foreman v wlad klitshcko: just see foreman walking right through wlad, prime v prime wlad has a good defence but dont see his jab then grab tactics working on a bull like foreman, see foreman being strong enough to shake him off and hurt him, george might have been crued but he was effective and much better moving boxers then wlad were often caught by him. see a very early ko nearly all the time in this one. while wlad might not be the greatest heavyweight of all time would have thought he would be in most peoples top 20.

ali v tyson: people often use this one as their dream match up, but i only ever see a one sided beating for tyson. tyson was a bully and with ali you have one of the greatest chins around and fantastic recovery (if ali could recover from frazier left hook he could easily do the same with tyson, has to be one of the greatest non knock out punches of all time!) see ali frustrating tyson and tyson tiring to get stopped late. you also have to consider what mental state tyson would have been coming into the ring after ali had finished with him. tyson known to be weak mentaly would have been a mess before they even entered the ring.

so do people dis/agree with my couple of examples? im sure there loads more i can think of but i'll leave them to you!

John Bloody Wayne wrote:

manos de piedra wrote:

John Bloody Wayne wrote:

manos de piedra wrote:

John Bloody Wayne wrote:I've never understood how a man with a primitve style and no defense could weigh in at under 160 pounds yet perform respectably against fully fledged heavyweights. Maybe someone can enlighten me.

The heavyweights were alot smaller and equally primative back then for the most part.

But Jeffries was a decent sized and heavy handed fighter for any era. Fitzsimmons gave him a very tough fight. If he was just there to be hit he'd surely be taken out in one round by any heavy with a decent dig. If he had no defense he must've had a P4P chin that made Lamotta look soft.

Jeffries was really the only top fully fledged heavyweight Fitzsimmons fought though. He was also pretty crude. That Jeffries won kind of highlights the massive impact size had. Fitzsimmons performed credibly by all accounts but in the end Jefries greater size, strength and durability just proved too much. Fitzsimmons seemed to be more skilled of the two though.

For me, if a guy weighing as roughly a super middleweight can win the the heavyweight title it says something about the era. At that time the heavyweight contenders were smaller in general. The likes of Maher, Sharkey, Corbett were basically light heavyweights. This as much as anything else is why I think Fitzsimmons was able to win the heavyweight championship. I just cant see Fitzsimmons winning consistently against top heavyweights who outweigh him significantly. I dont think himself, Corbett or Jeffries find success at heavyweight in most other era's although in the case of Corbett and Fitzsimmons I would doubt they fight at heavyweight in other eras with more established weight divisions to select from.

Jeffries most certainly did have a crude style and definitely relied on strength and durability, but that's not a bad thing, infact I'd call Jeffries the perfect heavyweight for those rules and era.

My point with Fitz being written off as having no skill is that a powerful, big fighter like Jeffries would only have to score a couple of good clean punches to knock Ruby Rob out. A middleweight being hit by a strong heavyweight, if he gets caught clean he's going down. Surely if Fitz didn't have any boxing skill as is being thought in one or two places, he would've been taken out within three. It's easy to forget that different rules call for different styles. A Mayweather shoulder roll is genius today, but with the tiny gloves of 1900 it'd be close to useless. I'm not one of those who think Fitzsimmons knocks out any modern champion yada yada, but he clearly had a skillset suited to the rules he fought under. Same as all great fighters.

I agree with you on Jeffries. I think existed in an era that suited him down to the ground. But hes one of those heavyweights that I just dont think finds nearly as much success were he to exist in the maority of other heavyweight eras. His durability was impressive but it was mainly being tested by much smaller men like Sharkey, Choynski, Fitzsimmons and Corbett. None of which I would consider fully feldged heavyweights. Would Jeffries be able to cope against men equally as big or bigger than him like Liston, Tyson, Foreman, Holmes, Lewis etc? Personally I dont think so.

I understand the point your making about Fitzsimmons but my point is that Jeffries was really the only top large heavyweight he fought, and he basically lost because he wasnt big enough in my opinion. The size difference was too great. But I view the likes of Jeffries, Sharkey, Ruhlin, Maher as pretty crude fighters compared with most of the top heavyweights in other eras.

I prefer to rate Fitzsimmons between middleweight to light heavyweight. I just dont think he copes well against the top small heavyweights or being outweighed by 40/50 lbs by the bigger heavyweights.

another one that caused debate in the pub at weekend was:

hatton beats cotto at LWW

while you could argue cotto isnt a lww at his best, but i would back the hatton that beat tyzsu to beat cotto more often than not. cotto has showed that he doesnt deal well with pressure in both the marg and clottey fight and hatton at his best dealt pressure a hell of alot better than these two. hatton would probably be down on points after the first few but would soon wear him down for a late stoppage or points victory. hatton did use to have decent head movement and wasnt always the stationary target that paco spanked, he would still get hit but dont see cotto being able to stop him, certainly not at LWW. hatton always uncomfortable out of lww, so take him out of there and the advantages go to cotto but at lww see hatton taking this.

Interesting one that, C & R. I definitely see where you're coming from, though. The odd thing is, had this fight happened at Welterweight in 2007 / 2008, most would have been writing Hatton's obituary, but two years earlier at 140 lb, he'd almost certainly have been the big pre-fight favourite with the bookies.

Can see Hatton very possibly winning that one myself, given that Cotto didn't really look like a true pound for pound fighter until he was up at 147 lb. Very tough fight, mind, likely to be a grueller which would take a year off the careers of both men, but I don't think Ricky would have been slaughtered.

problem being chris is if cotto retired tomorrow where would his prime be? i reckon around the mosley win was his height of his power, while he was undeafeted. the problem being with that his he still had yet to be fully tested in all ways and his defeat to marg showed alot of weaknesses. and that was also shown in the clottey win. cotto around the mosley win may well have been favourite but with hindsight of the fights afterwards i think hattons style was all wrong for him, just too easy to if a fighter was willing to take one to land one, something both marg and clottey did.

I couldn't see Hatton beating Cotto no matter when they met. I think a big question mark will always hang over the Margarito fight and rightly so. Against Clottey I think he was hampered by being cut pretty early in the fight. So I don't think they're a fair reflection of his ability to fight a pressure fighter.

Cottos a superior boxer, hit harder and was durable enough before the Marg fight. On the flip side he never seems to take a good shot to the body very well and Hatton could dish these out in spades. But if Magee can trouble Hatton then I don't see why Cotto couldn't stop him. UD or late stoppage win for Cotto for me..

Could also say though that a bigger puncher in Tzuyu couldn't stop him so Cotto doing it around that time was highly unlikely.

The style match up between the two at either 140 or 147lbs does make me lean towards Hatton who I think would be the stronger fighter of the two up close, if he pressures sensibly it could take it's toll late on especially those left hooks to the body.

Imperial Ghosty wrote:Could also say though that a bigger puncher in Tzuyu couldn't stop him so Cotto doing it around that time was highly unlikely.

The style match up between the two at either 140 or 147lbs does make me lean towards Hatton who I think would be the stronger fighter of the two up close, if he pressures sensibly it could take it's toll late on especially those left hooks to the body.

I don't think anyone would argue that it was anywhere near the best version of Tszyu that Ricky beat.

paperbag_puncher wrote:

Imperial Ghosty wrote:Could also say though that a bigger puncher in Tzuyu couldn't stop him so Cotto doing it around that time was highly unlikely.

The style match up between the two at either 140 or 147lbs does make me lean towards Hatton who I think would be the stronger fighter of the two up close, if he pressures sensibly it could take it's toll late on especially those left hooks to the body.

I don't think anyone would argue that it was anywhere near the best version of Tszyu that Ricky beat.

Maybe not but Hattons ability to take 11 rounds of flush shots from a genuine knockout puncher tends to suggest to me that Cotto wouldn't KO that version.

I cant really see Hatton v Cotto being a mismatch at 140lb. Id favour the pedigree of Cotto over the pressure of Hatton but would be surprised if it was one sided in favour of either fighter.

manos de piedra wrote:I cant really see Hatton v Cotto being a mismatch at 140lb. Id favour the pedigree of Cotto over the pressure of Hatton but would be surprised if it was one sided in favour of either fighter.

[justify]

Title of the article is probably wrong for this one I agree but stick to the bit about the match up being all wrong for one. Which given cottos better skill yet i still back hatton think it suits

Macarennelli vs Mcphilbin

Mac needed 47 seconds off the first round.

Stop dancing and retire Enzo...

The most farcical mismatch I've ever seen was Frank Bruno / Chuck Gardner from 1987. Gardner, who claimed at the time to be 35 despite looking nearer 50, was starched by Bruno in under a minute. This 'bout' can be found on YouTube.