Heavyweight Boxing

Lewis was no way ready to continue v McCall. The ref was holding him up. He was banjoed!

McCall fight was not off night. It was early in fight and he got knocked out by one shot.

v Rahman he was a wee bit too casual and got clean knocked out.

Lewis got extremely lucky in the Briggs fight , In the first round 5 to 10- seconds more & it would have been another loss on his record,

As far as i remember he was swaying on his feet and out of it, If i remember correctly didn't his knees buckle just as the ref waved it,

Also didn't Lewis have his back to the camera when it was stopped . the ref was looking straight in his eyes ,

A good stoppage in my opinion ,

I decided to watch some of Tyson’s fights from the mid 90s yesterday.

I'm very surprised there is any debate that he was past his best at that point.

He seemed very static. Very little upper body movement and just lunged in with power shots.

Maybe the opposition was tougher but his style definitely took a turn for the worst.

Yes, exactly what I saw...and it was nothing to do with opposition

Bruno in 1995 was not as good as Bruno in 1989, and in 1995 I saw a less than prime Tyson. The chap was still very good, but visually you could see he was not as sharp. fast, explosive. He just wasn't. He was 29 at this stage (not old), but had been inactive due to being incarcerated for over three years.

Holyfield was his opposition for back to back losses. A clearly past his best Holyfield. A Holyfield that was knocked out in Bowe 3, and had lost to Michael freaking Moorer!!!! So opposition isn't really a factor here.

I find it very odd that people would even try to say that mid 90s Tyson was as good as the 1980s championship Tyson. He was clearly not.

I see Ricky Fatton has encouraged AJ to keep Rob in his training camp, and that the key was to go grab the effing fight by the balls. I have to say, I agree with the second part.

In other words, Fatton, like me, saw AJ fighting scared....

Definitely on similar pages here. And as I said, Lewis is better than any championship Tyson opponent win, so no real surprise if the mid to later 90s Lewis can win. I still reckon it’s likely points for Lewis or KO for Tyson. I think Rooney prepared Tyson is a ridiculously difficult fighter to KO/stop

Talking of 80s and 90s fighters lately, does anyone else think that Joshua has become Frank Bruno mark 2?

Since the Ruiz fight he has looked so stiff and tentative, he really has regressed as a fighter. He had been hit hard before and was even knocked down by Klitchko but it seems being stopped has taken all the fight and nastiness out of him.

For all his sound bite talk I think his mental state or ego has been burst.

I’ve been watching alot of 90s fights the past few days and I definitely thought to myself that Bruno reminded me of AJ.

Leave it out, lads....chap is still trying to figure out the sport!

Hard to even fathom that someone could be more cringe inducing than Wilder but AJ out done him at the end,

You can see why Fury has never been worried about him

It sound crazy but the way AJ is all over the shop recently i would actually love to see the rematch with Whyte , As limited as Whyte is i think he would really try to put it on AJ & see what AJ really has left in the tank ,

I think Fury will be more the puzzle for Usyk

^^^ If Ruiz had shown up in shape he'd have caught up to Joshua a few times and would have beaten him again.

But Wilder likely would have been taken out far earlier had Joshua been connecting and following up.

Fury was quite poor in the finishing sense. Took him too many rds to put away a fighter that was gassing badly for rds.

I still think Wilder-AJ is a 50/50 three rds toss up

There won’t be any trenches for AJ or Wilder. Either lands clean and it’s lights out.

but yes, Wilder has more fight/gusto.

AJ refusal to answer on the game plan says a lot to me,

I reckon the plan was to start boxing but then lay it on Usyk but once he caught tagged in the 4th i think he didn't have the confidence to stay inside and try to hurt him, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt & say i don't think AJ was afraid of getting knocked out i think he is afraid of tiring out

There is something about him lately where you just don't get the sense of fire in him, Even his 20 second bad man rant at the end of that interview had no soul to it, it was like it was badly scripted ,

For example that one 30 second clip that went around pre Fury v Wilder 3 where Fury is asked to give Wilder a massage & he says "i'm going to smash your **** face in you prick, How's that for a message"

Yes its just words & some will say not needed but you could sense a real fire & stubborn determination from him it summed up the how Fury was in the ring seconds before the first bell staring a hole in Wilder still telling him the same thing & determined to do it, While knowing & accepting he is going to have to get through so dark moments in there to achive it ,

AJ for me tries the humble wise man sh*t but does it out so much he has started to believe it so he get's stuck in that "zone" , He doesn't enter the ring with that fire or malice , he's not in there for a proper fight so when the fight started to get away from him he couldn't dig deep., He needs to find that switch again

I don't think AJ has the tank. Watched the 5th round against Vlad again and he started great, dropped him and then gassed badly to the point that he nearly got stopped himself. AJ can only sustain big offence for half a round at a time. Never really seen him keep pressure on anyone for multiple consecutive rounds. Standing far away and jabbing doesnt count.