When fighters have clearly ducked another fighter?

svmVR2097 said:
Tyson/Holyfield happened twice in their primes, people just didn’t want to accept Tyson wasn’t as good as they thought he was
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Tyson wasn't as good as he was, plus what you said. Tyson's style was never going to age like Holyfield's just as Manny's was never going to hold together as well as Floyd. With that in mind, I think Holyfield had the grit and gas tank and willingness to outlast Tyson. The headbutt were unnecessary. They marred the win for me. I don't like controversial wins. Always leaves something. Holyfield fans will ignore them or downplay them. Tyson fans will blame them. Makes the situation worse.
 
EVERYBODY flat out ducked Golovkin until WW Kell Brook took him 5 rounds and spilt the first four. After that, the lost step suddenly became observable. Most people don't see when a fighter is losing a step or is slipping. They think because a fighter keeps winning he isn't slipping. When they prefer another fighter over the one that is slipping they trivialize the decline of the fighter, but I always look at the timing of the match. Canelo waited on Brook, then Jacobs even though he was lineal champ in MW since 2015, he waited 2 years for the high volume pressure fighter to lose some of that volume and pressure. But everyone was avoiding GGG like he had the plague in his gloves, not just Canelo.
 
WklySportsMemes said:
That was not Tyson's prime at all...
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He was what 29? Sure it was he had stopped everyone since the Douglas fight except for the 2nd Ruddock fight. Just because he lost to Douglas doesn’t mean his primed stopped. When he got out of jail no one even made it past the 3rd round until Holyfield. He was still in his prime
 
svmVR2097 said:
He was what 29? Sure it was he had stopped everyone since the Douglas fight except for the 2nd Ruddock fight. Just because he lost to Douglas doesn’t mean his primed stopped. When he got out of jail no one even made it past the 3rd round until Holyfield. He was still in his prime
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Tyson had a very short peak. Anyone can watch his fights pre prison and then post prison and see he lost a step. He was still very good and a great win for Holyfield but he wasn't quite the same.
 
svmVR2097 said:
He was what 29? Sure it was he had stopped everyone since the Douglas fight except for the 2nd Ruddock fight. Just because he lost to Douglas doesn’t mean his primed stopped. When he got out of jail no one even made it past the 3rd round until Holyfield. He was still in his prime
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Most people would tell you Tyson's prime stopped before the Ruddock fight and in fact, before the first Bruno fight, when he fired Kevin Rooney. I think you could certainly say that he never looked the same after that point in his career. But he absolutely was not the same post-prison. He went from a guy with sublime skills, both defensively and offensively, to a guy who still had lightning handspeed and wrecking ball power, but was fairly sloppy, especially relative to what he once was.
 
svmVR2097 said:
He was what 29? Sure it was he had stopped everyone since the Douglas fight except for the 2nd Ruddock fight. Just because he lost to Douglas doesn’t mean his primed stopped. When he got out of jail no one even made it past the 3rd round until Holyfield. He was still in his prime
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No he wasn't. He peaked physically and mentally early. Training and fight camps with too many yes men. Abusing his body with drugs alcohol partying and fornication. Legal trouble. Relationship trouble. People robbing him blind. Prison during his athletic prime.
Like stated above by multiple posters it was clear to anyone who knew boxing back then that Tyson while still a force to be reckoned with was damaged goods.
 
deucesarewild said:
Hopkins was in a different weight class than Ward, iirc.?
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Yeah, Hopkins was never a super middleweight. And he didn't duck Toney either; they were supposed to fight at cruiserweight at one point and the fight fell through, but I don't see how you can call not stepping up in weight to fight a guy ducking. Did Toney duck Hopkins when he was the middleweight champion and Hopkins was a contender? I'm sure Hopkins would have loved a fight with Toney at any point in his career prior to the post-Trinidad era when big money fights finally started to come his way.
 
WklySportsMemes said:
No he wasn't. He peaked physically and mentally early. Training and fight camps with too many yes men. Abusing his body with drugs alcohol partying and fornication. Legal trouble. Relationship trouble. People robbing him blind. Prison during his athletic prime.
Like stated above by multiple posters it was clear to anyone who knew boxing back then that Tyson while still a force to be reckoned with was damaged goods.
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I’m going to refuse to believe someone’s prime ended at 23/24 years old without a significant injury
 
deucesarewild said:
EVERYBODY flat out ducked Golovkin until WW Kell Brook took him 5 rounds and spilt the first four. After that, the lost step suddenly became observable. Most people don't see when a fighter is losing a step or is slipping. They think because a fighter keeps winning he isn't slipping. When they prefer another fighter over the one that is slipping they trivialize the decline of the fighter, but I always look at the timing of the match. Canelo waited on Brook, then Jacobs even though he was lineal champ in MW since 2015, he waited 2 years for the high volume pressure fighter to lose some of that volume and pressure. But everyone was avoiding GGG like he had the plague in his gloves, not just Canelo.
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Golovkin ducked Ward so its ok.
 
Kforcer said:
Yeah, Hopkins was never a super middleweight. And he didn't duck Toney either; they were supposed to fight at cruiserweight at one point and the fight fell through, but I don't see how you can call not stepping up in weight to fight a guy ducking. Did Toney duck Hopkins when he was the middleweight champion and Hopkins was a contender? I'm sure Hopkins would have loved a fight with Toney at any point in his career prior to the post-Trinidad era when big money fights finally started to come his way.
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Hopkins was also underwritten until he beat Trinidad and then really DLH
 
PUO3 said:
Golovkin ducked Ward so its ok.
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Can't duck someone not in your weight class. If you start going on about guys actively in different weight classes then you might as well say that Anthony Joshua is ducking Inoue. GGG could not fight out of 160 without giving up one or more of his belts and his intention at the time was to unify.
 
svmVR2097 said:
I’m going to refuse to believe someone’s prime ended at 23/24 years old without a significant injury
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All that stuff is the same as an injury. Massive drug addiction and legit Mental illness is probably worse to come back from than most physical injuries. Not sure how that can be a shocker to any non-sheltered adult.
Great deny reality, be my guest.

Also you can see high school and collegiate SUPER STARS peak and never pan out in every sport. There are plenty of guys who dominated top competion then but were done by that age in the pros.
 
WklySportsMemes said:
No he wasn't. He peaked physically and mentally early. Training and fight camps with too many yes men. Abusing his body with drugs alcohol partying and fornication. Legal trouble. Relationship trouble. People robbing him blind. Prison during his athletic prime.
Like stated above by multiple posters it was clear to anyone who knew boxing back then that Tyson while still a force to be reckoned with was damaged goods.
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It is funny though, up until the second Holyfield fight, he still looked like his old self enough to fool a lot of people, including fans who should probably have known better but held out hope. And I think he also seemed to still have his old physical tools, enough so that people thought a reunion with Kevin Rooney might really bright the Iron Mike of old back.

But after that fight, when he returned from his ban, he looked visibly and obviously deteriorated. I'd never seen a Tyson performance like the one he gave against Botha, up until that point. He wasn't throwing combinations, Botha seemed to be beating him to the punch and he also seemed to get easily frustrated. That version of Tyson still had deadly power, sharp, accurate punches and a great chin, which is a lot for anyone to have, but compared to what he once was, the change was like night and day. Tyson before the ban, even if he was far removed from his best days, was still a huge mountain for anyone in the division to climb, even Lennox Lewis. After that second Holyfield fight and the ensuing ban, I don't think that was true anymore, at least not for the top echelon of the division.
 
svmVR2097 said:
I’m going to refuse to believe someone’s prime ended at 23/24 years old without a significant injury
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Do you really think Tyson looked the same prior to firing Rooney as he did afterwards? Or post-prison as he did through his title win and first 7 defenses?
 
WklySportsMemes said:
No he wasn't. He peaked physically and mentally early. Training and fight camps with too many yes men. Abusing his body with drugs alcohol partying and fornication. Legal trouble. Relationship trouble. People robbing him blind. Prison during his athletic prime.
Like stated above by multiple posters it was clear to anyone who knew boxing back then that Tyson while still a force to be reckoned with was damaged goods.
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High volume, athletic pressure fighters taper off first, and sometimes very abruptly. In Tyson's case his absolute most destructive years were 85 to 88. Once he demolished Spinks he started to slide, in small ways. Cutting corners on how he closed the distance. Things like that. The loss of the D'Amato lineage and Tyson's lack of discipline vastly accelerated this decline that would have happened naturally several years later. It's the way of boxing. Even if Tyson did everything right until when he fought Holyfield, he still would have been slipping and would have not been in his prime to handle Holyfield. Some people say no version of Tyson could have handled Holyfield. I don't know about that.
 
deucesarewild said:
Hopkins was also underwritten until he beat Trinidad and then really DLH
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Especially for a guy who almost never lost rounds. Almost all his fights were shutouts culminated by a brutal late-round stoppage, some earlier than that. Antwun Echols was the only one that was able to really give him trouble. Joe Lipsey and John David Jackson were competitive with him, but they never really had him in trouble before getting KO'd.
 
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