The RedCafe Boxing Thread

Lay said:
What is the Dick Turpin reference about?
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either robbed in the usyk fight or feels he’s being robbed on the purse for a joshua fight. main issue with this tactic is i’m not sure anyone cares if he doesn’t fight again.
 
rimaldo said:
either robbed in the usyk fight or feels he’s being robbed on the purse for a joshua fight. main issue with this tactic is i’m not sure anyone cares if he doesn’t fight again.
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Perhaps he sees himself as Dick, considering he's made a ton of money setting up trilogies with the likes of Chisora.
 
He's only retired so they will offer him more to unretire for the Joshua fight, then when he loses a proper shit boxing match, he can blame it that he was already retired.
 
Think it's the right call. He met his Waterloo in Usyk and there's nowhere else to go.

Fury's not really been boxing well since the second Wilder fight.
 
Fortitude said:
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Ali
Louis
Holmes
Lewis

Are definitely above him

Foreman
Tyson
Holyfield
Fraiser
Marciano

Are probably ahead of him

But other than that you can pick and choose, in my eyes he's already bested his compatriot as the greatest Ukranian heavyweight as while the Klitschko strung together an impressive chain of title defenses the quality just wasn't there.

Usyk's ranking will always be peculiar, I'd imagine he'll do better in p4p rankings than heavyweight ones.
 
Red the Bear said:
Ali
Louis
Holmes
Lewis

Are definitely above him

Foreman
Tyson
Holyfield
Fraiser
Marciano

Are probably ahead of him

But other than that you can pick and choose, in my eyes he's already bested his compatriot as the greatest Ukranian heavyweight as while the Klitschko strung together an impressive chain of title defenses the quality just wasn't there.

Usyk's ranking will always be peculiar, I'd imagine he'll do better in p4p rankings than heavyweight ones.
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He's certainly an interesting one! I think he'll be better received in retirement, especially if gets to do so undefeated at HW.

Some will always hold not being one of the golden era boxers against him, but you can't help the era you are born in, to the positive or the negative, and as Rummy says, he is game and faces all challengers head on without a moment of hesitation or ducking, which can only be well received.

One thing that is important to note is that his height and weight is more the mean - or even over it - for the great ones, with these huge, oversized guys being a more modern phenomenon that doesn't have particularly great value in the full landscape of HW boxing. I'm really glad Usyk has almost single handedly put the notion of huge = win to bed by himself, as he sends guys much bigger than him sprawling without half the power of some of the heavy hitters of the past.

I haven't looked around to see what the thoughts are on Usyk in a top 10. I'm sure the results are very mixed, though!
 
Maybe he just lacks the motivation to go through another training camp given he is now two defeats in. He certainly doesn't need the money a potential Joshua fight would generate and the risk of taking a fight without motivation is further defeat.

He could just want to accept he was beaten by a singular opponent and not multiple opponents.
 
Fortitude said:
He's certainly an interesting one! I think he'll be better received in retirement, especially if gets to do so undefeated at HW.

Some will always hold not being one of the golden era boxers against him, but you can't help the era you are born in, to the positive or the negative, and as Rummy says, he is game and faces all challengers head on without a moment of hesitation or ducking, which can only be well received.

One thing that is important to note is that his height and weight is more the mean - or even over it - for the great ones, with these huge, oversized guys being a more modern phenomenon that doesn't have particularly great value in the full landscape of HW boxing. I'm really glad Usyk has almost single handedly put the notion of huge = win to bed by himself, as he sends guys much bigger than him sprawling without half the power of some of the heavy hitters of the past.

I haven't looked around to see what the thoughts are on Usyk in a top 10. I'm sure the results are very mixed, though!
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I always considered the balloning height and weight measurements a result of first increased PED usage in the 80s and 90s and then the dwindling skill and talent pool of the division and the sport as a whole, it was always annoying seeing the current crop be somehow considered superior to the greats of the past just because of a few inches of height advantage while so clearly deficient in everything else, if I were to remember and applaud usyk for anything it's putting that silly notion to rest.
 
Just a ploy from Fury to get some more money to fight Joshua. As soon as Joshua moves on with another opponent he will be back wanting the fight.

This is the fourth time he has retired and to do it on the same day as the Saudi card got together smells of Fury wanting a bit more of the Saudi pie.
 
Red the Bear said:
Ali
Louis
Holmes
Lewis

Are definitely above him

Foreman
Tyson
Holyfield
Fraiser
Marciano

Are probably ahead of him

But other than that you can pick and choose, in my eyes he's already bested his compatriot as the greatest Ukranian heavyweight as while the Klitschko strung together an impressive chain of title defenses the quality just wasn't there.

Usyk's ranking will always be peculiar, I'd imagine he'll do better in p4p rankings than heavyweight ones.
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Too many questions marks over Usyk still at heavyweight for me to be putting him in any conversations with the greats. There’s question marks over both Fury fights for quite a few and the Dubois fight. I don’t think those and wins over Joshua, who a lot of people claim isn’t a very good boxer and Chisora really warrant putting him among the best or even some of the ones just below the best if I’m honest.
 
JP77 said:
Too many questions marks over Usyk still at heavyweight for me to be putting him in any conversations with the greats. There’s question marks over both Fury fights for quite a few and the Dubois fight. I don’t think those and wins over Joshua, who a lot of people claim isn’t a very good boxer and Chisora really warrant putting him among the best or even some of the ones just below the best if I’m honest.
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This isn't the 90s anymore, he's beaten the best available to him and if we're being honest there's no one out there where you could argue would improve the average quality of his opposition, maybe parker but that's it really, the future doesn't look bright for the division, in fact it's probably the best it's gonna be for a while and to be fair right now it's not too bad, probably better than 2000s and 2010s which other than the klitchko brothers was the most stale the division has been.
 
Red the Bear said:
This isn't the 90s anymore, he's beaten the best available to him and if we're being honest there's no one out there where you could argue would improve the average quality of his opposition, maybe parker but that's it really, the future doesn't look bright for the division, in fact it's probably the best it's gonna be for a while and to be fair right now it's not too bad, probably better than 2000s and 2010s which other than the klitchko brothers was the most stale the division has been.
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Red the Bear said:
This isn't the 90s anymore, he's beaten the best available to him and if we're being honest there's no one out there where you could argue would improve the average quality of his opposition, maybe parker but that's it really, the future doesn't look bright for the division, in fact it's probably the best it's gonna be for a while and to be fair right now it's not too bad, probably better than 2000s and 2010s which other than the klitchko brothers was the most stale the division has been.
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But that doesn’t mean he should be put up in conversations with the greats. His three biggest wins are Fury, Dubois and Joshua. Joshua he beat comfortably but does anybody rate Joshua very highly? The first Fury fight was a split decision that was closer than anybody wants to admit and the second was an absolute crazy set of scorecards. Meanwhile the Dubois fight has a huge question mark over it where many felt he cheated Dubois. So that’s two of his four opponents at heavyweight with quite large question marks over the win. Enough to be discussing him in conversations with greats? I personally don’t think so.
 
JP77 said:
But that doesn’t mean he should be put up in conversations with the greats. His three biggest wins are Fury, Dubois and Joshua. Joshua he beat comfortably but does anybody rate Joshua very highly? The first Fury fight was a split decision that was closer than anybody wants to admit and the second was an absolute crazy set of scorecards. Meanwhile the Dubois fight has a huge question mark over it where many felt he cheated Dubois. So that’s two of his four opponents at heavyweight with quite large question marks over the win. Enough to be discussing him in conversations with greats? I personally don’t think so.
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There was nothing questionable about the last fight against Fury. Fury was nowhere near good enough on the night to win it.
 
Withnail said:
There was nothing questionable about the last fight against Fury. Fury was nowhere near good enough on the night to win it.
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There definitely was though. Quite a few had Fury winning, drawing or narrowly losing. Scorecards were crazy but this was discussed to death on here already.
 
JP77 said:
There definitely was though. Quite a few had Fury winning, drawing or narrowly losing. Scorecards were crazy but this was discussed to death on here already.
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There was very biased commentary in Fury's favour, which made it seem controversial, but I don't recall a huge amount of people claiming Fury should have won.

Some people felt the margin was maybe not as wide as 4 but it was only you and two others in this thread, as far as I remember, who thought Fury should have won. This was not a controversial decision.
 
It wasn’t too long ago that people were talking Fury up as a possible all time great (I didn’t think so), so it’s only fair to consider the guy who beat him twice. Those fights were only as close as they were due to the size discrepancy, Usyk is clearly a far superior fighter, pound for pound.

I think p4p he deserves to be in the conversation with the top guys, but unfortunately for him, his legacy will probably suffer from not having higher quality opponents to face in his era.

Most of the ATGs of the heavyweight division match up pretty well in size with Usyk, so he’d stand a decent chance against a few of them, but I still think facing someone as good and as big as Lewis would be too much for him.
 
Seems like Eubank v Benn is close to being agreed.

I hate the way Benn positions himself as one of the best British talents, he's done nothing in his career even relative to Eubank, and yet he's trying to call out the likes of Tank, Haney etc after being banned for 2 years for doping.

Surely no-one buys his version that he's innoncent. There's literally an interview with him 4 months before the doping violation came out where he says he's doesn't have eggs in his diet, then after the results come out, he says he's overconsumed eggs. Him and Eddie Hearn still wanted to go ahead with the fight before the result of his doping violation had come out too - even though they knew it was positive.
 
SambaBoy said:
Seems like Eubank v Benn is close to being agreed.

I hate the way Benn positions himself as one of the best British talents, he's done nothing in his career even relative to Eubank, and yet he's trying to call out the likes of Tank, Haney etc after being banned for 2 years for doping.

Surely no-one buys his version that he's innoncent. There's literally an interview with him 4 months before the doping violation came out where he says he's doesn't have eggs in his diet, then after the results come out, he says he's overconsumed eggs. Him and Eddie Hearn still wanted to go ahead with the fight before the result of his doping violation had come out too - even though they knew it was positive.
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In fairness he never made the claim it was eggs, that was the WBC and he put out a statement saying he was disappointed they came to that conclusion.

They haven't offered up any real public explanation though. The whole thing still doesn't sit right and either the BBBoC or Benn and his team need to explain still why he failed the tests as we have no conclusion. Only the WBC's which Conor himself has distanced himself from.

I'm OK with this fight still, it needed to happen at the end of the day and the build-up will be fun. Turki was involved in getting the deal done so I'd imagine it's a Riyadh sponsored event and the undercard will be packed, if that's the case I can take this as the main event. Will be PPV though obviously so I'll resolve judgement until we see some of the other fights get made.
 
JP77 said:
There definitely was though. Quite a few had Fury winning, drawing or narrowly losing. Scorecards were crazy but this was discussed to death on here already.
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Nah, nobody really thinks that apart of a few interested parties and his cultists. The fact you discussed the scorecards against dozen people telling they were pretty fair does not mean you pow was accurate.

Usyk will never be considered among the greatest hw figures, yet he is p4p surely the best of the current class by a wide margin (also accounting his cw career) and by his record, a bigger yet less glamored version of Floyd.
 
Fortitude said:


P4P #1

All time great.

Sublime.

<insert more superlatives here>
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Usyk is still P4P #1 for me, with Bud #2. This win over this level of opponent doesn't do much for me, pretty much exactly what was expected of him versus the man who calls himself 'Pacquiweather'.

Apparently big fights in Vegas and Saudi planned for 2025. Seems like it could be a WBC mandatory defence against David Picasso in the US and then Murodjon Akhmadaliev in Riyadh.

I wouldn't regard the former as a particularly interesting fight to be honest, so I'm hoping we see the MJ fight next and then Nakatani or a move to 126 later in the year.
 
Innoue is akin to a perfectly maintained Swiss (Japanese?) Watch.

Durable, accurate, efficient and impeccably balanced, not a step more or less than the economy of the situation requires.

Definitely top 3 in the p4p rankings, his sheer domination is probably working against him when it comes to his worldwide renown.
 
DannyCAFC said:
Usyk is still P4P #1 for me, with Bud #2. This win over this level of opponent doesn't do much for me, pretty much exactly what was expected of him versus the man who calls himself 'Pacquiweather'.

Apparently big fights in Vegas and Saudi planned for 2025. Seems like it could be a WBC mandatory defence against David Picasso in the US and then Murodjon Akhmadaliev in Riyadh.

I wouldn't regard the former as a particularly interesting fight to be honest, so I'm hoping we see the MJ fight next and then Nakatani or a move to 126 later in the year.
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In your eyes how would he go from #3 to #1? I am not sure he can do anything to change your mind?

Red the Bear said:
Innoue is akin to a perfectly maintained Swiss (Japanese?) Watch.

Durable, accurate, efficient and impeccably balanced, not a step more or less than the economy of the situation requires.

Definitely top 3 in the p4p rankings, his sheer domination is probably working against him when it comes to his worldwide renown.
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His weight class and also fighting mostly in Japan is also harmful in terms of renown. Guy is just ridiculous; has that Sigar Ray Robinson type of power transference. That accuracy and timing as well as throwing bombs with such speed and volume. He’s a joy to watch. Funny, as you say, he has that durability and the heart of a champion, which is actually quite rare for the booming hitters. His power per pound scaling would be quite something to determine in its own right.
 
Inoue needs to beat another P4P opponent to cement his legacy.
I love the guy and have seen him live in Glasgow but demolishing his peers ain't enough.
He needs to beat Bam when he moves up to cement his place in boxing lore.
Bam may wait it out until Monster is on the slide until agreeing to the fight though.
 
Fortitude said:
In your eyes how would he go from #3 to #1? I am not sure he can do anything to change your mind?
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If he beat Nakatani and claimed a belt at 126 and did both in impressive fashion I would strongly consider. The problem is - unfortunately for him - the level of opposition at the lower weights is not the same. Crawford's win over Spence in a much more impressive single win than anything on Inoue's record so far. And Usyk also becoming undisputed in a 2nd weight class by beating Fury whilst giving up 55lbs on fight night is much more impressive than Inoue becoming undisputed in a 2nd weight class beating Marlon Tapales whilst giving up 5lbs.

He's a phenomenal fighter in every aspect and probably alongside Crawford one of my two favourite fighters to watch in all of boxing, but objectively his best wins just don't compete with Usyk's or even Crawford's. A dominant win over Nakatani who is in my top 10 P4P would go some way towards changing that, but given he's coming up in weight I would also want to see Inoue go above and beyond and claim a belt at a 5th weight.

Inoue-Bam would be brilliant but I think we're at least 18 months away from that at the moment and that would rely on Inoue sticking around at 122lbs which he might, but I fear their paths might never cross.
 
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DannyCAFC said:
If he beat Nakatani and claimed a belt at 126 and did both in impressive fashion I would strongly consider. The problem is - unfortunately for him - the level of opposition at the lower weights is not the same. Crawford's win over Spence in a much more impressive single win than anything on Inoue's record so far. And Usyk also becoming undisputed in a 2nd weight class by beating Fury whilst giving up 55lbs on fight night is much more impressive than Inoue becoming undisputed in a 2nd weight class beating Marlon Tapales whilst giving up 5lbs.

He's a phenomenal fighter in every aspect and probably alongside Crawford one of my two favourite fighters to watch in all of boxing, but objectively his best wins just don't compete with Usyk's or even Crawford's. A dominant win over Nakatani who is in my top 10 P4P would go some way towards changing that, but given he's coming up in weight I would also want to see Inoue go above and beyond and claim a belt at a 5th weight.

Inoue-Bam would be brilliant but I think we're at least 18 months away from that at the moment and that would rely on Inoue sticking around at 122lbs which he might, but I fear their paths might never cross.
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I think you have to give him a lot of credit for the Fulton win - and the manner in which he did it. Fulton was talked about the one who could potentially halt his progress and it was a one sided beat down. I had him definitely as top of the p4p list after that fight.

The problem was a few days later Crawford delivered an even more impressive display in a more talked about weight class against a more hyped opponent in Spence.

But you're right in terms of the Bam fight. Can't say I've watched too much of Nakatani so not sure how he'd match up against Inoue.
 
DannyCAFC said:
If he beat Nakatani and claimed a belt at 126 and did both in impressive fashion I would strongly consider. The problem is - unfortunately for him - the level of opposition at the lower weights is not the same. Crawford's win over Spence in a much more impressive single win than anything on Inoue's record so far. And Usyk also becoming undisputed in a 2nd weight class by beating Fury whilst giving up 55lbs on fight night is much more impressive than Inoue becoming undisputed in a 2nd weight class beating Marlon Tapales whilst giving up 5lbs.

He's a phenomenal fighter in every aspect and probably alongside Crawford one of my two favourite fighters to watch in all of boxing, but objectively his best wins just don't compete with Usyk's or even Crawford's. A dominant win over Nakatani who is in my top 10 P4P would go some way towards changing that, but given he's coming up in weight I would also want to see Inoue go above and beyond and claim a belt at a 5th weight.

Inoue-Bam would be brilliant but I think we're at least 18 months away from that at the moment and that would rely on Inoue sticking around at 122lbs which he might, but I fear their paths might never cross.
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Yeah, that's fair enough.
 
Adam Azim fighting Sergey Lipinets this weekend. Big step up for him - interesting to see how he does as I don't think he carries too much power from what I've seen so far. Really talented fighter but I feel he may struggle with the likes of Garcia & Davis.
 
SambaBoy said:
Adam Azim fighting Sergey Lipinets this weekend. Big step up for him - interesting to see how he does as I don't think he carries too much power from what I've seen so far. Really talented fighter but I feel he may struggle with the likes of Garcia & Davis.
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He's protected to hell. Lipinets perfect opponent, good name but on slippery slope.
Won't be stepped up to top level for another year at least.
 
Glorio said:
Come on ... At what weight?
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Crawford's to 168.

I'm somewhat less against it than I initially was simply because super-middle is absolutely dead and there's no interesting fights for Canelo at all on the horizon anytime soon. If this were the Canelo of 3 or 4 years ago I would expect this to be a mismatch, but he hasn't exactly been putting people over of late including Charlo who moved up 2 weight classes as well.

I think Crawford is clearly the superior fighter at this point of their careers and has a decent reach advantage, but it'll be interesting to see how the difference in weight makes an impact. I suspect Bud will probably be 175-ish on fight night and Canelo probably 10-15lbs above that.
 
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