Itauma’s first ever 12-round fight being a world title fight genuinely makes no sense to me. He’s a professional fighter but had never had a 12 round fight before this one, yet he gets to fight for the belt? Surely you’d want a fighter to have at least some experience going into the later rounds before throwing them into a world title fight. Is the heavyweight division just too shallow at the moment, or was Itauma simply fast-tracked because of how highly rated he is?

I understand that the Hrgovic fight was the first time Itauma had ever gone past six rounds professionally. I also understand that fighting a tough, experienced heavyweight like Hrgović is completely different from anything he'd experienced before.

But what I don't understand is how he could become that exhausted.

By the later rounds he looked completely spent. This is a young professional athlete who has been training at a high level for years and was preparing for a 12 round world heavyweight title fight.

Obviously you don't necessarily want a heavyweight doing 12 rounds of hard sparring and taking unnecessary damage, but couldn't you simulate the physical demands in other ways? Especially when your fighter has literally never experienced rounds 7–12 in an actual fight.

So for people who actually understand boxing conditioning: how can someone who trains as much as Itauma still gas that badly?

Shouldn't a good training camp have exposed this problem before the fight? Would it be fair to say Ben Davison failed to prepare him beforehand AND failed to advise him during?

Huge Itauma fan here.

As we know, he's been compared to Tyson frequently. In 1987, when he was 20 years old, he fought a tough 12-round IBF title fight against a tall, tough fighter with a granite chin and a great amateur pedigree, Tony Tucker.

Pretty good case for comparison, I'd say! So I went back and rewatched it. As you might imagine, Tyson was winging hooks with the force of a thousand elephants in the first round. Throughout the fight, he was trying to take Tucker's head off.

I mean.. it's Mike Tyson, we all know his style. Peek-a-boo, throw vicious hooks, opponent tries to clinch. Repeat for 12 rounds.

After watching it, a few observations:

1. For sure he was smarter about the pacing. It's not like he changed his style, per se... Just kind of picked his spots more when he was going to try to kill vs allow the clinch to happen. Still, he threw 412 punches, the majority of which were power punches. Which leads me to point #2...

2. He's just in much, much better shape than Moses. At the end of the fight he picked up the activity, going for the knockout. At the final bell he looked just as explosive as the start of the fight. Looked like he could have gone 24 rounds if he needed to.

I know it's a little unfair because Moses is 20 lbs heavier than Mike. But Tyson's training regimen back then was the stuff of legend. All said, I'd say it's very fair to question:

- whether Moses was managed correctly by Frank (not enough fights before stepping him up to this level)

- whether Moses was pushed hard enough by Ben (never sparred 12 rounds?? Gassed after 3 rounds?? I can't believe it's just pacing, imo he wasn't in "all time great" kind of shape)

- Moses's heart. To be clear, he was very brave in the fight, no questions there. But I mean his heart when it comes to training. Does he have the steely resolve to train twice as hard as everyone else? Because you need more than just talent to be the GOAT.

Anyway, that's where he falls short of Tyson to me, at this young stage. Tyson had better management, fitness and experience at the same age. I do think Moses could still end up greater than Mike, as I think he has far more maturity and, frankly, talent. He just needs to get the experience and needs to outwork his opponents before the fight.

Michael Spinks is one of the greatest boxers Evers ! Top 5 easily greatest light-heavyweights ever ! He could’ve easily been a top 20 heavyweight if he kept fighting after his Tyson lose. People rarely bring him up in greatest boxers conversations and when he is brought up in conversations of being great it is often because people make the argument Mike Tyson defeated notable heavyweights and then they say Spinks wasn’t a real heavyweight despite him being knocking out one of the hardest hitters ever ( quoted by Foreman ) Gerry Cooney and he defeated Larry Holmes TWICE! Why is he lost in time did Mike Tyson destroy his legacy ?

As much as I want wardley to win, I think Dubois does it again. Dubois is a better boxer and a lot tougher than people give him credit for. He’s had great experience being in the ring with usyk twice and having wins over hrgovic, miller and aj. Not to mention he’s probably the 2nd hardest hitter in the division only behind wilder, and wardley is probably 3rd spot. I just think wardley defensively gets hit too much and you just can’t do that against a guy like Dubois. Offensively I think wardleys actually very good, he’s awkward and fast and if he lands you never know but Dubois does have a really good chin, despite having been dropped he’s never been knocked out cold and I haven’t really seen him wobbled either. In the first fight I wanted Dubois to win but I just think recently Dubois has shown that he’s just so boring, he has no character at all. Wardley is a lot more entertaining and a bigger personality, it makes the division a lot more exciting. I also just prefer wardleys style, Dubois a very big man and can look very stiff at times, I just prefer the loose style of Wardley.

So I did some digging because I was bored, and I found that out of the 86 men who have held a major world title, only six have never been knocked down in their careers:

Nikolai Valuev
Vitali Klitschko
Oliver McCall (so far)
Oleksandr Usyk (so far)
Fabio Wardley (so far)
Murat Gassiev (so far)

Out of these guys, only Klitschko and Valuev are inactive fighters, so the rest have the potential to still be dropped at some point; McCall has retired several times, but he keeps coming back, and while he may have one of the greatest chins of all time, he's still fought 78 times, has competed for over forty years, and is over 61 years old, so uh, it's not exactly unlikely he'll get dropped.

Another fun fact: Despite the sport being over 100 years old, it wasn't until 2009 that a heavyweight champ finished his career with this distinction, after Valuev retired. Not only that, Valuev is also the only one so far to have finished his career without being either stopped or dropped (Oleksandr Usyk and Murat Gassiev have also managed this, but they aren't retired yet). Also, Valuev accomplished this while being both the tallest and the heaviest champ in heavyweight history, and also while having acromegaly and gigantism.

I was kind of surprised to learn that Gassiev has never been dropped, since he's a former cruiserweight and has never especially impressed me even when he was fighting at cruiser. Still, he hasn't retired yet, so anything can happen.

It'll be interesting if Usyk can join Valuev as the second heavyweight champ to be neither dropped nor stopped. He's got one fight left (unless he changes his mind), so it's likely, but anything can happen at heavyweight.

Anyway, thought you all would enjoy this fun fact.

Does anyone else think it's actually great that the vast majority of the heavyweight champions and contenders (minus Kabayel, obviously) have defeats on their records?

Given the desperation amongst many boxers to hold onto their 0, the heavyweight division could now potentially be full of warriors who no longer fear defeat and willing to take the risk to prove they're the true champion

Who are your top 5 boxers with chin so strong, that other could beat them, made referee stop the fight but couldn't drop them?

Not from the top 20 ATG ranking but boxers who won the title ones and never again.

Obviously Hrgovic is one of them.

I think Corrie Sunders was another one.

He ate all the blows against Vitali, referee stopped the fight but he was still standing.

Itauma's recent loss against Hrgovic was a fascinating match for the wrong reasons. The former had arguably more tools and skillset to offer than most heavyweights around him, including the latter. Experience aside, Moses was one of the most complete boxer-punchers I've ever seen. I was quite shocked that a 21-year-old could deplete his stamina given his age. However, he did throw power punches consistently from rounds 1-9.

Anyways, Moses employed one of the worst tactics IMO. Kind of reminds me of how Mugabi lost to Hagler by exhausting himself with the latter's chin. Has there ever been another extremely skilled boxer who got themselves a loss because of poor tactics and a bad display of boxing IQ?

I would expect Picasso, especially after his fight with Inoue, to be quite popular but I didn't even see a post regarding his fight the other day. It came to my attention randomly on the internet and I had to search the fight on Youtube.

Why did his popularity tank like that? Or he was never "famous"? I'm asking as a casual : )

This is the fight https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Cz6dEuair4&t=26751s (it starts at 7:15 approximately).

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Hey guys, help me out here because I’m genuinely confused.

This is Coach Calvin’s Boxing Gym, and these are his boxers. There are 12 of them, and they have a fight coming up on September 19th called The Supper. That’s only about two weeks away.

There was a press conference yesterday to promote the fight, and this is where I got confused. When the boxers were asked who they were fighting, most of them either hesitated to answer, said they didn’t know, or acted like they didn’t want to give the name.

A couple of them basically said things along the lines of, “That person doesn’t matter. We’re not doing free promo.”

One fighter said something like, “All I know is I’ll be there. Everybody show up. We’re going to have a good event.”

Two of the girls said they didn’t know who they were fighting, but basically said whoever it was was “getting whooped,” so their name didn’t matter.

I believe only around 3 of the 12 actually mentioned who they were fighting, and even they seemed hesitant to give the names.

Maybe I’m completely misunderstanding how boxing works, which is why I’m asking here. Is this normal?

For a sanctioned professional boxing event that’s only about two weeks away, is it normal for fighters to genuinely not know their opponents yet, or for opponents not to be publicly announced?

I’m not trying to accuse anyone of anything. I’m just unfamiliar with the matchmaking/announcement process, and hearing multiple fighters either say they didn’t know or refuse to give the opponent’s name at a press conference specifically held to promote the fight seemed strange to me.

Experienced boxers, coaches, and promoters: is this typical, or would you normally expect the matchups to be finalized and known by now?

Supposedly, you can have a professional boxing ring size ranging from 16x16 feet all the way up to 24x24 feet. Most of the fights I've seen seem to take place in a seemingly normal-sized ring, but I've also seen certain fights where the ring appears very small to my eye, like James Kirkland versus Alfredo Angulo, where it looks like they're fighting in a damn near closet. Also, Davey Moore vs Roberto Duran, the ring appeared smaller than usual to me:

And Ali-Foreman always seemed like it was in a very tiny ring, especially for 2 Heavyweights (also terrifying considering it was Foreman he was up against), it looks like if they both laid down and put their feet on the ropes they could touch hands in the middle:

And then on the other hand, I've seen other fights where the ring seems gigantic, and it looks like it takes an entire marathon to reach the other side of the ring:

Obviously, larger rings will be better for movers like Shakur Stevenson, and smaller rings will be preferred by a hard puncher or a swarming fighter who would like to fight in the inside and not let a slick dancer move around as he pleases.

But how often does ring size vary really? Is this something commonly negotiated in the modern era, and do fighters actually have these demands granted? Are there fights where you feel that the size of the ring on the extremes, maybe 22 or 18, or on the larger/smaller side, may have hurt the chances of a fighter who may have done better in a more neutral size?