Best Heavyweight Bout Of The Decade?

[Goodnight, Irene]

It's been an abysmal nine years for the most part, though we've still twelve months (with no good end in sight) ahead to round out the decade.

Which was the most exciting Heavyweight bout this decade, from a standpoint primarily of action, rather than historic value (ie Lewis-Tyson)?

[Flump]

Well the title fight that springs to mind has to be Lewis - Klitschko.

[BroughtonRulesRefuge]

Which was the most exciting Heavyweight bout this decade, from a standpoint primarily of action, rather than historic value (ie Lewis-Tyson)?

--- Didn't know Lewis/Tyson was historic other than being in the historical record, speaking of which, may have set a record for most security men in the ring and on the apron in advance of the starting bell.

I put in for Evan Field/John Ruiz, a proper trilogy with spectators scrapping in the cheep seats in anticipation of the announcement of the decision.

It was also a proper opening to the new millennium and a proper close to the first decade as both still scrappin' in the title heap for a share of something, 1/8th a share most recently, maybe 1/16 by the close of the decade.

[Goodnight, Irene]

Leading contenders thus far --- any of the Holyfield-Ruiz matches, & Lewis-Klitschko. Yeeesh

[oliverfennell]

Lamon Brewster's title run was fun.

Outside of title fights, Danny Williams-Tyson was a good 'un.

[elmersalsa]

After the Lewis vs Klitschko fight there is not another single heavyweight fight that comes to mind as at least good or great.

[Goodnight, Irene]

Are you blokes kidding about Lewis-Klitschko!? Lewis was in woeful shape, huffing & puffing his way to a (somewhat) fortuitous victory, while Klitschko fell apart in his arms, following a good start.

Hardly barn-burner material, in my book. Brewster-Etienne & Rahman-Sanders were better for action, though crude.

[Robinson]

I was pretty excited by RJJ-Ruiz when it came around
as I was also interested in Tyson-Lewis like nearly
everyone else was.

[Flump]

Are you blokes kidding about Lewis-Klitschko!? Lewis was in woeful shape, huffing & puffing his way to a (somewhat) fortuitous victory, while Klitschko fell apart in his arms, following a good start.

Hardly barn-burner material, in my book. Brewster-Etienne & Rahman-Sanders were better for action, though crude.

We're talking about the 2000's mate, I've seen better fights at weddings than I have in the Heavyweight division this decade.

[BroughtonRulesRefuge]

Are you blokes kidding about Lewis-Klitschko!? Lewis was in woeful shape, huffing & puffing his way to a (somewhat) fortuitous victory, while Klitschko fell apart in his arms, following a good start.

Hardly barn-burner material, in my book. Brewster-Etienne & Rahman-Sanders were better for action, though crude.

--- Haven't seen all of Rahman/Sanders, but your underselling Vitali who was also in a pretty good shootout against a highly motivated Sanders in Corrie's biggest fight. Yes, it turned into a beatdown, but still a high paced fight with lots of action by ranked heavies.

Brewster/Etienne were not "ranked" and the only reason Brewster ever became ranked is due to the still unexplained collapse of Wlad as Brewster was in very poor defenses against the lower tier that he never shows any class over than some fortunate last ditch KOs.

The reason Lewis was puffing against Vitali was the pace of the fight combined with the damage he took. Had Vitali had a full training camp like Lewis had, or had Vitali been less methodical and shown some killer instinct when he had Lewis helpless on the ropes in the 4th, you chaps would be singing a different tune about this fight.

If it's clubfighter best bouts you're after, Minto/Maddalone 1 just about burnt the club down. Otherwise, undefeated well ducked KO artist Peter/Wlad deserves a shout. Wlad down 3x by some of the crudest most brutal wide swinging rabbit bludgeons since the days of TwoTon Tony Galento. In between Wlad puts on a technical masterclass as he digs deep in the dogfight they said he could never win and has young Samuel doing the bunny hops in the last round.

Byrd/Golota and McCline deserves a shout as Byrd KDed and hurt early in those bouts and comes back strong against a pair of big, strong, motivated giants.

[Robinson]

I must admit I did find Byrd-Golota entertaining.

[Goodnight, Irene]

Good shout on Klitschko's near-disaster against Peter, but whoever said anything about the fighters being ranked? It's simply a question of entertaining HW fights in an abysmal era, not exclusive to ranked fighters.

"Had Vitali shown some killer instinct when he had Lewis on the ropes in the fourth, you chaps would be singing a different tune about this fight..."

Yes, perhaps --- & if Hopkins' snoozer with Wright in 2007 had produced four knockdowns, a bad cut, & several point-deductions, we'd be speaking differently of that, too. I don't understand the point you're making. Those things didn't happen in the fight, so why wouldn't we be singing a different tune?

[dempseyfire]

Lamon Brewster's title run was fun.

Outside of title fights, Danny Williams-Tyson was a good 'un.

Good choice, I thought Tyson-Williams is up there, but tops for me would be THREE Lamon Brewster fights, the guy until the Lyakovich beatdown and eye injury was just a guarantee for exciting fights.

Brewster-Klitschko I
Brewster-Krasniqi
Brewster-Lyakovich

Those to me were the three best HW fights of this decade.

Broughton, Vitali had been in training for over a month for Cedric Boswell, he was just as prepared as Lennox was. Your point about Vitali's (lack of) killer instinct is actually spot on. Vitali had a past his prime, slow, old great champ in front of him ready to be taken and his natural cautiousness, which characterizes both Klitschkos, cost him a victory. This is why the Klits will never be great fighters. To be great involves taking risks to be great. Vitali completly blew his chance at greatness vs Lennox.

Vitali-Sanders was awful save the first round and the last minute of round 3. Sanders who was in awful shape spent the fight after the first round huffing and puffing and throwing the occasional wild haymaker.

[BroughtonRulesRefuge]

Brewster-Klitschko I

--- What was exciting about a onesided beatdown?

Wlad hands out a onesided beating over 4 rds with HBO screaming for the fight to be stopped from the 3rd rd on, and gets tackled by Brewster on his way to the 2nd KD at the end of the bell and can barely get up. Comes out for the 5th and can now barely defend himself, yet still Brewster only lands a handful of punches and Wlad collapses at the bell.

The strangest, most mysterious, and inexplicable fight I've seen, but the only drama was whether Wlad was gonna go into septic shock and be carted out in a bag.

Minto/Maddalone 1. I can see you chaps don't appreciate finer nuances of top fighters against each other and that is packed from front to end with no concessions to sweet science. Maddalone may be the most exciting fighter on the planet.

[Goodnight, Irene]

Did I mention some of my favourite fighters to watch, among others, have always been Pernell Whitaker & Wilfred Benitez?

Don't rush to judgement on such things, BRR.

[dempseyfire]

Brewster-Klitschko I

--- What was exciting about a onesided beatdown?

Wlad hands out a onesided beating over 4 rds with HBO screaming for the fight to be stopped from the 3rd rd on, and gets tackled by Brewster on his way to the 2nd KD at the end of the bell and can barely get up. Comes out for the 5th and can now barely defend himself, yet still Brewster only lands a handful of punches and Wlad collapses at the bell.

The strangest, most mysterious, and inexplicable fight I've seen, but the only drama was whether Wlad was gonna go into septic shock and be carted out in a bag.

Minto/Maddalone 1. I can see you chaps don't appreciate finer nuances of top fighters against each other and that is packed from front to end with no concessions to sweet science. Maddalone may be the most exciting fighter on the planet.

One-sided? It's a great comeback. Nothing mysterious about Wlad throwing a shitload of hard shots for a guy 6'6 245 lbs and then gassing out. Brewster gets seriously outboxed the first two rounds, wobbles Wlad in the 3rd but then gets knocked down in the 4th and looks ready to go. Comes back and punches out an exhausted Klitschko in the 5th. A very exciting fight.

[Bricks]

Lamon brewster was very exciting in his fights with Krasniqi 1 (altho im not sure how much relavence this has on the top world level) and against Wladimir klitchko the first time.
Also seeing him bomb out golota 3 times in 52 seconds was quite shocking cos unlike the lewis-golota blowout it seemed to be punch power putting him down.

Mollo- Golota

[BroughtonRulesRefuge]

Nothing mysterious about Wlad throwing a shitload of hard shots for a guy 6'6 245 lbs and then gassing out. Brewster gets seriously outboxed the first two rounds, wobbles Wlad in the 3rd but then gets knocked down in the 4th and looks ready to go. Comes back and punches out an exhausted Klitschko in the 5th. A very exciting fight.

--- You must have the revised tape.

90% of Wlad's punches in this bout are jabs, the most energy efficient punch there is. It was a modest pace with almost zip incoming from Brewster who lands maybe 2-3 punches through 4. Wlad was never hurt by Brewster. Brewster has a hardtime landing on Wlad to open the 5th, eventually connects with a few that catch him on the retreat into the ropes where he recieves the standing 8. A wildlooping punch misses the ducking Wlad just after the bell as he bounces off the ropes onto the canvas.

Sanders cracked him much harder, much cleaner and he kept on bouncing up before the ref waves it off. He took repeated hard rabbit bludgeons from Peter for 12 rds and got up for every KD. Those guys shook him bad, not Brewster.

[dempseyfire]

Nothing mysterious about Wlad throwing a shitload of hard shots for a guy 6'6 245 lbs and then gassing out. Brewster gets seriously outboxed the first two rounds, wobbles Wlad in the 3rd but then gets knocked down in the 4th and looks ready to go. Comes back and punches out an exhausted Klitschko in the 5th. A very exciting fight.

--- You must have the revised tape.

90% of Wlad's punches in this bout are jabs, the most energy efficient punch there is. It was a modest pace with almost zip incoming from Brewster who lands maybe 2-3 punches through 4. Wlad was never hurt by Brewster. Brewster has a hardtime landing on Wlad to open the 5th, eventually connects with a few that catch him on the retreat into the ropes where he recieves the standing 8. A wildlooping punch misses the ducking Wlad just after the bell as he bounces off the ropes onto the canvas.

Sanders cracked him much harder, much cleaner and he kept on bouncing up before the ref waves it off. He took repeated hard rabbit bludgeons from Peter for 12 rds and got up for every KD. Those guys shook him bad, not Brewster.

Revised tape . . .you mean this 'revised one' . . .Wlad is seriously hurt and his legs buckle in the 3rd http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u76XeY2ZhcU 1:49

Wlad took rabbit punches from Peter for 12 rounds? Peter hardly landed anything most of the fight, and the 10th round KD was a clean right hand to chin.

[BroughtonRulesRefuge]

.Wlad is seriously hurt and his legs buckle in the 3rd http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u76XeY2ZhcU 1:49

Wlad took rabbit punches from Peter for 12 rounds? Peter hardly landed anything most of the fight, and the 10th round KD was a clean right hand to chin.

--- Brewster landed his first punch of the fight, a nice leaping jab in a lull of action, whoooohoooo. Seeing as he'd been untouched prior, of course Wlad reacts, but notice that Brewster gets all excited with the crowd seeing the first punch and can't do a single thing about it. Never lands another punch and Wlad jumps all over him.

BTW, ref all over Wlad for leaning over Brewster who is practically butting his naval coming in. Ridiculous ref.

Wlad was KDed by Peter's wild looping rabbit bludgeons and repeated straight lefts by Sanders, shots that would shake anyone and hurt him bad.

Brewster maybe landed 9-10 punches this fight and not even a handful of flush punches and can't even KD Wlad when he's comes out for the 5th as weak and defenseless as a newborn lamb. Wlad lost in spite of Brewster, not because of him. Could've come out armed in a featherduster and Wlad couldn't have done a thing about it.

Brewster knocked Golota down 3x in the first rd which is how that KO came about, but Golota up each time quickly, just done in by the three KD rule. When Lewis whacked Golota he was out of body out of the arena whacked. Brewster has good power, but not elite. Legit come from way behind KO of Krasniqi or however you spell it, but Brewster sort of a Rocky come true story, not an elite boxer or puncher, an average boxer on his best day and Mike Weaver come from nowhere dangerman journeyman walk through fire fighter at his best.

At the end of his career we will find out why Wlad collapsed. Right now it doesn't serve his purpose to cover old ground since he, AGAIN, dominates Brewster, just like before and knocks him out in the rematch.

[Brutu]

Yeah, The Vitali Klitschko vrs Corrie Sanders fight comes to mind.
Very underated as a bout.
Man,that was brutal at least for Sanders,but he didnt stop trying.
Cant understand why its been ignored.

[PPLLUVTHIS]

Lewis / V. Klitchko (2003)
Brewster / W. Klitchko (2004)
Willaims / Tyson (2004)

Other than that................nothing.

[overhand_right]

The reason Lewis was puffing against Vitali was the pace of the fight combined with the damage he took. Had Vitali had a full training camp like Lewis had, or had Vitali been less methodical and shown some killer instinct when he had Lewis helpless on the ropes in the 4th, you chaps would be singing a different tune about this fight.

The fact that you didn't even know that Vitali did have a full training camp, as was slotted to fight Cedric Boswell on the undercard of the original Lewis/Kirk Johnson fight is worrying, since you like to come on here and write like your the all-knowing authority on boxing.

Maybe you should do a little research before writing stuff like this in the future?

[Datsue]

The reason Lewis was puffing against Vitali was the pace of the fight combined with the damage he took. Had Vitali had a full training camp like Lewis had, or had Vitali been less methodical and shown some killer instinct when he had Lewis helpless on the ropes in the 4th, you chaps would be singing a different tune about this fight.

The fact that you didn't even know that Vitali did have a full training camp, as was slotted to fight Cedric Boswell on the undercard of the original Lewis/Kirk Johnson fight is worrying, since you like to come on here and write like your the all-knowing authority on boxing.

Maybe you should do a little research before writing stuff like this in the future?

Sorry to indulge in such behaviour, but: OWNED!

[BroughtonRulesRefuge]

The fact that you didn't even know that Vitali did have a full training camp, as was slotted to fight Cedric Boswell on the undercard of the original Lewis/Kirk Johnson fight is worrying, since you like to come on here and write like your the all-knowing authority on boxing.

Maybe you should do a little research before writing stuff like this in the future?

--- I only appear to be all knowing in comparison to some of the junior flyweights who post.

Now that you've stepped forward with your cotton candy ffflurry, Vitali was the late replacement for Tyson who pulled out of the card 3 weeks prior. You've already forgotten that Lewis had a rematch clause and was wanting another go round of the easy money he got in the first dance. The card was the setup to promote the rematch which never happened.

Lewis was already 5 weeks into training for Johnson. A week later Johnson is "injured" and has to pull out and Vitali again steps up as the late replacement knowing Lewis is on the verge of retirement and this may be his only shot at him which turned out to be the case.

As far as training goes, these guys are boxers and usually in the gym messing around here and there between announced fights and training camps. That's how so many can step in as late replacements and do well. Lewis imported Steward to England a couple of months before training camp for a one week session for example, probably wanting to blow the cobwebs out, set up a basic boxing fitness regimen and consider retirement options.

C'mon guys, some of these best bouts of the decades weak. Minto/Maddalone 1 is the most ebb and flow, back and forth dynamic all action heavy slugfest of the decade that went on into the late rounds. Personally, I prefer such a prestigious title as FOY to be waged at a higher level than young clubfighter, which is why for me it has to be 1. Lewis/Vitali, 2. Wlad/Peter, or 3. Sanders/Vitali. I'm open to Byrd vs McCline and Golota as I appreciated Byrd's technical artistry battling the behemoths.

At any rate, shouldn't a thread like this have a poll, not that it would mean much to the Ring selection committee?