Alexander povetkin in place of Larry Holmes 1978-1985

[Cojimar 1946]

I'm used to people overrating the 70s heavyweights but not the 80s heavyweights. I find this revisionism baffling given that people at the time considered it an absolutely terrible era.

[Flump]

I'm used to people overrating the 70s heavyweights but not the 80s heavyweights. I find this revisionism baffling given that people at the time considered it an absolutely terrible era.

To be fair, we thought it was pretty bad at the time, but then we lived through the Klitschko brothers era and it suddenly didn't look so bad.

[Tuan_Jim]

You can only laugh at Cojimar's game. Here he brushes aside Bonecrusher flattening actual world championship calibre opponents Bruno, Spoon and Weaver, while praising Joshua for being "THE FIRST MAN TO STOP" the following:

Kevin Johnson -- "the first to stop" a 40 year old journeyman!
Breazeale -- "the first to stop" a man decked by a 40 year old in his fight before AJ!
Dillian Whyte -- "the first to stop" a man who had literally NO NOTABLE OPPONENTS! NOT ONE!!
Povetkin -- "the first to stop" a 39 year old boxing without his precious PEDs!

You can't blame Cojimar for trying. Btw, what's wrong with failing to stop Jose Ribalta in the 80s when he was scrappy and game? Tyson would have failed to stop Jose had Rudy Battle not jumped in in the last 40 seconds to do a Joshua/Takam-style protect-the-big-star's-knockout-streak "stoppage". I don't see Pov doing any better than Tyson or Bonecrusher.

Pov is not Larry Holmes and I stand by my statement that the Bonecrusher he fought stops Povetkin.

[Cojimar 1946]

Dillian Whyte has faced Chisora, Parker, and Helenius. Those are all notable opponents.

[Ambling Alp II]

Names that will be long remembered, no doubt.

[Cojimar 1946]

I've met people who have never even heard of Frederick the Great, almost everybody is eventually forgotten after enough time passes.

Witherspoon is the only guy stopped by Smith that would seem to even remotely approach Povetkin's durability. The other guys he stopped also suffered numerous kayo losses some to less than stellar opposition. Stopping a guy like Povetkin is extremely implausible to put it mildly.

[drunkenpiper36]

- This thread deserves better, so here ‘tis.

First, two more disparate fighters cannot be imagined. Povetkin was a highly credentialed Olympic Gold superheavy gold medalist turning pro to great expectations. One year in he KOed a former champ Imamu Mayfield, and then two years in he beat consecutively, Larry Donald, Chris Byrd, and Eddie Chambers, who combined for a record of 112-7-4.

It took Lar 3 years to fight his first fringe contender after washing out of the Olympic trials courtesy of a KO by Dwayn Bobick. It was five years before he could beat his first former contender, Shavers, that led to his Ken Norton WBC one point split decision challenge that many think he lost.

In the meantime, Povetkin seemed to suffer a crisis of confidence with Wlad being the dominant champ. He was still winning, but from 2009-2011 imported loonytunes Teddy Atlas who brow beat Mike Tyson’s style into him. That project being an abject failure, saw him ditch Atlas and his promoter Saureland to go with Russian Rabinsky, and fortified with new trainers and belief in himself, he started on a tear, beating the former champ for his first title 6 years after turning pro. It’s fair to say pretitle Povetkin mullers every one of Lar’s pretitle comp as his comp also does.

However, by now it should be noted the Povetkin that passed through the Atlas 2.0 version is now at his current 3.0 version. Against Norton on his last legs, I’d have to favor Povetkin who was starting a late fight by fight improvement program, but it’s really a 50/50 fight, especially if we go 15 rds that would favor Norton. Assuming the win though, he could easily walk through the next 11 Lar “contenders,” go look em up. Don’t want to call grown men weaklings, but Lar never fought the top WBA guys for a reason. So Cooney becomes the first obstacle. I’d like to favor Cooney, but facts are as talented as he was, mentally he was in the same Povetkin 2.0 phase with not a lot of belief in himself. He never got to 3.0.

Povetkin then beats the next two, but then runs into Witherspoon, only 15-0, a baby, but a really tough highly skilled baby. Spoon could possibly beat Povetkin like he did Lar only to lose on the cards. It’s pretty clear by now that Lar ain’t all there anymore, but Povetkin could whoop his next five until he gets to Michael Spinks, and that is the most likely guy to beat Povetkin, an highly educated boxer/puncher with an awkward style.

After Spinks, Povetkin gets blasted out by Young Tyson, but not as bad as Lar was. After that, all becomes a farce of sorts, but I doubt Povetkin stays around long enough to call out Butterbean only to suffer such a humiliating knockdown as Lar. I also figure the title version of Povetkin whoops the title Lar 2 of 3. And of course the pretitle Povetkin whoops the pretitle Lar most every time, but we can't factually know until Valhalla, so until then...the end.

Good post. I agree with most of it. I think prime for prime Larry outpoints povetkin but I still think that Alexander has similar success against most of Holmes opponents or at least the ones he faced in his title reign.

[Tuan_Jim]

Cojimar--serious question. Who are the punchers Povetkin fought? Who are the dangerous heavy handed sort of opponents Povetkin showed his durability against?

I've got him against two, three at a push--and all three had him on the floor. Who did he beat who showed they could really hit?

[Cojimar 1946]

Wladimir Klitschko is a massive puncher but aside from him I would say Duhaupas, and Charr were good punchers. Duhaupas's stoppage of Helenius was impressive. David Price also hits pretty hard.

[Tuan_Jim]

Those names confirm you are on a wind up.

[evrenb]

Povetkin who couldn't stop the life long cruiserweight Marco Huck and was lucky to be given a decision...?
It's easy to make an argument with your blinkers on.

[jamamb]

not that im saying povetkin beats most of these guys, but i tend to think the huck fight gets a bit overdone, he had better performances vs guys at least as good and better then huck, and stopped some of them, its not the be all end all fight. lots of fighters had one fight or two were they really looked not so great and struggled or even lost to guys worse then opponents they later beat. for a similar recent case , fury struggling vs mostly career cw cunningham but then beating klit

probably of that list of guys mentioned early, he would lose most, but id suspect if hed fought all of them he wouldnt lose all

genuinely curious though, what level would the people here put him on for an late 70s-80s hw? like, were he and bernardo mercado on the same level? who were his equals for those times?