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The WBO, playing idiotic politics, said that they'd strip Sanders if he tried to fight Jones in a unification match. Jones said that there'd be no point in fighting Sanders without the WBO belt on the line. In the end, Sanders dropped the belt to challenge WBC champion Vitali Klitschko instead.

Sanders, without question, would have knocked out Jones inside of four rounds. The WBO and WBA would have made far more money in such a venture, that it boggles my mind why they had to railroad the contest from ever happening.

im not sure id ever say sanders would be the winner without question vs someone as talented as roy

corrie had fast hands for a hw and certanly could bang (hurt vitali worse in a boxing match then anyone else and i think rahman said something like 'damn that guy could punch' ) , but he was kind of an erratic fighter and pretty open . and ive seen him gas pretty badly

that said because of his power hed be a greater threat then ruiz was, even if ruiz was better overall

btw, i dont want anyone to even suggest that sanders had a good chin because of the vitali fight

I think you are also seriously downplaying the power of Sanders punches. Hasim Rahman said of all the men he ever fought nobody hit him as hard as Sanders.

Considering the high spirited performance against Vitali Klitschko, following the Wladimir knockout, there's absolutely no reason to believe that Sanders wouldn't have brought his A game against Roy Jones.

To say Ruiz was "better overall", shows ignorance (no offense). Sanders was arguably the most underrated heavyweight of the 1990s-2000s. He was supposed to get a shot at Michael Moorer, but Foreman won and Big George wanted no part of him. He was ALWAYS dangerous and in the mix for a long time.

Sanders was no Ruiz. He would have knocked Roy out. He would have just been on the Tarver's place, if Roy faced him instead of going down the weighclasses. Sanders had the speed to catch Jones with a punch and he had the power in that punch, which defintely would have been too much for Roy's chin.

HomicideHenry wrote: ↑11 Jul 2018, 01:20 I think you are also seriously downplaying the power of Sanders punches. Hasim Rahman said of all the men he ever fought nobody hit him as hard as Sanders.

Considering the high spirited performance against Vitali Klitschko, following the Wladimir knockout, there's absolutely no reason to believe that Sanders wouldn't have brought his A game against Roy Jones.

To say Ruiz was "better overall", shows ignorance (no offense). Sanders was arguably the most underrated heavyweight of the 1990s-2000s. He was supposed to get a shot at Michael Moorer, but Foreman won and Big George wanted no part of him. He was ALWAYS dangerous and in the mix for a long time.

OK, I will bite.. Why is Corrie Sanders arguably the most underrated heavyweight of the 1990s-2000s. ?
He beat Klitschko and who else worth mentioning?

Ambling Alp II wrote: ↑11 Jul 2018, 10:46

HomicideHenry wrote: ↑11 Jul 2018, 01:20 I think you are also seriously downplaying the power of Sanders punches. Hasim Rahman said of all the men he ever fought nobody hit him as hard as Sanders.

Considering the high spirited performance against Vitali Klitschko, following the Wladimir knockout, there's absolutely no reason to believe that Sanders wouldn't have brought his A game against Roy Jones.

To say Ruiz was "better overall", shows ignorance (no offense). Sanders was arguably the most underrated heavyweight of the 1990s-2000s. He was supposed to get a shot at Michael Moorer, but Foreman won and Big George wanted no part of him. He was ALWAYS dangerous and in the mix for a long time.

OK, I will bite.. Why is Corrie Sanders arguably the most underrated heavyweight of the 1990s-2000s. ?
He beat Klitschko and who else worth mentioning?

I'm with you on this Alp. I don't remember any boxing fans saying this back then.

Ambling Alp II wrote: ↑11 Jul 2018, 10:46

HomicideHenry wrote: ↑11 Jul 2018, 01:20 I think you are also seriously downplaying the power of Sanders punches. Hasim Rahman said of all the men he ever fought nobody hit him as hard as Sanders.

Considering the high spirited performance against Vitali Klitschko, following the Wladimir knockout, there's absolutely no reason to believe that Sanders wouldn't have brought his A game against Roy Jones.

To say Ruiz was "better overall", shows ignorance (no offense). Sanders was arguably the most underrated heavyweight of the 1990s-2000s. He was supposed to get a shot at Michael Moorer, but Foreman won and Big George wanted no part of him. He was ALWAYS dangerous and in the mix for a long time.

OK, I will bite.. Why is Corrie Sanders arguably the most underrated heavyweight of the 1990s-2000s. ?
He beat Klitschko and who else worth mentioning?

It's the usual revisionist history from childish Sanders nuts who often don't even seem to have been alive in the 90s. Those of us who were following the sport remember that Sanders was lowly regarded because of his lack of fitness, poor opposition, and his seldom leaving South Africa. The suggestion that Foreman was scared of Sanders, who had just been knocked out cold in 2 rds by Nate Tubbs, is retarded. I doubt Foreman had even heard of Corrie Sanders.

Sanders played a mean game of golf.

Among the victims of Sanders:

Ross Purrity, Arthur Weathers, Al Cole, Carlos DeLeon, Levi Billups, Bert Cooper, Otis Tisdale, Michael Sprott, Bobby Czyz, Johnny Nelson, Johnny Du Plooy...

He had 200 amatuer fights, losing only four... He went 23-0-0 before his first loss... Won his next 13, picking up the WBU title along the way, before losing again... 3 fights later he bombs out #1 ranked Wladimir Klitschko, and then gave Vitali Klitschko the hardest fight of his career.

At 6'4" and 240 pounds, and as a southpaw with damn good hand speed and power, he was someone to avoid. People want to bring up his losses to Tubbs and Rahman, however, they never want to dig deeper into the fights themselves.



Sanders only had 2 fights, in 2 years when he fought Rahman. He was rather inactive. Especially when you consider Rahman had a total of 6 fights in 2 years. Still, Rahman would say (and still does) that Sanders hit him the hardest... And this is coming from a man who fought Tua, Lewis, Klitschko, Maskaev, etc.

The loss, obviously, was a matter of conditioning than anything else, when one watches the replay. The HBO cast would eat crow a few years down the line, writing Sanders off after the fight.

As for Tubbs... Either it's a dive or it's a fluke... Because immediately afterwards Sanders knocked out Carlos DeLeon in a single round, and everybody knows that he was a helluva lot better than Tubbs. DeLeon was coming off of an 8 fight win streak before losing to Sanders.

The BULLSHIT assertion that Sanders didn't have a good chin from an earlier post, shows complete ignorance of the sport because Sanders took tremendous BOMBS from Rahman early on and still was giving bombs of his own for eight rounds.

Imagine including Arthur Weather and Otis Tisdale in a list of notable wins.

I think "henry" has overplayed his hand here. Troll account.

Tisdale and Weathers at one point were two of the most known "trial horse" of the era. You weren't necessarily in "the club" unless you fought guys like that who were hovering just outside of the top 15-30 in the world.

Tisdale for a long time was "the go to" journeyman among Heavyweights. Castillo, Bey, Whitaker, Seldon, Valuev, Saleem, Scott, Moorer, Guinn, Calloway, and Ahunanya also fought him.

At one point and time he was rated in the top 40 in several organizations, unfortunately I don't have my old RING and KO magazines showing the month by month ratings from the WBA, WBC, WBO, IBF. The point is, he was not the retrospective bum that he's made out to be. When Sanders fought him, Tisdale only had 7 losses, most really early on in his career.

As for Weathers... He's another guy who was always in the mix... That's why he was supposed to be Tommy Morrison's opponent in 1996 (after the Lewis fight) to set up the match with Mike Tyson.

Weathers was, by and large, a Cruiserweight who dabbled at Heavyweight. However, he was no flunky. He could be dangerous. He dropped Sanders, only to get knocked out himself. He was a wild card opponent, but wasn't an outright bum. You're looking at the guy from a retrospective lens, not from the contemporary view.

People from this generation forget guys like David Izon, Lionel Butler, etc were even ranked by RING MAGAZINE in the top ten in this era, and those guys get laughed off whenever they're brought up today. Context is everything.

Look at the work rate, and the hand speed from Sanders... You'd never expect a guy like Bert Cooper literally doing a "No Mas" especially when earlier in 1993 he went 10 with Mike Weaver, and the year before fought Moorer for the vacant WBO title, and the year before that fought Holyfield for the linear championship of the world.

corrie sanders pretty obviously had good raw handspeed speed and power but there are a lot more to that to a fighter. he was downright slobbish at points in his career and had many holes to his game. he had the type of raw tools that allowed him to pull the klit upset and give vitali a scare, and opponents like rahman have acknowledged his power, but he was way too flawed and unprofessional overall for consistent high level success

but, putting all the talk just about sanders aside, im curious to how others think sanders vs roy wouldve gone (i might agree with henry that sanders seemed spirited in the klit fights, maybe more motivated with the big chances). also what about roy vs vitali, anyone think roy wouldve won that

HomicideHenry wrote: ↑12 Jul 2018, 01:01

Look at the work rate, and the hand speed from Sanders... You'd never expect a guy like Bert Cooper literally doing a "No Mas" especially when earlier in 1993 he went 10 with Mike Weaver, and the year before fought Moorer for the vacant WBO title, and the year before that fought Holyfield for the linear championship of the world.

And a few years before that he quit on his stool against Foreman.

Cooper had some ability but the list of fighters who beat him is a mile long.

homicidehenry listed Ross Purrity, Arthur Weathers, Al Cole, Carlos DeLeon, Levi Billups, Bert Cooper, Otis Tisdale, Michael Sprott, Bobby Czyz, Johnny Nelson, Johnny Du Plooy...

Not one was a heavyweight contender.

Sanders is not much more than answer to a trivia question.

Sanders did have real ability.........and late in the day he got that big, grandstand win that made him relevant and remembered. It is also a win that matters.

But I think he also wasted a lot of valuable time beating-up fringe guys on South African casino/resort shows (fought at altitude which gave him an edge) when career-wise he should've been pushed to train and fight outside South Africa.

Corrie made a lot of good and easy Rand on these type of shows - a kind of mini Vegas on the High Veld - but it did not make him the fighter he could have been and he kind of coasted along; which he seemed totally fine with.

In terms of Jones - I think Sanders has the speed and weight of punch to prevail, he was way more explosive than Ruiz and was never afraid to let his hands go.

A lot of 90s contenders have pretty shallow resumes. For example Riddick Bowe has a pretty thin resume aside from Holyfield. If were going to criticize Sanders for not beating anyone aside from Wladimir what about Bowe's lack of quality wins aside from Holyfield?

Cojimar 1946 wrote: ↑13 Jul 2018, 03:26 A lot of 90s contenders have pretty shallow resumes. For example Riddick Bowe has a pretty thin resume aside from Holyfield. If were going to criticize Sanders for not beating anyone aside from Wladimir what about Bowe's lack of quality wins aside from Holyfield?

Sanders had some decent wins. He KO'ed still relevant 35 y.o. Alfred Cole in 73 seconds, while Rahman went the distance against 40 y.o. totally shot version of Cole and their fight was very close. Sanders KO'ed Jorge Valdez in 30 seconds, while Shannon Briggs needed 9 rounds to win by RTD. Sanders also KO'ed Carlos De Leon, Mike Williams, Johnny DuPlooy and Michael Sprott in the first round, Bobby Czyz in the second and Bert Cooper in te third. He also beat Ross Puritty by wide UD. And, of course, KTFOed Levi Billups in the first round. No, his resume aside from Wlad wasn't bad at all.

But Bowe's resume aside from Holyfield was clearly superior. Even if we exlude Golota wins. Bowe beat Herbie Hide, Pinklon Thomas, Jorge Luis Gonzalez, Tony Tubbs, Larry Donald, Michael Dokes, Jesse Ferguson, Bruce Seldon, Pierre Coetzer.

Aside from Tubbs none of those wins are particularly impressive. I don't think any of them aside from Tubbs were ranked in the top 10 and they all lost badly whenever they stepped up in class. Thomas and Dokes were shot why even mention them? Ferguson was a journeyman type. Donald was beaten by every highly rated guy he fought.

I would agree Bowe's second-tier wins are at least somewhat better than Sanders my point is that he has very few wins against the divisions elite (guys ranked in the top 10)-If we exclude the Golota fights in which he took terrible beatings prior to winning by DQ he has only two wins against top 10 opponents (Tubbs and Holyfield) compared to Sanders one win (Klitschko).

Cojimar 1946 wrote: ↑13 Jul 2018, 05:41 I would agree Bowe's second-tier wins are at least somewhat better than Sanders my point is that he has very few wins against the divisions elite (guys ranked in the top 10)-If we exclude the Golota fights in which he took terrible beatings prior to winning by DQ he has only two wins against top 10 opponents (Tubbs and Holyfield) compared to Sanders one win (Klitschko).

Fair enough. They actually had a lot in common. Both were extremely gifted, talented warriors that wasted their potential unlike Lewis, Holyfield and Klitschkos. Guys like Bowe, Sanders, Douglas, Witherspoon, Ibeabuchi, Golota could have been considered much higher historically than they are now, had they fulfilled their potential like Lewis, Holyfield and Wlad did. But Bowe was clearly the best and the most talented in that list of underachievers.

Cojimar 1946 wrote: ↑13 Jul 2018, 05:41 I would agree Bowe's second-tier wins are at least somewhat better than Sanders my point is that he has very few wins against the divisions elite (guys ranked in the top 10)-If we exclude the Golota fights in which he took terrible beatings prior to winning by DQ he has only two wins against top 10 opponents (Tubbs and Holyfield) compared to Sanders one win (Klitschko).

Yes, but Bowe didn't lose to Nate Tubbs.

Yes, but Sanders won the first round against Tubbs, so can we really count this as a loss?

We have to the point where we are comparing Sanders to Riddick Bowe?

If we are going to go by the ranked contenders logic, then we have to count Bowe's wins over Jorge Gonzalez (as bad as he was) and Herbie Hide who were ranked in the top 10 when Bowe beat them. add that to Tubbs and Holyfield and you have four wins. And guess what, a DQ win is a win. That makes 5. Add Bowe's second win over Holyfield and you have 6.

So Bowe had 6 over top 10 opponents and Sanders had 1.
Bowe beat a prime Holyfield for his best win. For the love of God, are we really going to start comparing a win over Klitschko to a win over a prime Holyfield? So again another big edge for Bowe.

As mentioned Sanders also lost to Nate Tubbs. And got stopped by Rahman. Bowe's only loss was to Holyfield in a great fight where you could make a good case that he should have got the decision or at least a draw.
So yet another big edge to Bowe.

Bowe was light years better than Sanders.

I can't see any case for Hide or Gonzalez being top 10 heavyweights, they consistently flopped against the divisions elite and lack quality wins. Some people may have thought they belonged there but I suspect they were in a distinct minority and their resumes don't support such an assertion.

Bowe's resume had a massive drop in quantity after Holyfield. If your having to bring up Gonzalez and Hide that seems like a pretty clear evidence of a lack of quality wins.