Mythical Fight

[bjl12]

Canelo v Ward (May, 2022)

Canelo has looked shot and over-it since last beating Plant. Lost wide against Bivol and appeared very far from PFP status. Looked very mediocre against a 40 year old GGG.

Could Ward have come out of retirement and beat GGG? If he did what would that have done for his legacy? Consider at the time Canelo was saying he wanted to fight Usyk and some people were imagining that kind of matchup. . .

Thoughts?

 

[Nova44]

• Prime Ward beats Canelo on his best day
• Prime Ward beats the GGG and Canelo that fought recently, on the same night
• No idea how 2022 retired boxer/commentator Ward does vs Canelo

 

[CodeBreaker]

Prime Ward beats prime Canelo

 

[Hagler]

Prime Ward finds a way. Heavy, plodding Canelo is taylor made for him. The lighter on his feet, counterpunching version of Ginger is trickier IMO, but I'm not sure he can do it over 160.

I have no idea how sharp is Ward today, but even a past prime version of Alvarez is a tall order for any ATG after a 5 year long layoff.

 

[KillerIsBack V2]

Canelo v Ward (May, 2022)

Canelo has looked shot and over-it since last beating Plant. Lost wide against Bivol and appeared very far from PFP status. Looked very mediocre against a 40 year old GGG.

Could Ward have come out of retirement and beat GGG? If he did what would that have done for his legacy? Consider at the time Canelo was saying he wanted to fight Usyk and some people were imagining that kind of matchup. . .

Thoughts?

Obviously ggg has deteriorated a lot but…
to be fair, the ggg that fought that night could have beaten any active middle weight and 98% of MWs ever.

His fight right before was against Murata, who is a hard hitting steel chinned olympic gold medalist that has never been knocked down in 43 pro bouts and another 350 amateur fights.
Nobody has ever come close to doing that to Murata
(I am fully aware Murata hasnt fought in 2 years prior)

also, using LHW decision losses as proof of anything is down right retarded. Canelo’s optimum fighting weight is MW. Rolling my eyes at the fans who were brining up Bivol’s age and weight in the amateurs or whatever. Bunch of pseudo-biologists.

and the usyk thing… dont get me started on that blind stupidity.

 

[XThe GreatestX]

just depends on how Ward looks

 

[bjl12]

Had SOG come out of retirement and beat Canelo instead of Bivol - wow. That shakes the ATG rankings up a bit imho

And I gave Kovy 1 to Sergei

 

[KillerIsBack V2]

Obviously ggg has deteriorated a lot but…
to be fair, the ggg that fought that night could have beaten any active middle weight and 98% of MWs ever.

His fight right before was against Murata, who is a hard hitting steel chinned olympic gold medalist that has never been knocked down in 43 pro bouts and another 350 amateur fights.
Nobody has ever come close to doing that to Murata
(I am fully aware Murata hasnt fought in 2 years prior)

also, using LHW decision losses as proof of anything is down right retarded. Canelo’s optimum fighting weight is MW. Rolling my eyes at the fans who were brining up Bivol’s age and weight in the amateurs or whatever. Bunch of pseudo-biologists.

and the usyk thing… dont get me started on that blind stupidity.

To add to the above, this was the first and only time GGG moved to SMW. No tune up or anything.

 

[bjl12]

To add to the above, this was the first and only time GGG moved to SMW. No tune up or anything.

GGGs whole career was a tune-up. He didnt move to America until he was much older. Some people swear he was ducked but I never saw it that way.

Canelo beat Cotto at 155 and wanted to defend there. GGG demanded 160 and not 155 which was weird bc GGG offered Rosado 158 CW or something which Gabe ended up turning down.

If you want the big fights you need to compromise. GGG played hardball so he had to wait longer. And it was only 2 fights later he got Canelo anyway IIRC.

So GGG should not have needed a tuneup. He elected to fight Murata at 160 which was essentially his tune-up. He fought more than enough tune-ups in his career and didnt need anymore Szermetas, Rolls, Monroe Jrs, Vanes, etc.

 

[bjl12]

And I say all that to say Canelo did NOT look good against Bivol or GGG. I'm a Canelo fan and, to me, he looks like he's on the decline. Ward had a chance to swoop in (because there was some chatter) and dethrone a Top PFP fighter at just the right time. Wouldve been very interesting.

 

[Jonny Ninja]

I would have loved to have seen a prime froch vs prime ggg. I know who wins, it may not even be that close, but it would be a fuckin great fight still

 

[burningspear]

I would have loved to have seen a prime froch vs prime ggg. I know who wins, it may not even be that close, but it would be a fuckin great fight still

hard polish bastard, i remember when he was hated, always jawing at calzaghe but he came good, fought everyone

 

[Cariñito]

Canelo wins a decision

 

[Yehudim]

Canelo wins a decision

He wins a deezision

 

[Jonny Ninja]

hard polish bastard, i remember when he was hated, always jawing at calzaghe but he came good, fought everyone

I was never a fan of his tbh but I did love to watch him fight, whether I was supporting him or not. His fight with an over confident bute is still one of my favourite beat downs of recent years. His KO of Taylor was funny AF
I’d expect golovkin to beat him but froch would still be there looking for the KO in the 12th

 

[bjl12]

Canelo wins a decision

Hah. A real decision or a Floyd/GGG1 decision?

 

[Cariñito]

Hah. A real decision or a Floyd/GGG1 decision?

He drops Ward twice and wins a wide decision.

 

[bjl12]

He drops Ward twice and wins a wide decision.

Even with retirement I struggle to see that outcome. Is possible but Canelo has never shown that kind of power versus elite opponents besides Callum Smith. Even then he couldn't register a KD nor could he KD Cotto, Floyd, Lara, GGG (3 times), Jacobs, etc.

Anything is possible though of course

 

[stuff jones]

How does prime Ward vs Beterbiev go?

 

[KillerIsBack V2]

GGGs whole career was a tune-up. He didnt move to America until he was much older. Some people swear he was ducked but I never saw it that way.

Canelo beat Cotto at 155 and wanted to defend there. GGG demanded 160 and not 155 which was weird bc GGG offered Rosado 158 CW or something which Gabe ended up turning down.

If you want the big fights you need to compromise. GGG played hardball so he had to wait longer. And it was only 2 fights later he got Canelo anyway IIRC.

So GGG should not have needed a tuneup. He elected to fight Murata at 160 which was essentially his tune-up. He fought more than enough tune-ups in his career and didnt need anymore Szermetas, Rolls, Monroe Jrs, Vanes, etc.

You are taking the word tune up out of context… when u enter a new weight class and not tune up in it, it is essentially a disadvantage. Every combat sport trainer will agree.
It was pretty clear what I meant, and there’s no way you, a hardcore fan, did not read it well.

Also, you disregard all the other reasons in my other comment which I replied to to only add one point. I guess it was emotional defensiveness that blinded you. You didn’t even know why I was listing these reasons, and spouted irrelevant generic ducking talk, which is that GGG was not a weak win and would have given anybody else a harder time that night (reread my first comment in the thread, since you are the TS…)