Tag Archives: Antonio Tarver

Posted on 10/09/2021

By: Hans Themistode

Antonio Tarver couldn’t help but notice the appearance of Deontay Wilder on the scales. The former heavyweight titlist has routinely weighed in at just over 200 pounds throughout his career. Despite fighting men who were considerably bigger than he was, the slender frame of Wilder never affected his ability to stop his opposition.

Wilder’s penchant for coming in lighter than normal though, proved to be his detriment early last year. On February 22nd, at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, Wilder came in heavier than usual, stepping onto the scales at 231 pounds. Despite the added weight, Wilder was outweighed by Tyson Fury by over 40 pounds. That in turn, allowed Fury to bully the Alabama native all across the ring.

As the two prepare to do it all over again, this time at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, Wilder looks noticeably bigger. With Fury packing on even more pounds this time around, Wilder has come in at 238 pounds, most of which appear to be solid muscle.

Although both Wilder and head trainer Malik Scott believe his new physique will aid him in dealing with Fury’s gargantuan frame, former light heavyweight champion Antonio Tarver isn’t so convinced.

“Wilder added on some muscle,” said Tarver during an interview with FightHype.com. “A significant amount of weight. I guess he felt, he was a little bit too small. Now, is he going to use this weight and muscle to his advantage? A lot of times, when you bulk up, it slows you down a little bit. That quick-twitch muscle slows down a lot. I think Wilder is going to need to be fast and quick. A lot more faster than he was in the rematch. If that muscle don’t slow him down, he could use it to his advantage.”

On numerous occasions, Wilder has released video of himself lifting well over 300 pounds on the bench press. The reasoning behind Wilder’s new look is simple, he won’t allow Fury to zap his legs when he leans and holds onto him.

Even with Wilder looking leaner and bigger than before, he still walks into his trilogy against Fury at a decided weight disadvantage.

After Wilder showed the boxing world what he’s been working on over the past year and a half, Fury stepped onto the scales heavier than ever. In total, the WBC heavyweight titlist came in at 277 pounds. Considering that Fury has never come in heavier, there’s a growing belief that his preparation for Wilder wasn’t optimal.

Those sentiments, however, is something that Tarver has openly shrugged off. In no way, shape, or form does he expect the extra pounds to diminish Fury’s performance later on tonight.

“The guy is heavy anyways. Anything under 300 pounds, he’s still effective. You saw that in the last fight.”

Posted on 07/27/2020

By: Hans Themistode

The boxing world couldn’t help but yell in excitement once former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson and pound for pound great, Roy Jones Jr. announced their contest. On September 12th, both men will end their retirement and dust the gloves off one more time. 

Choosing a winner between the two has been the topic of conversations for the past few days. But while most of the world is wondering how things will play out, former two division world champion Antonio Tarver is trying to figure out what’s the point.

“I hope they do their thing,” said Tarver on his social media account. “It’ll be great. But come on, beating a Roy Jones, knocking out Roy Jones, I mean we done seen that shit before. But if Roy Jones beats Mike Tyson then what does that mean? If he looks good against Mike Tyson then what does that really mean?”

What it would mean is unclear, but Tarver is hoping that a win for Jones Jr. could lead to a fourth fight against arguably his biggest rival. The two shared the ring together in the mid 2000s. Jones Jr. would famously move up to the heavyweight division to grab a heavyweight title from then WBA champion John Ruiz. Following that win, rumors between Tyson and Jones Jr. began to circulate, but their contest never materialized. 

Instead, the newly crowned heavyweight champion dropped down in weight to the light heavyweight division and took home a close decision win against Tarver. Believing that victory was nothing more than a fluke, Tarver got his hands on Jones Jr. in an immediate rematch, knocking him out in the second round. 

The two would meet for a third and final time one year later. Tarver would prove that he was in fact the better fighter as he scored a unanimous decision victory. 

With back to back wins over Jones Jr. Tarver believes he’s the last person that he wants to see inside of the ring, even at the age of 51.

“I believe both of them are running from their adversaries. You know Holyfield got Tyson number, I obviously have Roy Jones number, obviously. But they choose to fight each other, they running from their adversaries.”

Posted on 03/12/2015

by Tyson Bruce

What’s At Stake?

This weekend in the boxing hotbed of Montreal, Canada hometown hero Jean Pascal will try and make his comeback go full circle when he takes on the division’s most feared fighter in Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev.

It’s the latest attempt by Kovalev to encircle the division’s true lineal champion, Adonis Stevenson, by defeating yet another of the weight class’s elite boxers. If he’s successful, it will be virtually impossible to justify Stevenson as the best fighter in the division, lineal champion or not.

This was a point acknowledged by Kovalev at the most recent press conference:

“For me, this fight is very interesting because it is next step in my career, the next test in my career. For myself I want to prove who I am on this level, in front in this huge arena, in my first time fighting in huge arena like this. I am very happy and waiting for Saturday. Thank you so much.”

Very few fighters ever change their reputation in one fight the way Sergey Kovalev did when he defeated Bernard Hopkins last year.

Going into the bout, Kovalev was regarded as a terrifying but technically a basic knockout artist. In fact, many top experts believed the forty-nine year old Hopkins had enough boxing acumen to upset the Russian puncher.

Kovalev completely flipped conventional wisdom on its head by administering one of the finest displays of technically precise boxing in recent memory. Almost instantly, Kovalev has become viewed as a more complete “boxer-puncher”.

Pascal has had a remarkable career resurgence considering that just four years ago he looked like the latest in a long line of talented young fighters to be neutered by the aforementioned Hopkins. Pascal’s win over the faded Lucian Bute may not have been a critically acclaimed performance, but it did ensure that he took sole possession as “king-pin” of Montreal’s lucrative boxing market.

For Pascal, the fight with Kovalev is not only a chance to put the Hopkins embarrassment behind him, but would actually take his career to a higher level than it was before the two Hopkins bouts.

How many other Hopkins victims have recovered to score a career best win? Just one. That was Glen Johnson, who seven-years (and eight losses) after being stopped by the “Executioner” in 1997 would defeat Antonio Tarver for the lineal 175-pound title in 2004.

Kovalev’s Transformation Was Gradual, Not Sudden:

In boxing, it can be very easy to fall in love with conventional wisdom. Most people felt that Kovalev was a one-dimensional wrecking machine until he out-boxed Hopkins. In fact, his transition towards becoming a more complete boxer has come on gradually over his last several fights, at least according to the numbers.

During his rise up the ranks, Kovalev was a freight train moving downhill and obliterating whatever was in front of him. According to compubox, Kovalev averaged an astonishing 81.6 punches per round against Darnell Boone, Lionel Thompson, Gabriel Campillo, Cornelius White and Nathan Cleverly.

Jean Pascal (r) taunts Sergey Kovalev in Montreal

One of Kovalev’s greatest strengths as a fighter lies in his ability to quickly assess what’s in front of him. When he sees immediate weakness, as he did with the previously mentioned fighters, his killer instinct is tremendous and none of them lasted more than four rounds.

Since Kovalev has been a champion, however, his tactics and pace seem to have changed. The knockouts have continued (except in the case of Hopkins) but the way he goes about it has changed. Against Ismayl Sillakh, Cedric Agnew and Blake Caparello his pace slowed dramatically, as he threw just 43.6 punches per round, which is below the division average of approximately 53 per round. Conversely, Kovalev’s defensive numbers have improved across the board. Hopkins managed to land just sixty-five total punches in twelve rounds against Kovalev.

Pascal Needs To Do More:

In the biggest victory of Pascal’s career against then champion Chad Dawson, his unpredictable and highly unorthodox style was on full display. It’s a style he patterned after his hero (and current trainer) Roy Jones Jr., and it caused the technically astute but often lackadaisical Dawson nightmares. In Pascal’s ensuing fights, however, we saw the faults of his mimicry.

Jones was a fighter that would save energy by baiting fighters and setting traps for his highly unconventional but deadly counterpunches. In his last four fights, Pascal has made the sometimes-cautious Jones look like Henry Armstrong by throwing a cringe-worthily low 33.9 punches per round. Pascal, unlike Jones, is also very often times an arm puncher and as a result possesses just a 51% knockout ratio, as compared to Kovalev’s 85% knockout rate.

Pascal’s punches are very flashy and if he can slow the pace they very often steal him rounds because they register on such a visual level. Against a more passive opponent like Dawson or Bute, this worked wonders, but against a murderous puncher with a spear of a jab like Kovalev, it could be disastrous.

In the lead up to their second bout, Hopkins ridiculed Pascal for being a four-round fighter because of his notoriously poor stamina. Pascal’s tendency to throw wild punches has often left his gas tank on empty in the later rounds of big fights. Even in his two biggest victories against Dawson and Bute he showed intense vulnerability late in the fights.

Against a fighter that starts as quickly as Kovalev (who has 21 KOs inside of four rounds), Pascal’s usual strategy of early aggression could be suicidal. In order to achieve victory, it will be incumbent upon Pascal to be more productive in the later rounds. Despite his victory over Hopkins, Kovalev has gone past seven rounds just once in his entire career.

Pascal seems mentally up to the challenge.

“I said the best scenario is to give the fans 12 good rounds and then try to knock him out in the last 15 seconds of the fight,” says the Haitain-born Canadian.

That would certainly end any claims about Pascal’s lack of gas mileage.

Kovalev’s Punch vs. Pascal’s Chin:

One of the more prevalent stylistic storylines going into the bout has been whether Kovalev can dent Pascal’s up to now iron chin (the Canadian has never even been knocked down) and what will happen if he cannot.

Since Kovalev burst onto the boxing scene with a string of violent, hip thrusting knockout victories, there have always been quiet rumors floating under the surface about the Russian’s ability to take a punch. Kovalev has suffered just two knockdowns in his career, and one of those was a complete flash knockdown against Blake Caperello.

So maybe it’s that all knockout artists have a question mark on their jaw until some one of equal measure takes aim at it? Or maybe its all those rumours that middleweight title-holder Gennady Golovkin put him over in a sparring session?

While those claims lie completely within the realm of innuendo, Kovalev was knocked out in the unpaid ranks against amateur rival Abbos Attoev. Kovalev, to his credit, has taken very little return fire as a professional and a good trainer will always tell you that the best chin is the one that never gets hit. However, this is pro boxing, and at some point Kovalev’s jaw will get tested by a big shot.

Pascal, on the other hand, is perceived to have an iron jaw by the vast majority of the media. He has never been down as a professional and stood toe-to-toe with the hard-punching Carl Froch in a twelve round war. Yet, could the claims of Pascal’s George Chuvalo-esque chin be slightly overblown?

Pascal proved in the Froch bout that he could handle a big shot from a 168-pounder, but Pascal has yet to show that he can take a big shot from a legitimate light heavyweight. Both Hopkins and Dawson (who had Pascal badly hurt in the eleventh round) are not considered big punchers for the division. Conversely, Kovalev is arguably the division’s best puncher since Mathew Saad Mohamed.

In other words, if Pascal believes that his best chance to win the fight is because he takes a superior punch, then he is doing his sincere best to justify the 4-1 odds in favor of the “Krusher”.