Who is the most overrated British Boxer of the last 40 years

[Counter-puncher]

Was it Junior Jones who fought Paul Ingle?

Yep, but more importantly it was Junior Jones who twice beat Marco Antonio Barrera and was in many (inflated) p4p lists for a brief period at Super Bantam.

Did he beat Barrera twice? I didn't know that. Was Hamed actively kept away from him? I was quite young at the time and don't really remember anything about the politics back then. Hamed's career was good, and he was an exciting fighter to watch as a kid, but looking back his resume isn't the best. I wouldn't put him up as the most overrated in the last forty years though.

good god yes, spectacularly banjo'd in the first fight. shockwaves through the world of boxing, Barrerra was the young, invincible-looking 122lbs Chavez, at the time.

Jones then got KTFo spectacularly by a 90 year old Kennedy McKinney at this point. i think this was before he got done in 11 rounds by paul ingle

so yeah, Jones done over by Ingle and a 90 year old Kennedy Mckinney.

[WelshDevil]

Welsh Devil,
Regarding Nelson, I think you'll find most Boxing fans called it about right, so how can you say over rated ? Over rated by who precisely ?
I can't think of anyone who ever hyped up Nelson.
Whether you like him or loathe him, he got on his bike, fought all over the World, often got robbed as the fighter on the right hand side of the card, and never ducked anyone.
He defended his title 13 times, as many times away from home as at home, and won them all except a draw against a drugs cheat.
Nobody has ever made out he was the second coming - unlike numerous other examples on this thread.
I assume you're a Welsh lad.
Do you regard Nathan cleverly as a fighter defending a mickey mouse title - the WBO ?

Overated as in, he doesn't deserve to be called a 'World' Champion and be able to show 13 title defences to his name. The defences happened but against atrocious contenders. If your fighting nobodies for an alphabet strap, then it becomes 'mickey mouse' in my opinion. Throw in the WBF and I stand by what I said.
The man was hyped going into his 1st world title and was a shocking letdown, he then travelled and was a a fringe contender. Credit to him for travelling/fighting but with his obvious skillset, he could have achieved so much more but was happy 'milking' a title at the end.
With regards to Cleverly, nice try! ;) Nathan is starting out and if his opposition is as poor as Nelsons was then I will apply the same to him.

[twenty six]

Jesus - take a look at his next opponent !!!!!

[orbtastic]

Yep, but more importantly it was Junior Jones who twice beat Marco Antonio Barrera and was in many (inflated) p4p lists for a brief period at Super Bantam.

Did he beat Barrera twice? I didn't know that. Was Hamed actively kept away from him? I was quite young at the time and don't really remember anything about the politics back then. Hamed's career was good, and he was an exciting fighter to watch as a kid, but looking back his resume isn't the best. I wouldn't put him up as the most overrated in the last forty years though.

good god yes, spectacularly banjo'd in the first fight. shockwaves through the world of boxing, Barrerra was the young, invincible-looking 122lbs Chavez, at the time.

Jones then got KTFo spectacularly by a 90 year old Kennedy McKinney at this point. i think this was before he got done in 11 rounds by paul ingle

so yeah, Jones done over by Ingle and a 90 year old Kennedy Mckinney.

McKinney had been heavily tooting on the crack pipe and got subsequently brutally beasted by Espinosa.

[Khaosai-Galaxy]

1 amazing performance against Gerald McClellan, (although he was aided by the referee, who had a shocker)

You think the ref had a shocker then do you? In what way was the referee's performance bad?
(and before you say anything, Benn made it back into the ring before the 10 count, everyone acknowledges this).

The ref kept stepping in and separating them for no reason what so ever, especially in the 1st round when McClellan was all over Benn. .

[fist]

Shocking that some on here have mentioned Hamed; I think he is probably the best Britain has had. So fast, powerful, entertaining - tremendous ability. In his prime, i think one of the heaviest handed British fighters pound for pound. And yes, he lost to Barrera, but it is crazy to say conclusively that he would never have been able to beat Barrera. Hamed's lack of training, lack of focus, lack of confidence and terrible tactics, were of course not the reason for the loss, but they illustrate areas he could have addressed. Despite fighting terrible against an amazing boxer, the fight was not the shut out some people suggest! People get KO'd and schooled week in week out and can come back better. Clearly Naz had come to the end of the road mentally, but what a career.

[Petaling Pete]

As far as McGuiggan goes his title reign was fairly unspectacular, however in a sing;e year he beat Juan LuPorte, Pedroza and Bernard Taylor - 3 world class fighters. He also made a olitary defence of his Europen title n the same year against Gallowise.

I always felt that McGuiggans entry in to the Hall of Fame was as much due to his post boxing endeavours.

However after reading his book my views on him were a bit kinder. I always felt that he ducked Azuma Nleson but the fight with Jim McDonald was an eliminator to face Nelson.

Hislife has also been pepppered with personal tragedy his brothers suicide, fathers death from cancer and his daughter even caught Leikemia and these seems to have affected his reign.

He once made an assesment of Hatton and predicted thaty he would not have a long career due to his style and acknowledged he was all washed up at 27.

However when you consider his achievements in 1985, he was for a short spell world class

[Autobarn]

re johnny nelson. surely a talent like rival WBC champ juan carlos gomez, a big, fast, powerful and confident guy, would have toyed with johnny, who had some fine counter punching skills, good fitness but extremely shaky confidence and an unwilingness to do such basic things as mount an attack...

nelson was a weird one. he could play with carl thompson (albeit stopped prematurely), a real hard nut, and on other nights he would barely throw a punch. this latter happened on more than one occasion. the 2 early world title challenges, then later WBO defenses in italy and germany (ok there were enough punches to win these later bouts).

because of this i don't think anyone rated him THAT highly, not highly enough for him to be overrated. let's not forget, in the 2nd half of his title reign, his own promoter didn't even bother to stage his fights, allowing him to fight on the road instead (following that terrible draw with future champ guillermo jones, then regarded a s ablown up light middleweight).

[Tomasino]

A Google of Jonny Nelson turned this up...

http://www.johnnynelson.co.uk/

The man, the hero and always the entertainer!



Bollox! The most boring world champion and now worlds worst pundit. (ok second behind Adam Smith)

[the truth]

For ppl to mention Benn and hamed as overrated is crazy
2 of the best British fighters ever and both went to take on the Americans in America !
For me it's either Henry cooper or mcguigan I would go with mcguigan!

[oliverfennell]

Welsh Devil,
Regarding Nelson, I think you'll find most Boxing fans called it about right, so how can you say over rated ? Over rated by who precisely ?
I can't think of anyone who ever hyped up Nelson.
Whether you like him or loathe him, he got on his bike, fought all over the World, often got robbed as the fighter on the right hand side of the card, and never ducked anyone.
He defended his title 13 times, as many times away from home as at home, and won them all except a draw against a drugs cheat.
Nobody has ever made out he was the second coming - unlike numerous other examples on this thread.
I assume you're a Welsh lad.
Do you regard Nathan cleverly as a fighter defending a mickey mouse title - the WBO ?

Overated as in, he doesn't deserve to be called a 'World' Champion and be able to show 13 title defences to his name. The defences happened but against atrocious contenders. If your fighting nobodies for an alphabet strap, then it becomes 'mickey mouse' in my opinion. Throw in the WBF and I stand by what I said.
The man was hyped going into his 1st world title and was a shocking letdown, he then travelled and was a a fringe contender. Credit to him for travelling/fighting but with his obvious skillset, he could have achieved so much more but was happy 'milking' a title at the end.
With regards to Cleverly, nice try! ;) Nathan is starting out and if his opposition is as poor as Nelsons was then I will apply the same to him.

I don't know if he milked it or if other champs/major contenders were reluctant to face him. After all, what would be the point, other than the lure of a WBO belt, when there were other more exciting, more marketable, and possible more beatable guys out there. There was no real reason for a top guy to fight Nelson. The money would be peanuts given that Nelson couldn't even draw in his own country (sometimes wasn't even televised in Britain), the fight would likely be a poor spectacle, there was a not-insignificant chance Nelson would beat them, and even if they did beat Nelson the win wouldn't look so great given that Nelson brought a double-digits loss column and late-30s age stats with him.

But even with that, some of Nelson's title wins were solid enough, such as Thompson, Sellers, Dominguez, Petkovic, May etc. Sure there were some poor challengers, but which long-serving WBO champ hasn't had some of those. Nelson was legit IMO.

[Lenny]

It wasn't a great cruiserweight division in Nelson's day but he did have Gomez, Jirov, Toney, Mormeck, Bell, Braithwaite and Hill. Even
Gurov, Brown, Rothmann, Castro, Mayfield and Davis would have been up there with some of Nelson's better victims.

To include May in Nelson's solid enough victories speaks volumes. The guy had skills and his career is commendable in the way he came back, but he was very much a WBO champion for his era

[twenty six]

But with respect the thread is about being over rated.
When was Johnny EVER over rated by ANYONE ?
Regardless of anyone's opinion on the oppponents - and trust me a lot of the affore mentioned so called rated Cruisers avoided him - he got hold of the WBO strap and kept it through 13 defences.
During that time he was never over hyped - he did what any other jobbing boxer would do, and stuck his name in the frame to gain PR.
Jesus they all do it.
I cannot accept that Johnny was over rated by anyone - least of all himself !
He had a long career, stunk the joint out a couple of times early on, got ostrascised, so got on his bike around the World.
Got his chance in 1999 and took it.

[ourkid1984]

When this question gets asked in whatever subject whether it be sport or other entertainment people always confuse being overrated with being good, bad or average.

Surely when someone is overrated it means that the public generally rate someone higher than what they achieve,

When it comes to boxing, Cooper was over hyped but I don't think he was overrated and probably the same can be said for Bruno but most people generally knew their limitations so don't think they were overrated as it was more about hope rather than expectation. Naz on the other hand brought with him an army of fans that expected him to be the best and when it turned out that he couldn't beat the best it really did apppear that he was very overrated as was the genuine shock that his career unravelled so quickly.

There is of course many other boxers over the past 40 years that have been overrated but but whether that outweighed their hype is another question.

[Lenny]

Matthew Ellis ;;-)

Mathew was never naturally big enough to be a force at heavyweight: his frame, strength, and power were all inadequate. He's actually a fairly compact individual. He could've easily done 190lbs and latterly 200lbs, if he'd been so inclined, but I think the lure of the top division was too much for him. I still believe he was a real talent; but the man himself and those around him took the wrong approach entirely and blew it. He'd have won titles as a cruiserweight.

The lure heavyweight division has ruined what would be a fcuking brilliant cruiserweight division over the last 10 years or so.