Criticisms of Sugar Ray Robinsons resume?

[gilgamesh]

I think winning the middleweight crown 5 times is kind of overrated in a sense, ain't it?

Yes considering he never made more than 3 successful title defenses during any of those 5 reigns. Meaning all of his Middleweight Title reigns were pretty brief.

[gilgamesh]

Talk about bigging yourself up No historian with any credibility would place Pac and Floyd top 10/20. I've posted on boxing forums for many years and have discussed the greats with guys who have wrote books on boxing history and even a very special man who shared a gym with Benny Leonard and watched a tone of greats first hand. Let me make this clear.... None of them had Floyd and Pac anywhere near the top ten.

It's not uncommon for people to view fighters of their eras as the best. People often have an emotional attachment to the guys from when they first started following the sport the most, and commonly look down on fighters from later eras.

Just like some young dudes now are convinced that Floyd is one of the 5-10 best to ever lace up a pair of gloves, there are Old timers out there who would probably insist he's not even Top 50 because "Back in my day" blah blah blah.

My point is...People tend to have a bias toward their era and their rating of fighters. At least a great deal of them do.

I'd say Floyd is certainly a Top 20 all time fighter or right on the verge to it. Pac would be Top 30 I figure or thereabouts.

[davie]

I like the OP's intentions of this thread,its intertesting,ive seen and read a lot about the old time guys but still dont know enough to make a sound judgement

I was just trying to make a point really.

When you see guys arguing and nitpicking through records to prove who was better between Saddler and Pep or Monzon and Hagler or Armstrong and Robinson or Moore and Charles it sometime gets to the point where it almost reads as if people are being disrespectful, disparaging and derogatory towards guys who should be held in the highest possible regard.

The Middleweight thread just now is a prime example, the way some have criticised Monsons lack of opposition and the fact that he fought a few guys who moved up from welter, you'd think the man was a fraud and a bum with a padded record, when in fact he is arguably the best middle weight who ever lived.

I was hoping that by showing that even SRR couldn't fight and beat everyone ever would make the point.
Then we just ended up arguing who should be no1 ATG. And people start picking holes in legends CV's saying they should never be top5

It's the BOTP way

[handsofstone]

I like the OP's intentions of this thread,its intertesting,ive seen and read a lot about the old time guys but still dont know enough to make a sound judgement

The way your getting through the classic fights you'll be making 'definitive' all time lists in no time

Cheers Tom,ive got both Moore/Durelle fights up next,i'll get them watched this week,ive read good things about the 1st fight in various articles over the years

[Ambling Alp II]

I agree that many "modern" fans are biased. Often they automatically favor the more modern guys, assume the sport has "evolved" greatly and do little research concerning fighters from a lot time ago. They don't know what they don't know.
They also tend to think that things like the sheer amount of WBS titles won, title defenses mean a lot. They don't.

I will say that to a lesser extent , there are people biased towards the old-timers.

There ha been poor, mediocre, good, great fighters throughout from the late 19th century throughout the 20th century. We should not base out evaluations on a guys birthdate.

Some people are baised in other ways. Some simply like a guy, overrate their highs and have excuses for thier lows that they would accept for someone they don't like. They do the reverse for those that they don't like.

And of course, some people have little reasoning ability. ie they like Fighter A. Fighter A had a lot of trouble beating Fighter B who he should have been able to beat much easier. So he says that Fighter B was better than people think. When asked why, he says something like "well Fighter B must be good. He gave Fighter A a tough fight".

[cfang]

I agree that many "modern" fans are biased. Often they automatically favor the more modern guys, assume the sport has "evolved" greatly and do little research concerning fighters from a lot time ago. They don't know what they don't know.
They also tend to think that things like the sheer amount of WBS titles won, title defenses mean a lot. They don't.

I will say that to a lesser extent , there are people biased towards the old-timers.

There ha been poor, mediocre, good, great fighters throughout from the late 19th century throughout the 20th century. We should not base out evaluations on a guys birthdate.

Some people are baised in other ways. Some simply like a guy, overrate their highs and have excuses for thier lows that they would accept for someone they don't like. They do the reverse for those that they don't like.

And of course, some people have little reasoning ability. ie they like Fighter A. Fighter A had a lot of trouble beating Fighter B who he should have been able to beat much easier. So he says that Fighter B was better than people think. When asked why, he says something like "well Fighter B must be good. He gave Fighter A a tough fight".

Indeed but there's just as much bias when it come to the old guys too. It's like heresy to admit that some modern fighter could beat an old all time great. We'll never know ofc. Maybe the old guys were tougher, maybe they were more skilled cos they had more fights, or maybe they were better because there was a much bigger talent pool (which there undoubtably was). Alternatively, maybe modern fighters are stronger/faster? I do know how to measure greatness in sport though and it comes through a number of factors and bias isn't one of them. there's a whole host like longevity, quality of opp, fortitude, beating people outside your weight class, winning despite the odds stacked against you etc etc. There are many fighters who fulfill these criteria and in this era floyd and Manny defo do. When it comes to previous eras ofc there are many, doesn't mean to say they were all better though! As I've said before on these forums my all time top p4p are SRR, Greb and Langford. Then there's charles and after that you can add in pep and armstrong and a few others. those 3 are the best though in terms of ticking more boxes than all other fighers. At the moment there does seem to be a common view of who the very top are ( those 3 and maybe another couple thrown in like hank armstrong, duran etc). However, after that it opens up quite a lot, there's probably 20/30 fighers that are pretty much interchangeable in terms of ranking.

[klompton]

On his record, I would say greb is the greatest fighter of all time. However it's debatable. You can't pick holes in srr at welter. He was unbeaten and looked unbeatable. Couldn't have done any more. Perhaps it could be argued that if he was the greatest fighter ever, he should have beaten the fairly average champ maxim despite the heat.

Maxim was not an average champ.

Maxim was the definition of an average champion, not a bad champion, not a great, just middle of the road. He was never the best fighter at any weight he fought at any point in his career despite being champion. Thats more of a testament to his management than his being anything but average.

[cfang]

On his record, I would say greb is the greatest fighter of all time. However it's debatable. You can't pick holes in srr at welter. He was unbeaten and looked unbeatable. Couldn't have done any more. Perhaps it could be argued that if he was the greatest fighter ever, he should have beaten the fairly average champ maxim despite the heat.

Maxim was not an average champ.

Maxim was the definition of an average champion, not a bad champion, not a great, just middle of the road. He was never the best fighter at any weight he fought at any point in his career despite being champion. Thats more of a testament to his management than his being anything but average.

Totally right Klompton. Maxim was an average champ. Good enough to win the title but wasn't the best of his era despite having some good wins. That's an average champ for sure. I know there was the heat and all that and added to that, the fact that SRR was a pretty small middle but I'd take Greb to beat Maxim on that night or any other. IT's not so much as a hole you can pick in Robinson's record but it's certainly a wrinkle lol

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Maxim was much better than average. That's silly, if you rate all the champions at 175 he would be far higher than the middle.

[cfang]

Maxim was much better than average. That's silly, if you rate all the champions at 175 he would be far higher than the middle.

Well maybe but the point I was trying to make was that he wasn't fighting Ezzard Charles or Achie Moore, he was fighting Joey Maxim who was a level or so down. Good fighter ofc and an undisputed champion but won the title, made one defence then lost to Moore. I guess he'd be better than a lot of alphabet title holders but certainly never the best in his era. Ofc as we've discussed before it was a brutal era for lt heavys so maybe im being harsh - however - the main point was Greb beat Gene Tunney who was a better lt heavy than joey maxim so it's slight hole in srr's record.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

He's not better than greb, Charles, Moore or Tunney. That doesn't make him average.

[klompton]

I dont think maxim would rate any higher than the middle of the pack and thats in a decidedly weak division historically, a division that was considered a stopover between mw and hw and trash heap for for fighters who werent good enough to compete in those divisions. The problem here is that some think by calling maxim an average champion that its an insult. Its not because the operative word is CHAMPION and he most decidedly was an average champion but by definition him being champion, particularly in that era, means he was no average fighter, BUT that being said, at the highest lvl of the sport he was average, even doc kearns his manager admitted this and admitted that they extended his reign by ducking moore. Without kearns maxim likely never would have been champion and that wouldnt have been a crime either as there were better fighters than him that either gad to wait, move up, or never even got a shot.

[King Carlos]

Lt. Heavyweight is easily the deepest division historically outside of the big 3 (Lightweight, Welterweight, and Middleweight). That's inarguable. What a dumb comment.

As for Maxim, if you want to break it down to technicalities, I suppose you're right. An average champion in that era, in regards to the top of the heap during Lt. Heavy's strongest period. By no means average by all time standards or as a fighter (which is what I initially meant).

[elmersalsa]

PBF beat every significant fighter of his era. Top 10 easily

[cfang]

PBF beat every significant fighter of his era. Top 10 easily

[klompton]

Lt. Heavyweight is easily the deepest division historically outside of the big 3 (Lightweight, Welterweight, and Middleweight). That's inarguable. What a dumb comment.

As for Maxim, if you want to break it down to technicalities, I suppose you're right. An average champion in that era, in regards to the top of the heap during Lt. Heavy's strongest period. By no means average by all time standards or as a fighter (which is what I initially meant).

Thats an asinine comment. Aside from the fact that you yourself name it the fourth deepest division out of 8 traditional divisions which is damning it with faint praise you are talking about a division that wasnt even taken seriously until the late 40s for most of its existence. In fact i just listened to a recording of an interview with mickey walker and the interviewer was praising him for fighting all of these lhws and walker just brushes it off and says it wasnt even a real division and that nobody cared. Lol. Even many of the greats of the division were guys who simply couldnt beat the best at mw like delaney, dillon, loughran, and rosenbloom, or hw like none other than maxim. So yes, in a historically less important division maxim was an averahe champion. He wasnt as great as fitz, loughran, moore, delaney, lewis, rosenbloom, dillon, levinsky, spinks, foster, holy, hopkins, i could go on and on, maxim is WAY down the list.

And for the record its highly dubious to rate lhw so highly based on the above.

[klompton]

PBF beat every significant fighter of his era. Top 10 easily

Not even close.

But nice try.

[King Carlos]

Lt. Heavyweight is easily the deepest division historically outside of the big 3 (Lightweight, Welterweight, and Middleweight). That's inarguable. What a dumb comment.

As for Maxim, if you want to break it down to technicalities, I suppose you're right. An average champion in that era, in regards to the top of the heap during Lt. Heavy's strongest period. By no means average by all time standards or as a fighter (which is what I initially meant).

Thats an asinine comment. Aside from the fact that you yourself name it the fourth deepest division out of 8 traditional divisions which is damning it with faint praise you are talking about a division that wasnt even taken seriously until the late 40s for most of its existence. In fact i just listened to a recording of an interview with mickey walker and the interviewer was praising him for fighting all of these lhws and walker just brushes it off and says it wasnt even a real division and that nobody cared. Lol. Even many of the greats of the division were guys who simply couldnt beat the best at mw like delaney, dillon, loughran, and rosenbloom, or hw like none other than maxim. So yes, in a historically less important division maxim was an averahe champion. He wasnt as great as fitz, loughran, moore, delaney, lewis, rosenbloom, dillon, levinsky, spinks, foster, holy, hopkins, i could go on and on, maxim is WAY down the list.

And for the record its highly dubious to rate lhw so highly based on the above.

He was definitely greater than old man Hopkins, and without question better than non-LHW Holyfield. Try again there, unless we're considering amateur careers as part of our analysis. I'll bow to your Levinsky and Rosenbloom knowledge, but with the operative word being CHAMPION, as you say, I find it hard to believe men who were losing almost as often as winning would've rated especially highly under that criteria.

As for the rest of it, I know it's your area of expertise, but not all of boxing history can be condensed into what happened (or what interviewees said) in the 20s. There were other eras, including the one Maxim competed in, so I couldn't give a fornicate less what Mickey Walker said off hand.

It's hardly damning that Lt. Heavy ranks 4th out of 8 or 4th out of 17 given how immensely stacked the top 3 are.

[elmersalsa]

PBF beat every significant fighter of his era. Top 10 easily

Not even close.

But nice try.

I haven't said that he was the best ever like he claims.
I have never said that he was better than your boy, the great Harry Greb.

But, if we talk about his long stay at the top, and for how long he was the face of boxing, we gotta give the great Pretty Boy Floyd Mayweather, Jr his due. The only thing he didn't do was have more fights. He should've had more fights in the 19 pro years in boxing, but he did not. But, he beat every top notch fighter of his time. He could only fight the guys of his era...His era. He can't go to the 1940s, and fight the greats like Sugar Ray Robinson or Kid Gavilan. Or fight in the 1980s and fight greats like Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns or Roberto Duran.

To me, PBF is top 10 best ever p4p. We can't argue with perfection.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Lt. Heavyweight is easily the deepest division historically outside of the big 3 (Lightweight, Welterweight, and Middleweight). That's inarguable. What a dumb comment.

As for Maxim, if you want to break it down to technicalities, I suppose you're right. An average champion in that era, in regards to the top of the heap during Lt. Heavy's strongest period. By no means average by all time standards or as a fighter (which is what I initially meant).

he is a hof fighter and deservedly so. Lolat weak, klompton is a buffoon.

[klompton]

It's hardly damning that Lt. Heavy ranks 4th out of 8 or 4th out of 17 given how immensely stacked the top 3 are.

Lol. I said he was average. You are essentially agreeing but arguing to argue. Have fun with that, i never brought up greb, you did, which is stupid because neither mayweathers protected cherry picking chicken shit ass nor maxim are a pimple on grebs ass. If either you or saads ignorant (and ignored for the record) ass want to love on him do it. Im not mad, good for maxim, he certainly didnt get that kind of respect from any of his contemporaries or even his handler.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Ignored? You're such a cute little thing. You're a clown if you think maxim was average. Not that I care what you think, write another book and I'll give you a penny. Lol

[King Carlos]

When did I bring up Greb?