100 Against The Grain Boxing Opionions

[keithmoonhangover]

I'll start us off with 2. Feel free to add.

1. Riddick Bowe does not deserve to be in the IBHOF. He only beat one top fighter. Ducked Lewis. Defended against a shot former champion and a journeyman.

2. James Toney doesn't have a great resume in any one division. Clearly lost to Dave Tiberi at Middle. Poor opposition at SMW apart from being dominated by RJJ. Losses to Griffin and Thadzi and no world title at LHW. Jirov feasted on p1ss poor opposition and Toney's win is lauded as something incredible. A proven drug cheat at heavyweight.

[Jaywheel]

Opionions make me cry when I slice them.

[BitPlayer]

3. Bob Fitzsimmons is the greatest P4P all time Criminally underrated middleweight resume, beat opponents way bigger than him, beat the slickest fighters and hardest punchers of his time, beat George Gardner over 20 rounds while 40, injured and ill. Excellent defence, recognised as one of the smartest boxers by many including Kid McCoy and Gene Tunney.

4. John L Sullivan is underrated People focus nearly entirely on his career when he was way past it, he was at his best in the erly 1880's, and was starting to noticably decline by 1885, in 1887 he broke his arm, and by the time of his fights with Corbett and Kilrain he'd been near death due to drink more than once.

[Bodyshot3]

5. Those Bum a Month results on the Louis record actually really do matter and need to be considered........

........his long reign was often less than stellar, there's a crucial difference between being there seemingly forever and having a much shorter reign but facing a higher percentage of far better fighters.

6. The second 'miraclous' coming of George Foreman was all about Moorer being flakey and small......Morrison beat Foreman handily and actually George got super-lucky against the rather limited Axel Schulz.

[Duran1970]

7. Pacquiao 114
Mayweather 114

[gilgamesh]

I'll start us off with 2. Feel free to add.

1. Riddick Bowe does not deserve to be in the IBHOF. He only beat one top fighter. Ducked Lewis. Defended against a shot former champion and a journeyman.

2. James Toney doesn't have a great resume in any one division. Clearly lost to Dave Tiberi at Middle. Poor opposition at SMW apart from being dominated by RJJ. Losses to Griffin and Thadzi and no world title at LHW. Jirov feasted on p1ss poor opposition and Toney's win is lauded as something incredible. A proven drug cheat at heavyweight.

He beat Montell Griffin twice, and got f*cked by the judges twice. I thought BOTH wins over Montell were crystal clear. Blatant robberies.

[gilgamesh]

8. Jose Luis Castillo gave Mayweather one of his toughest outs in their rematch as well. Everyone always talks about the 1st fight being a robbery, and acts as if Floyd won the 2nd fight easily...he didn't. JLC was a tough night for him yet again. Something JLC rarely gets credit for.

[gilgamesh]

Note: I edited Bodyshot and Duran's posts to put a number next to their "Against the Grain opinions" to keep the Number theme going on the thread.

[jamamb]

9. in a historical context jack johnson has a very weak hw resume, feasting on loads of guys who be at best lhws today, won the title vs a 162 guy, fought a bunch of other guys below 170, like mw ketchel . also fought a lot of guys when they were green and pre prime

jeffries hadnt fought in 6 years, which is massive inactivity thats ridiculous to ignore

the one notable shw he fought in a title fight stopped him

[Ambling Alp II]

Agree that his title reign could have better; would have been much better if he defended it against Langford, McVey, and Jeannette.
I don't think too many people give him much credit for beating Jeffries; most people seem to realize Jeffries was nowhere near his best at that point.
I think that he did as well as he did against Willard considering he was 37 is not something he should get ripped for. He lasted until, the 26th round, and was winning handily at that point.

[Ambling Alp II]

This an interesting thread. Even if you don't agree with what someone says, alt least it might make you think instead of automatically accepting the conventional wisdom.

10. Lennox Lewis didn't have that good of a jab. Often he just flicked with it and had nothing on it. Yet you hear a lot that he had a great jab. He didn't; not even close.
11. Lennox Lewis had a good chin. He only got decked twice in his career. One was by Rahman, and that was an awesome shot which would have taken out almost anyone. He got up from the McCall punch. He only got hurt a couple of other times.

[DrDuke]

12. Prime Mike Tyson wouldn't have won prime Holyfield or Lewis. Or KOed at least. Tyson had a terrific start of his career, he was very special, but when he stepped up the competition level, he looked so cool not always. Tillis gave him a competetive bout. Then top boxer Green was able to survive. Tucker was able not only to survive, but even to rock Tyson a bit early. Smith was able to tie Tyson and spoil that all over the fight. Holmes was not only old, but rusted after the time off, he even regained some of his shape after Tyson. And Spinks just crapped his pants for some reason (well, yeah, maybe it's the worst excuse).

[Abradolf Lincler]

13. Luis Rodriguez won all 4 fights against Emile Griffith, who got the benefit of the doubt in quite a lot of close decisions over his career. Never really understood his pull at MSG, as I consider him a very boring fighter to watch past a certain point in his career. Great, but boring.

[cfang]

14. For all the talk about him being a top 2/3 all time heavy, Larry homles's best wins are Gerry cooney, a rookie Witherspoon and a past prime Norton.

[Boxing Writer]

For all the talk about him being a top 2/3 all time heavy, Larry homles's best wins are Gerry cooney, a rookie Witherspoon and a past prime Norton.

How about 42-years-old Holmes completely outclassing prime Ray Mercer?

[Ambling Alp II]

I don't think he was the 2nd best heavyweight either. However, he some nice wins. He also beat Shavers,Smith, Weaver, and Berbick. They weren't legends, but all told there aren't many other heavyweights who were more impressive. also disagree about Norton. Norton fought a great fight against Holmes. That was his last hurrah. Very few heavyweights would have beaten Norton that night.

[BitPlayer]

14. For all the talk about him being a top 2/3 all time heavy, Larry homles's best wins are Gerry cooney, a rookie Witherspoon and a past prime Norton.

You can say stuff like this for absolutely anyone though.

[Ambling Alp II]

13. Luis Rodriguez won all 4 fights against Emile Griffith, who got the benefit of the doubt in quite a lot of close decisions over his career. Never really understood his pull at MSG, as I consider him a very boring fighter to watch past a certain point in his career. Great, but boring.

This was an interesting one. These guys were extremely even in boxing ability. Even if you think Griffith deserved all 3 of these decisions, they can't be by much. Yet, he is routinely rated several spots higher than Rodriguez when people rate the welterweights. What else did Griffith do at welterweight that was more impressive than what Rodriguez did?

Imagine if Rodriguez is the one who got the decision 3 out of 4 times? People would probably have him several spots higher and Griffith lower at welterweight.
The reality is that many people rate Griffith a little high at welter and Rodriguez a little lower than they should. They should be very close.

[APerno]

13. Luis Rodriguez won all 4 fights against Emile Griffith, who got the benefit of the doubt in quite a lot of close decisions over his career. Never really understood his pull at MSG, as I consider him a very boring fighter to watch past a certain point in his career. Great, but boring.

This was an interesting one. These guys were extremely even in boxing ability. Even if you think Griffith deserved all 3 of these decisions, they can't be by much. Yet, he is routinely rated several spots higher than Rodriguez when people rate the welterweights. What else did Griffith do at welterweight that was more impressive than what Rodriguez did?

Imagine if Rodriguez is the one who got the decision 3 out of 4 times? People would probably have him several spots higher and Griffith lower at welterweight.
The reality is that many people rate Griffith a little high at welter and Rodriguez a little lower than they should. They should be very close.

I am sure you already realize that when people (even us) create these ratings they (we) tend to fail to separate a fighter's career by division. I believe Ezzard Charles, when being rated as a LHW, gets for his HW efforts, the same type of gain Griffith does for his middleweight career. (Not to suggest that Charles wasn't a domineering LHW, he was and deserves the ranking, but . . .) Michael Spinks as well. Again not to suggest that any of them don't deserve their rankings but all three pick up something from their campaigns at the higher weight, and its hard for the would be rater to put that aside.

Rodriguez's foray into the MW division is pretty much only remembered for the Benvenuti defeat; unfair for sure but I think the bias creeps into the ratings.

[Ambling Alp II]

That may be part of it. I always try to block out a fighters matches from a higher (or lower for that matter) weight class when rating him specifically for that weight class; but maybe without meaning to I do it as well.

Maybe that is part of the reason that Griffith is rated higher; he had a lot of success at middleweight and Rodriguez did not.
However, I think him winning 3 of the 4 head to head is a bigger factor.

Michael Spinks probably gets hurt from what he did at heavyweight; many don't him much credit for his wins at that weight and of course everyone remembers the Tyson fight. If you just look at what Spinks did at light heavy, I think he is the best light heavyweight ever.

Harry Greb is another interesting example. Pound for pound he is one of the greatest ever, no question about it. However, when rating him at middleweight, I think a lo t of people give him credit for wins when he was way over the middleweight limit.

[DrDuke]

Michael Spinks probably gets hurt from what he did at heavyweight; many don't him much credit for his wins at that weight and of course everyone remembers the Tyson fight. If you just look at what Spinks did at light heavy, I think he is the best light heavyweight ever.

Exactly, I've always thought the same.

[paddy chavez]

Pernell Whitaker has become greatly overrated with time no doubt a very good fighter but not the master some have him as

[Abradolf Lincler]

Rodriguez had a lot of success at Middleweight, too. His resume is pretty comparable to Griffiths' there, I'd say. The key difference of course, being that he never became champion.

Still, he beat Briscoe twice, Carter twice, Benton, Mims, Moyer, Mundine, Rondon, Giambra, Bahama, Gonzalez, etc. Really good stuff from a guy who was outweighed in every one of those fights.

[HomicideHenry]

16- Had anyone else beaten the guys Mike Tyson did, nobody would have cared; it was how Tyson put people away, not the Individuals that he beat (who were average at best or over the hill).

[wouter]

17. Joe Frazier on his best night beats the best version of Muhammad Ali.