Possible all time greats?

[NYDominican]

1. Do you think that Mike McCallum, Gerald McClellan, and Chris Eubank should be ranked somewhere near the top ranked boxers of all time?


2. Do you think that Gennady Golovkin, Canelo Alvarez, Andre Ward, Keith Thurman, Jermall Charlo, and Jermell Charlo will be ranked among the top boxers of all time?


If so, why? If not, why not?


Please explain.

[oogiebe]

1. No, except Eubank isn't done yet. I doubt it but we'll see.

2. Tough to rank active fighters as all time greats, but more likely would be the obvious. Best chance at ATG's: Canelo & GGG. The rest have no chance. I'm talking top 100 ATG's maybe.

[cfang]

think he means senior

[oogiebe]

think he means senior

If so, then nope.

[chrisjs1985]

I think Mike McCallum would deserve to be ranked as one of the greatest at 154 and perhaps among the top 100 of all-time. None of the others do though. Maybe Canelo’s being backed and pushed hard enough that he’ll get more “names” but I sort of see him as a Cotto level fighter. Good, not great. I think if his fights start getting scored fairly he’ll mount up a few losses and that will change the way he’s perceived dramatically.

[elmersalsa]

Mike McCallum is a top 100 pound per pound ATG in my view. One of the most complete boxers of my lifetime!

[Abradolf Lincler]

McCallum and Ward already are.

Gololvkin will likely always be "on the fence". Canelo as well.

[Bodyshot3]

McCallum is a given in my book.

Bona fide world titles won from light-middle right up to light heavy, nearly always playing the travelling man which is tough as hell and also only a tiny smattering of ho-hum opponents faced in these title fights.

Any resume that includes Curry, Jackson, Watson, Harding, Collins, Kalambay, McRory, Kalule and Graham and a draw against a prime Toney deserves proper consideration.

Eubank Junior ain't even in the samehemisphere...….but his old man was always hugely hard to beat and whilst never an ATG Chris Senior would have been a hard night for anyone at SMW.

[BitPlayer]

Ward is a fringe ATG and an ATG Super Middle (only counting since that's been a division), but his short career stopped him reaching higher, and honestly as the division matures, he'll probably drop down, though he's probably only behind Calzaghe ATM. The rest I doubt it.

[littlepug]

McCallum is a given in my book.

Bona fide world titles won from light-middle right up to light heavy, nearly always playing the travelling man which is tough as hell and also only a tiny smattering of ho-hum opponents faced in these title fights.

Any resume that includes Curry, Jackson, Watson, Harding, Collins, Kalambay, McRory, Kalule and Graham and a draw against a prime Toney deserves proper consideration.

Eubank Junior ain't even in the samehemisphere...….but his old man was always hugely hard to beat and whilst never an ATG Chris Senior would have been a hard night for anyone at SMW.

Good post

[tiny_acres]

Ward is a fringe ATG and an ATG Super Middle (only counting since that's been a division), but his short career stopped him reaching higher, and honestly as the division matures, he'll probably drop down, though he's probably only behind Calzaghe ATM. The rest I doubt it.

I'd rank Ward even with Calzaghe. He may have had a short career but he was so dominant at 168.
They were the top 2 super middles in the divisions short history and I can not argue with anyone who has either at the top.

[semtexreilly]

Eubank snr avoided all the top men like the plague and admitted it when he was a champion nowhere near an all time great in my opinion,although he never beat eubank I hold Benn in higher regard as he would have fought anyone

[Bodyshot3]

Eubank snr avoided all the top men like the plague and admitted it when he was a champion nowhere near an all time great in my opinion,although he never beat eubank I hold Benn in higher regard as he would have fought anyone

Agree and also disagree on this one.....

……..it should not be forgotten that an ageing Eubank got in with Calzaghe and arguably gave Joe his stiffest examination at SMW. Calzaghe himself has said that it was a daunting/testing night and it was also a fight Collins had declined.

Eubank also had one heck of a title fight with Mike Watson - and Watson won a lot of rounds that night and was a quality operator - the fight had a tragic ending but demonstrated that Eubank could defend against elite fighters.

But you're also right.....Benn travelled to win his titles, Benn's championship-level record has far less dross and he was the guy who has Barkley, the G-Man and DeWitt (on the road) on his resume.

[cfang]

Golovkin and canelo are atgs. So is ward. McCallum is slightly overated on these forums. Great fighter though and an atg. G Mac and eubank snr are a step behind as good as they were.

[gilgamesh]

1. Do you think that Mike McCallum, Gerald McClellan, and Chris Eubank should be ranked somewhere near the top ranked boxers of all time?

McCallum is certainly a great fighter, I don't think you'd get too much argument if you saw him as a Top 25 or so Middleweight or Jr. Middleweight, which is nothing to scoff at.

Gerald McClellan is a good fighter, and a tragic case of what can happen in the fight game sometimes. I don't think he established himself as an ATG really as the only real noteworthy wins he has are the Julian Jackson wins, but he was certainly a powerful, and tough guy at his best.

Eubank isn't on the level of either McCallum or McClellan, but he's not far from McClellan's in the all time standings.


2. Do you think that Gennady Golovkin, Canelo Alvarez, Andre Ward, Keith Thurman, Jermall Charlo, and Jermell Charlo will be ranked among the top boxers of all time?

Andre Ward I'd say has already established himself as one of the Top 2 all time best Super Middleweights. It's either him or Joe Calzaghe, and I'd say that's almost unanimous. Of course Super Middleweight is a young division, but nevertheless he's been one of the best in it, and IMO is THE BEST at the weight. Nobody's resume at 168 is deeper, including Joe C.

Keith Thurman is a very good fighter, but I don't get the feeling he'll wind up going down as an ATG. I think he'll be more like a Chad Dawson. A good fighter, who had a hell of a run, but then went downhill, though I don't think he'll wind up on the losing side quite as often before just calling it a career as much as Dawson has.

Gennady Golovkin has already had one of the All Time great Middleweight title reigns, but with the challengers he faced often being less than stellar I don't know that most would see him as any better than Top 20 at Middleweight at best, but given the divisions incredibly rich history that's still tremendous.

Canelo Alvarez is certainly one of the bigger stars of this era, and has already accomplished a tremendous amount in his career. From the looks of it he has at least 3 or 4 more years in him to add to his already impressive resume. Yeah he'll wind up going down as an ATG. To what degree I'm not sure, but he's already done quite a bit, and he's still going...and improving I'd say.

Jury's still out on the Charlo's. They're good fighters, but I'm not sure how either will fare at the Elite level, and their last performances certainly weren't particularly inspiring. We'll see where they go from here.

[semtexreilly]

Eubank snr avoided all the top men like the plague and admitted it when he was a champion nowhere near an all time great in my opinion,although he never beat eubank I hold Benn in higher regard as he would have fought anyone

Agree and also disagree on this one.....

……..it should not be forgotten that an ageing Eubank got in with Calzaghe and arguably gave Joe his stiffest examination at SMW. Calzaghe himself has said that it was a daunting/testing night and it was also a fight Collins had declined.

Eubank also had one heck of a title fight with Mike Watson - and Watson won a lot of rounds that night and was a quality operator - the fight had a tragic ending but demonstrated that Eubank could defend against elite fighters.

But you're also right.....Benn travelled to win his titles, Benn's championship-level record has far less dross and he was the guy who has Barkley, the G-Man and DeWitt (on the road) on his resume.

Agree with you mate,it's just all the fights eubank had inbetween Benn II and the calzague fight that put me right off him,the bum a month club etc,by rights he should have lost a cpl of those,He was tough as nails though,and showed some massive heart in the carl thomson fights,Still don't believe hes anywhere near h.o.f. material though

[Bodyshot3]

Agree with you mate,it's just all the fights eubank had inbetween Benn II and the calzague fight that put me right off him,the bum a month club etc,by rights he should have lost a cpl of those,He was tough as nails though,and showed some massive heart in the carl thomson fights,Still don't believe hes anywhere near h.o.f. material though

Very fair comment

Many of those fights totally stank and felt very cynical indeed .....with Eubank failing to put away or even fully exert himself against some very average opposition indeed.

Somewhat ironically the one's that did not stink was when the 'opponent' refused to read the script...….Ray Close being a good and also notably unlucky example.

Wharton was a challenger-in-common with Benn and both Chris and Nigel (wisely) decided that this was not a guy to have a firefight with and chose to box and move.