Overrated and Underrated Big Fights?

[Onetimeonly]

the first fight was awesome. depicting that as overrated or even not a great fight is going too far. the second and third were overrated but no way was the first

[keithmoonhangover]

Underrated:
Holmes/Norton (my all time underrated fight and the 15th round my all time underrated round)
Mancini/Arguello
Castillo/Olivares 1 (OMG! Non-stop!)
Gatti/Ward I


Overrated:
Ali/Frazier II (holding and grabbing for 12 rounds)
Hagler/Leanard (the fight itself sucked)
Gatti/Ward II

I'm sure there's many more.

Who is Holmes-Norton underrated by? I've never read or heard anywhere that is anything else but a classic fight.

[keithmoonhangover]

Tyson/Holyfield, even though you know the result now you can still watch it and feel that feeling of "oh ok this is not going the way most people expected". I mean, prior to the fight people were literally saying in the boxing press "Holyfield might die in there" because he had looked really poor in the 2-3 fights prior to this. Tyson had been bowling through DK stiffs to the point that he didn't even need to land to knock someone out. I watched it live, it was great watching it unfold. That first right hand from Tyson that knocked Holyfield about 2 steps sideways but didn't phase him, you kinda knew it wasn't going to be an early night. Reg called it the biggest upset in the game bar none, that's possibly stretching it for all-time but it was certainly the biggest in recent history.

That Brewer brawl reminds me of the Liles/Littles rematch on a Hamed UC in Newcastle, it was wild:

Another fight that gets overlooked is the Gatti/Ruelas brawl, it had a bit of everything:

Great choices sir.

[Onetimeonly]

I won a tidy sum on holy/Tyson. I had predicted it for almost a decade. Wasn't as confident in 96 as I would have been if Mike beat buster, just different levels of men.

[Ambling Alp II]

I think sometimes people just get tired of hearing about certain fights and call them overrated. Hagler-Leonard was certainly a high quality fight. The Gatti-Ward fights were great fights (at least in terms of action and drama.)
They would be overrated if the fights themselves weren't good and a lot of people were saying they were. That isn't the case here.

[Syntax Error]

I think sometimes people just get tired of hearing about certain fights and call them overrated. Hagler-Leonard was certainly a high quality fight. The Gatti-Ward fights were great fights (at least in terms of action and drama.)
They would be overrated if the fights themselves weren't good and a lot of people were saying they were. That isn't the case here.

In the case of Leonard/Hagler, I think it's a case of the magnitude of the event and Sugar Ray's performance which elevates the fight to mythical levels.

As an out and out contest, it was good, but largely unremarkable.

The way Leonard was able to out psyche Hagler was great, but Hagler's arrogance cost him that fight.

[chrisjs1985]

The Gatti-Ward series gets all the attention but BOTH Gatti-Robinson fights were excellent. Perhaps none as great as Gatti-Ward I but both fights were far better than Gatti-Ward II & III. I felt Gatti-Ward II was boring and fight III was solid with some real drama in one round.

The Zaragoza-Banke trilogy was great and rarely gets a mention. The first two fights were great battles. The third a bit of a clinic by Zaragoza. Zaragoza may get dismissed because he's a bit of a pretty boy but he had some really fun fights are wars like McCollough, Lee, Park, Hatanaka, Tatsuyoshi etc;

Some fights I find highly underrated : -

Masao Ohba vs. Betulio Gonzalez
Masao Ohba vs. Chartchai Chionoi
Eder Jofre vs. Jose Medel I
Ruben Olivares vs. Kazayoshi Kanazawa II
Rafael Marquez vs. Mark Johnson I

Marvin Hagler vs. Roberto Duran - Big fight, I hear people call it a snoozer. I think the skill was too great to say that and it's a fascinating fight IMO.

[DrDuke]

Ibragimov vs Austin is quite underrated. And it's quite big too, an IBF eliminator after all.

[Bodyshot3]

De Gale v Groves.

With that wonderful commodity called hindsight it is fair to say that this was an important fight but it never truly caught light and the huge publicity around it ended-up looking overblown.

Two talented guys with big futures ahead of them - and some proper bad blood in the mix too - but there were probably a dozen far harder/better British title fights that year in terms of action.

And ultimately this was essentially a domestic bragging rights fight that is 'kindly' described as skilful/cagey.

I enjoyed the whole thing to be honest.....but it was style over substance as a fight and not quite the massive deal in terms of world boxing that it was artfully presented as.