BoxRec

ya although a problem i have is that so many ppl predict hypothetical era vs era fights on resume, when that clearly biases it to those eras were guys fought non stop

go to the history section of any forum, and the regulars there are outraged when you pick a modern fighter to beat an old timer with more big wins. and its simply based on resume 'but modern fighter x didnt have nearly as strong a record of wins!'

so basically atg debate of that nature will be frozen in the past

i mean, if in every division you had a tournament with the best fighters, the winners resume will get a lot stronger even if they werent any better then pre tournament

Athletes can't overcome the fact that the present is not the past.

i agree, which is why i think a lot of the atg stuff is unfair and comes down too heavily to differences in the business of the sport these days

jamamb wrote: ↑18 Mar 2018, 01:23 i agree, which is why i think a lot of the atg stuff is unfair and comes down too heavily to differences in the business of the sport these days

The sport itself, the fans, the methods of delivery have all changed drastically. Sugar Ray Robinson lost almost 10% of his fights. If a guy loses a round today he's been totally exposed as a complete bum who doesn't deserve a paycheck.

halfamill wrote: ↑17 Mar 2018, 15:23 The general consensus among hardcore boxing fans is that Sugar Ray Robinson is the greatest fighter pound for pound of all time. If a fighter today wants to achieve that as their goal what would they have to do?

A couple of scenarios..

If Pacquiao had defeated Mayweather, faced Canelo/Golovkin, and called it quits, where would he be ranked all time?

If Ward returns decisively defeats danngerous light heavyweights Bivol, Bertebiev, Gvozdyk, went up to cruiserweight dominates Usyk, goes to heavyweight defeats Wilder and Joshua. Where would he rank all time?

If Roman Gonzalez had not lost and kept being #1 at four more weight classes?

If Ward or Gonzalez could accomplish such impossible feats one of them would be the number 1 ATG -- but there is no super human boxer and never will be... I also don't think the general consensus among hardcore fans it that Robinson was the best ever... He got beaten up too much, lost to massive underdogs and lost too many of his World Title Fights.

Mayweather, who is the only boxer in History to win World Titles in 5 weight divisions while winning all his career fights -- and he beat all time greats: Cotto, De La Hoya, and Canelo in his 5th weight division after not going up to Lightweight until he was 25... He also won something like 25 World Title Fights without a loss... That's enough to be the GOAT when you consider how many Title Fights Ali and Robinson had (not as many) and how many they lost (quite a few)... They also didn't defend that well, taking a lot of head shots....which left them in poor health.

Lomachenko has the best skills of any boxer who ever fought... and there are a number of boxers today who could eventually end up the GOAT when you look at what Mikey Garcia has already accomplished in being the only fighter in History to win Titles at 126, 130, 135, and 140 while remaining undefeated -- and the fact that Joshua has 100% win ratio and 100% KO ratio going into his 6th Heavyweight Championship Fight -- nobody has ever accomplished that before... And if you look at the the talent laden Welterweight, Light Heavyweight, and Cruiserweight Divisions, some highly ranked ATG fighters are going to be emerging in the next few years.

Deleted_Scenes wrote: ↑17 Mar 2018, 18:13 In terms of skill, I'm not sure boxing has moved that far since WW2. Early 20th century, of course the sport was a lot more primitive, but I'd say certain areas like footwork have actually regressed in the last 30 years.

I don't see footwork from past fighters that's been lost... It's been added to... You never saw another boxer do the tight cuts and angles Lomachenko gets on opponents -- even on masters like Rigondeaux.... That stuff is new.

Mikey Garcia's footwork combined with his timing pulls you into punches better than anyone I've seen before... Nobody has previously won World Titles at 126, 130, 135, and 140 while staying undefeated before.

And it's not the number of fights you have that will determine your skill level...

Mikey Garcia has more pro victories than Sugar Ray Leonard had in his entire career....... Archie Moore was knocked out in the 1st round by a neophyte with 11 win in 14 fights. It was Moore's 114th fight...... George Chuvalo fought 93 fights. I never saw any superlative skills from him....... Ezzard Charles fought 121 fights, but lost the majority of his final 30 fights, starting in 1953....... Kid Gavilan lost 13 of his last 20 fights. A certain amount of ring wear starts to kick in if you fight that often.

If you're fighting so often and winning one and losing the next -- you start doing it to put food on the table and pay the mortgage.... It becomes like a guy heading into a coal mine or working the line in a factory.....not so much fun.

jezzamundo wrote: ↑18 Mar 2018, 00:30 I think it's pretty much impossible for a modern boxer to be considered the ATG. True greatness comes from fighting the best fighters in your era in their primes and ideally they too should have fought plenty of top prime fighters too. This happens pretty rarely these days, plus boxers fight less frequently.

Yes,

I swear some people are talking about a sustained busy schedule of almost constant fighting as if it's nothing but a dirty trick that the old timers used to dupe us into ranking them too high. If you ask me, fighting regularly is just plain more impressive than fighting once a year and, all in all, would be better regarded as an accomplishment in itself.

squiggy wrote: ↑18 Mar 2018, 14:30 I swear some people are talking about a sustained busy schedule of almost constant fighting as if it's nothing but a dirty trick that the old timers used to dupe us into ranking them too high. If you ask me, fighting regularly is just plain more impressive than fighting once a year and, all in all, would be better regarded as an accomplishment in itself.

Yuppers! It's a fact,

oogiebe wrote: ↑18 Mar 2018, 14:34

squiggy wrote: ↑18 Mar 2018, 14:30 I swear some people are talking about a sustained busy schedule of almost constant fighting as if it's nothing but a dirty trick that the old timers used to dupe us into ranking them too high. If you ask me, fighting regularly is just plain more impressive than fighting once a year and, all in all, would be better regarded as an accomplishment in itself.

Yuppers! It's a fact,

I don't think anyone has ever talked about it as a "dirty trick", but rather simply how boxers earned their money before TV, PPV, and mega purses. Would Harry Greb have fought 44 times in 1919 if he would have had the option of a 5-10 million dollar purse for one or two fights? In a lot of ways it's a completely different sport.

not a dirty trick at all, thats just being sensitive and defensive about old timers to say ppl are making it seem like that.

its just a reality that the sport has changed in a way beyond control of the boxers today, and that it makes it extremely difficult to match past atg resumes even if you have the absolutely perfect boxer. the dates and opportunities just arent there to nearly the same extent

so when we go just by adding up wins, it certainly is unfair to a degree on more recent generations, because its beyond there control. even if your a perfect boxer and want to stay super active, you are very limited in what you can do

harry greb if he were around today couldnt come close to fighting 44 times a year vs anyone decent even if he was willing to take all the fights for no pay

unless he was a journyeman brought in to lose that is. for a world level boxer such great levels of activity simply cannot be done even if there totally willling.

so atg placements based so heavily on listing wins are inherently biased in favour of past generations

punchoutsb wrote: ↑18 Mar 2018, 19:11Would Harry Greb have fought 44 times in 1919 if he would have had the option of a 5-10 million dollar purse for one or two fights?

Whether he would have or not, a Harry Greb that retired with 25% as many fights would be a hell of a lot less impressive.

jamamb wrote: ↑18 Mar 2018, 19:22 not a dirty trick at all, thats just being sensitive and defensive about old timers to say ppl are making it seem like that.

its just a reality that the sport has changed in a way beyond control of the boxers today, and that it makes it extremely difficult to match past atg resumes even if you have the absolutely perfect boxer. the dates and opportunities just arent there to nearly the same extent

so when we go just by adding up wins, it certainly is unfair to a degree on more recent generations, because its beyond there control. even if your a perfect boxer and want to stay super active, you are very limited in what you can do

I understand it's basically a different sport today. Personally I never even think about the best of any period but my own lifetime. And even that is of course just based on my opinions.
But you've been using phrases like "fought non-stop" as part of arguments *against* guys' greatness. Like "well, yeah, he beat Henry Armstrong, Randy Turpin, Gene Fullmer, Carmen Basilio, Bobo Olson, Sammy Angott, Fritzie Zivic, Jake LaMotta, and Kid Gavilan -- but it's not that big a deal, because he fought non-stop, and obviously you've got to count that against him."
Frankly, at world class level, It's a wussier sport than it used to be. Once guys are established, their team spends six months lining up their next fight, then another six to fly them around to P.R. press stops to flash and pose in front of cameras in hopes of putting extra 0s on everybody's paychecks. I acknowledge that, but I won't celebrate it.

If you're into rock & roll, it reminds me, by sloppy analogy, of the scene in the Lemmy documentary where Dave Grohl says "a lot of people think that rock stars are people like the Rolling Stones, but if you think about it, what are the Rolling Stones doing on a Saturday night? They're flying some private jet to Paris to bang some million dollar hooker. But what's Lemmy doing on a Saturday night? He's slamming Jack and Cokes and writing songs for the next Motorhead album. Which one do you want to be your rock star?"

i never remotely suggested that its not a big deal that guys were super busy and it allowed them to get a bunch of good wins. it is a big deal. but as someone said, athletes, no matter how good or willing, cant overcome the fact that today isnt the past.

when we base things so heavily on adding up wins we are then ranking greatness on a factor that hugely biases towards specific generations, a factor that is not ability, motivation, willingness to fight the best, etc. because modern fighters can be absolutely perfect fighters and challenge thmeslves as much as they can, but its just the reality today that non-ring factors (ie business and politics) greatly constrains them in a way it didnt used to

so, in effect a lot of greatness is coming down to when someone fought and not there own qualities, with a big bias towards past generations. the reality is then that the atg debates based so heavily on resume are unfair, going well beyond the ability and willingess to fight the best of the boxers, and to the busienss and political restraints

that doesnt necessairly mean fighters of past generations shouldnt be ranked higher, but they had a massive advantage todays fighters dont. like ive said, you can have absolutely the perfect fighter today, and its almost guarnteed that hell accomplish less big wins today then he wouldve in the past, even if he was the same in all other respects.

jamamb wrote: ↑18 Mar 2018, 20:31 i never remotely suggested that its not a big deal that guys were super busy and it allowed them to get a bunch of good wins. it is a big deal.

but when we base things so heavily on adding up wins we are then ranking greatness on a factor that hugely biases towards specific generations, a factor that is not ability, motivation, willingness to fight the best, etc. because modern fighters can be absolutely perfect fighters and challenge thmeslves as much as they can, but its just the reality today that non-ring factors (ie business and politics) greatly constrains them in a way it didnt used to

so, in effect a lot of greatness is coming down to when someone fought, with a big bias towards past generations. the reality is then that the atg debates based so heavily on resume are unfair, going well beyond the ability and willingess to fight the best of the boxers, and to the busienss and political restraints

that doesnt necessairly mean fighters of past generations shouldnt be ranked higher, but they had a massive advantage todays fighters dont. like ive said, you can have absolutely the perfect fighter today, and its almost guarnteed that hell accomplish less big wins today then he wouldve in the past, even if he was the same in all other respects.

With the money today, no one has to fight 44 times in one year. (someone alluded to that earlier). That's what's changed. Like in Major League Baseball; the players prior to free agency had to take jobs in the off-season, unless you were DiMaggio or Ruth who made a massive $100k per year. (sarcasm). So it was a matter of financial necessity and if one has to fight so many times, most of those fights will be against local fighters who we never heard of. So it's a tossup for me.

ya and even if someone wanted to fight 44 times today good luck with that. pretty much a totally un-doable schedule unless your a journeyman and even that is probably unrealistic too. no chance an elite fighter could do that and mix in bouts with top opponents, even if thats what they wanted. some places make it hard just by giving an automatic suspension to anyone who boxes.

"Fighters today can't fight 44 times a year "
A lot of present day champions aren't even fighting twice each year. Pacquiao only fought 1-2 times each year since 2008. Mayweather only fought 11 times in the 10 years that followed the Hatton fight. Ward only fought 7 times in the 6 years that followed the Froch fight. It's ridiculous to bemoan that they can't fight 44 times per year when they could certainly fight 3-4 times per year and choose not to.

This is all aside from the fact that a lot of the top 10 p4p all-time fighters have, at some point in their career, beat at least 1 top 25 p4p all-time opponent. Mayweather, Pacquiao, Ward, and Hopkins have not done this. The present day has a lot of yellow matchmaking that prevents this from happening.
-If Mayweather was attempting to distinguish himself as #1 all-time (it's clear that this was not his priority), he could have fought Tszyu, fought Hatton at 140 before jumping to 147, fought Paul Williams, fought Margacheato (probably better that he didn't, though), fought Pacquiao in 2009 (sh*t, why not fight him twice for good measure, since he's such a great scalp), fought Lara, and chosen not to fake retire between 2007 and 2009.
-If Ward wanted any hope of becoming #1 all-time, to start with, he would have needed there to be some LHW tournament between himself, Kovalev, Stevenson, Bivol, Gvozdyk, and Beterbiev. Even if such a tournament happened, it likely would not have been nearly enough. Most of these LHW's have accomplished almost nothing, and they would need to beat much better opposition before meeting-up with Ward. Henry Armstrong was the simultaneous champion of 3 of the world's 8 divisions at once; he is 100 times the scalp of someone like Gvozdyk, who is just a titlist with like 1 win against a divisional top 15 opponent. I mean, damn, even Sammy Angott (one of Robinson's many great scalps) was beating a handful of divisional top 15 opponents every year. Angott's got like 18 wins that are at least Chilemba or better caliber, including a win over the undefeated, legendary Willie Pep; whereas Gvozdyk has only 1 win over Chilemba and that's it. Beterbiev's only accomplishments are wins over Cloud and Campillo; he is a total nothing compared to someone like Bobo Olson, who has wins over multiple hall of famers.

The entire reason there is so much disagreement about whether modern fighters deserve #1 all-time status is because some people have no idea how pathetically the resumes of modern fighters like Beterbiev stack-up to the resumes of Robinson's opponents. They just don't understand how super gigantic the gulf is.

Lackeos wrote: ↑18 Mar 2018, 23:13 Beterbiev's only accomplishments are wins over Cloud and Campillo; he is a total nothing compared to someone like Bobo Olson, who has wins over multiple hall of famers.

The entire reason there is so much disagreement about whether modern fighters deserve #1 all-time status is because some people have no idea how pathetically the resumes of modern fighters like Beterbiev stack-up to the resumes of Robinson's opponents. They just don't understand how super gigantic the gulf is.

Bobo Olsen had no strength and couldn't defend himself well... He got knocked out a lot and knocked out badly... To compare a guy so easy to hit and KO to Beterbiev who has a tremendous chin, defense, and punching power is idiotic.. Bobo was a waif with limpy soft arms and no power... His KO ratio was 40%... Beterbiev's is 100%.

Ralph Jones lost 5 straight fights and then beat the holy crap out of Ray Robinson.... Robinson lost to a poorly skilled Welterweight when he was Middleweight Champion... Robinson couldn't beat super slow, soft puncher like Joey Maxim because he ran out of gas.. Maxim got beaten by a lot of guys who had far less punching power and skill than Beterbiev.

It's funny when the only thing you have to criticize a fighter on is fights that he won and knocked his opponent out.... And you call him a total nothing... When you see how easy Robinson was to hit and knockdown... and how badly hurt he was a few times, you can understand why he suffered as he did from the sport.

Kalan wrote: ↑19 Mar 2018, 07:17

Lackeos wrote: ↑18 Mar 2018, 23:13 Beterbiev's only accomplishments are wins over Cloud and Campillo; he is a total nothing compared to someone like Bobo Olson, who has wins over multiple hall of famers.

The entire reason there is so much disagreement about whether modern fighters deserve #1 all-time status is because some people have no idea how pathetically the resumes of modern fighters like Beterbiev stack-up to the resumes of Robinson's opponents. They just don't understand how super gigantic the gulf is.

Bobo Olsen had no strength and couldn't defend himself well... He got knocked out a lot and knocked out badly... To compare a guy so easy to hit and KO to Beterbiev who has a tremendous chin, defense, and punching power is idiotic..

yeah, really dumb comparison...

kindof like comparing someone like Chris Eubank Jr with the likes of Eder Jofre, Salvador Sanchez and Floyd Mayweather..

Kalan wrote: ↑31 Jan 2017, 19:17 Some of the smartest boxers up until the present day: Vasyl Lomachenko, Gene Tunney, Jack Johnson, Salvador Sanchez, Vitali Klitschko, Anthony Joshua, Floyd Mayweather, Gennady Golovkin, Joe Gans, Keith Thurman, Chris Eubank Jr, Manny Pacquiao, Roberto Duran, Ray Leonard, Gary Russell, Jack Blackburn, Willie Pep, Ricardo Lopez, Eder Jofre, Tommy Loughran, Mike Gibbons, David Haye, Jim Corbett, Juan Manuel Marquez, Gustav Scholz, and Max Schmeling

what kind of schmuck would make a comparison like that, eh?

I think the trouble is fighters generally don't take the chances they once did. Can you imagine a featherweight champion going straight for the welterweight crown? Or having rematches a few weeks later, 6 fight plus series.

When fighters in the past have pulled this off you have to match really, but almost no one is going for this crazy stuff anymore, so they'll never top previous achievements.

Mayweather and Pac-man fought once when both were aging and well above natural weight, in another era they might have fought 6 times or something, probably at least a trilogy.

Deleted_Scenes wrote: ↑17 Mar 2018, 18:13

oogiebe wrote: ↑17 Mar 2018, 17:36

tiny_acres wrote: ↑17 Mar 2018, 17:04 This is not a knock on previous generations

But the past is seen through rose colored glasses. It would take God himself to come down and proclaim a fighter the greatest of all time. And then 90% of those that witnessed it would call God a liar and an idiot.

IT's true, but this thread is truly opinion. Only ONE person in the forum will crap on this. Guess who? lol! Past generations can't compete with today's athletes in any sport in reality, with few exceptions.

True, but if SRR was fighting today, he'd have access to all of today's science and training methods.

In terms of skill, I'm not sure boxing has moved that far since WW2. Early 20th century, of course the sport was a lot more primitive, but I'd say certain areas like footwork have actually regressed in the last 30 years.

Boxers today just don't fight often enough to learn certain nuances to quite as high a level. That's offset by being more athletic/explosive (although cutting too much can undo a lot of that too).

Anyway, didn't Robinson beat something like 14 fellow hall of famers? That's crazy.

What even are these new training methods that are so advantageous?

I've never seen anyone talking about them actually explain what better stuff they are doing.

did they have peds back then

peds deffo make ppl better