BoxRec

Don't know if anyone will get where I'm coming from but I've never really been that impressed with fighters retiring undefeated,I would prefer to see them fight on until they met someone good enough to beat them that way we get to see how they come back from a loss which is one of the things we look for in a great champion,and if an undefeated champ gets beat at the tailend of his career he is simply passing the torch on to the next generation,any thoughts?

Boxers are usually sick of the business as their careers extend into the years. Rocky Marciano is my favorite of all time. He as I understood things was sick of the business as well, when he put em down.

For the most part guys do lose their 0 eventually. Not a lot of cases where a great champion has retired unbeaten. Most of the ones that have didn't have the greatest careers compared to other great champions throughout the sport's history.

max hord wrote:Boxers are usually sick of the business as their careers extend into the years. Rocky Marciano is my favorite of all time. He as I understood things was sick of the business as well, when he put em down.

I think one of the key contributing factors to his retiring so early was he found out his manager was f***ing him out of a lot of money, if I'm not mistaken several of his challengers made more money than he did when defending his title. His frustration over this has as much to do with his retirement as anything else. A lot of people act like Archie Moore alone convinced Rocky to hang 'em up, this is not the case.

It's the champs like calZage that irk me as he only had one decent world class name( Kessler who is very good but not great) on his resume

littlepug wrote:It's the champs like calZage that irk me as he only had one decent world class name( Kessler who is very good but not great) on his resume

Ummm Bernard Hopkins?

dempseyfire wrote:

littlepug wrote:It's the champs like calZage that irk me as he only had one decent world class name( Kessler who is very good but not great) on his resume

Ummm Bernard Hopkins?

Okay fair enough 2 then

littlepug wrote:Don't know if anyone will get where I'm coming from but I've never really been that impressed with fighters retiring undefeated,I would prefer to see them fight on until they met someone good enough to beat them that way we get to see how they come back from a loss which is one of the things we look for in a great champion,and if an undefeated champ gets beat at the tailend of his career he is simply passing the torch on to the next generation,any thoughts?

It depends on the champ. If it's a beltholder like Ottke who gets gifts, I agree that it's not that impressive. Marciano, Finito and Calzaghe were different. They all cleaned out a division and dominated it for years. But the general statement that a fighter should stay around until he loses makes no sense to me. If a fighter beats everyone worthy of fighting him, that means he should just hang around until he's past it and can be beaten. There's no need for a passing of the torch. Spinks left light heavy undefeated; there would've been no point to his having stayed there for four or five more years to pass the torch.

littlepug wrote:

dempseyfire wrote:

littlepug wrote:It's the champs like calZage that irk me as he only had one decent world class name( Kessler who is very good but not great) on his resume

Ummm Bernard Hopkins?

Okay fair enough 2 then

Roy Jones? Jeff Lacy (nobody thought Joe would win that)? Charles Brewer?

Agreed that in terms of career stage Kessler is the best, and then Lacy. I'd have wanted Joe to put it on a the line a LOT more times, but I think I take issue with the statement anyway.

RJJ was already finished when Calzaghe got to him.
Reid and Eubank weren't, though, as Eubank showed two divisions up against Thompson the following year.

Kessler is the best then Lacy? Did Hopkins disappear from his record or do you honestly believe Jeff Lacy was better than any version of Bernard Hopkins?

Kenny Klingman retired after a 22-0-0, 21 KO Record.
Ray "Sonny" Schlamp was 16-0-0,16KO amateur,17-0-0, 17KO pro.
Dorian Malamed was 44-0-0,42KO amateur,7-0-0,7KO pro.
Scott Daley was 26-0-0, 26 KO pro.

Strange these promising prospects would retire, but a close look at there records show that their competition left alot to be desired.

The End wrote:Kessler is the best then Lacy? Did Hopkins disappear from his record or do you honestly believe Jeff Lacy was better than any version of Bernard Hopkins?

Fair point. Didn't think that through :) I don't think either Robin Reid or Eubank were proven world class in the way that the others mentioned were. Eubank didn't fight the best, with the exception of Benn, who had tested himself against some serious operaters.

SamWise72 wrote:

The End wrote:Kessler is the best then Lacy? Did Hopkins disappear from his record or do you honestly believe Jeff Lacy was better than any version of Bernard Hopkins?

Fair point. Didn't think that through :) I don't think either Robin Reid or Eubank were proven world class in the way that the others mentioned were. Eubank didn't fight the best, with the exception of Benn, who had tested himself against some serious operaters.

I think Eubank clearly was a world class fighter.

TERRY MARSH was another one who retired undefeated

Harry Simon kind of "retired" undefeated.

Rover wrote:Harry Simon kind of "retired" undefeated.

The heavyweight crazy Ike was another recent one ...if you call retiring being locked up before you kill someone. He should be out soon :)

polecateddy wrote:

Rover wrote:Harry Simon kind of "retired" undefeated.

The heavyweight crazy Ike was another recent one ...if you call retiring being locked up before you kill someone. He should be out soon :)

I think he'll be deported.

Rover wrote:

SamWise72 wrote:

The End wrote:Kessler is the best then Lacy? Did Hopkins disappear from his record or do you honestly believe Jeff Lacy was better than any version of Bernard Hopkins?

Fair point. Didn't think that through :) I don't think either Robin Reid or Eubank were proven world class in the way that the others mentioned were. Eubank didn't fight the best, with the exception of Benn, who had tested himself against some serious operaters.

I think Eubank clearly was a world class fighter.

I think so too, but really, he only fought the best domestic opposition, not even the best in Europe, never mind the world. Benn and Watson are not sufficient markers on their own. Benn fought Nardiello and Galvano, who were amongst the best in Europe outside the UK, and McClellan, Barkley and even DeWitt were a level above Eubank's international opposition. Watson of course fought McCallum, who for me is better than any that either Benn or Eubank faced, and although he lost, I admire his willingness to fight the best. Eubank, by comparison, only has Rochigianni to hold up against the others. The WBO was, and really still is, a junior title, and Eubank used it to avoid facing the very best. Smart business move, but not evidence of world class.

Benn was a world class super middle. His being from England doesn't diminish that. Eubank stopped him, and they then fought to a draw. Watson also was a world class fighter given what he did to Benn--and the hell he gave Eubank.
If two fighters are from the same country and fight, that still can be a fight between two world class fighters.
Spinks was a world class light heavy. Look at his title competition: Mustafa, Johnson, Wassaja, Celestine, Sutherland, Davis, Qawi, Rivadeneyra, Davis, Sears, MacDonald. The two foreign opponents he fought (Wassaja and Rivadeneyra) are viewed as two of his not-so-significant defenses, especially Rivadeneyra. So Spinks was a world class fighter, which he proved by defeating mostly top American fighters. Their being American didn't detract from their quality.

That's true, but he was fighting in a division where most of the world class fighters happened to be from his country. If Michael Carbajal had only fought Americans, he wouldn't have been taken seriously.

The list of significant top class fighters Eubank didn't fight is a lot longer than the list of those he did; Benn was prepared to go and face some of the best wherever they were from. Eubank wasn't, despite beating Benn.

SamWise72 wrote:That's true, but he was fighting in a division where most of the world class fighters happened to be from his country. If Michael Carbajal had only fought Americans, he wouldn't have been taken seriously.

The list of significant top class fighters Eubank didn't fight is a lot longer than the list of those he did; Benn was prepared to go and face some of the best wherever they were from. Eubank wasn't, despite beating Benn.

But he still beat Benn and Watson, who were world class fighters. Neither of them fought Toney or Jones. Was Barkley world class? Which quality foreign fighter did he beat?
Kalambay: Loss.
Duran: Loss.
Benn: Loss.
I'd still call Barkley world class.
As for the Carbajal example, the top dogs at light fly were from other countries. There were no megafights with other U.S. light flies to be made (world class ones). (Yes, I know he fought a 4-rounder with Grigsby, who went on to become a champ, and I'm not including this.)

I agree that none of them fought Toney or Jones, and Benn didn't fight McCallum either. I think the key points of difference for me were Benn fighting McClellan, and Watson fighting McCallum, and both having the ambition to go after one of the major titles, even if that meant meeting one of the best. I don't think I'll ever feel Eubank's resume quite stacks up against that, though he proved himself the better fighter than either. For that reason, I'd be more impressed with a prime Benn than a prime Eubank on Calzaghe's resume.

(Calzaghe's approach was similar through most of his career; do what makes me the most money. I think Joe was good enough to beat anyone bar Jones in period, and I'd like to have seen the Jones fight. The fact is, he didn't. He stayed home and boxed relatively easy opposition)

SamWise72 wrote:I agree that none of them fought Toney or Jones, and Benn didn't fight McCallum either. I think the key points of difference for me were Benn fighting McClellan, and Watson fighting McCallum, and both having the ambition to go after one of the major titles, even if that meant meeting one of the best. I don't think I'll ever feel Eubank's resume quite stacks up against that, though he proved himself the better fighter than either. For that reason, I'd be more impressed with a prime Benn than a prime Eubank on Calzaghe's resume.

But Watson didn't beat McCallum. I don't think a KO loss makes one's resume superior to another fighter--who, BTW, beat him twice. And Eubank fought both Benn and Watson; their being fellow Englishmen doesn't lessen their quality. It'd have been no different had they been from the U.S. McCallum and McClellan came to England to fight Watson and Benn; what if they, too, had been English? One's nationality has nothing to do with his quality as a fighter.
As for the "major title" argument, the WBO now has become one of the "big four," and Eubank, along with fighters a few years later like MAB, Hamed and Calzaghe made it so. There was a time just a few years earlier when the IBF (the title Jones and Toney held at 168) was just like the WBO--approximately five years before Eubank won his WBO title, in fact.

polecateddy wrote:

Rover wrote:Harry Simon kind of "retired" undefeated.

The heavyweight crazy Ike was another recent one ...if you call retiring being locked up before you kill someone. He should be out soon :)

He's been out, Harry had a few fights a couple years ago.

Jimmy Barry, Agustin Senin, Jemal Hinton