BoxRec

I was just wondering what makes a fighter become so great in the minds of everyone? and dont state the obvious please!

If you beat 10 guys named Eenie, meanie, miney, moe, and make a couple of bad rap songs, apparently.

Not that Keed is promoting any kind of particular agenda with that post or anything...

My top criteria for all-time greatness would probably be:

* Beating or holding your own with fellow ATGs (who are not terribly past their primes or fighting several weight classes above the ones they excelled in). If you fight in a weak era for your particular division (e.g. Marciano, and to a lesser degree, Louis) you'd better seriously dominate the division.

* Consistency of excellence over a reasonably long time span. You can't win some great fights when you train hard and come in focused, only to lose to journeymen in many of your worse outings. Lennox Lewis' KO losses to McCall and Rahman hurt him in the ATG HW standings, but are somewhat mitigated by the fact that those are his only career losses, and both were avenged convincingly.

A good example of how both of the above come into play is the Ezzard Charles/Archie Moore debate in the ATG rankings at light-heavy. Most people agree that Moore & Charles are the top 2 guys all-time at 175, but some have Moore at #1 and others have Charles in the top spot. Charles gets the nod over Moore according to the first of the above criteria (especially by way of having beaten Moore all 3 times they met), but Moore had a much longer (in fact freakishly long) time in the top ranks.

ok here goes vike,
achievement, length of time at the top, performance, style, adaptability, heart, courage, dignity, quality of opponent, all round technique, power, entertainment, fighting all comers.

Self explanatory all of them I would say

J wrote:ok here goes vike,
achievement, length of time at the top, performance, style, adaptability, heart, courage, dignity, quality of opponent, all round technique, power, entertainment, fighting all comers.

Self explanatory all of them I would say

You forgot "cleaning out their division ... and the kitchen sink ..." ;)

those were gimmes, surely

not sure bout the sink thing tho.

Very interesting topic, one I'm sure we'll be kicking around for awhile.
J presents a list of qualities, but some of them are very intangible (like courage - what's the yardstick?). The star quality might inflate the rep of some fighters beyond their accomplishments (Camacho, SRL, even Tyson), while with the craftsmen it's difficult to judge their true value because of relative obscurity (Burley) even if you do have a paper record.
If we each made a list of our ATGs, I'm sure emotion plays a big part. Paper records are helpful and some solid criteria are useful in judging greatness, but I think each of us has a "pet" fighter who showed us something very special maybe just once and I'd argue that even these guys can fit on a list of ATGs.
A list of my ATGs, in no particular order:
Ali, Robinson, Tunney, Louis, Armstrong, Duran, Hagler, Moore, S. Sanchez.

I agree with –Eric The Viking- and his points put forward.
And I would add an exciting style helps a lot, look at Pernell Whitaker, fantastic boxer, and would probably have beaten any fighter at and around lightweight but will never be remembered as a ATG, except by a few connoisseurs.
I would add that for me a fighter to gain this honour they would have to clean out their own division first and then move up and beat the best in the heavier division, not a shop worn champion, but a champion who is still delivering.
I would give this honour to ODLH if he beats Hopkins, the reigning champion may be old but so is Oscar in fighting years also.

tonyevs wrote:I would add an exciting style helps a lot, look at Pernell Whitaker

The problem with criteria like these (and many of J's, though viscerally I agree with most of them) is that they are so extremely subjective. Whether you likes Sweet P's style or not, the fact is that he beat many top guys, including ATGs like Azumah Nelson and Wilfredo Rivera (and even if you agree with the widely-regarded-as-bogus draw vs. Chavez, that makes PW at least the equal of JCC on that night), and most of his (few) career losses were either close-fought/disputed losses to fellow or future ATGs (e.g. De La Hoya) or at the very end of his career (DLH, Trinidad, Bojorquez), and to naturally much-bigger men, to boot. PW lost only once anywhere near his prime and ideal weight, that was a disputed SD loss early in his career to the 100-6 ATG lightweight Jose Luis Ramirez in Ramirez' adopted homeland of France, and was avenged convincingly by PW a year later in a rematch in the U.S. That's a clearly ATG career.

With Whitaker, the question is not so much *whether* he's an ATG - no doubt about that - but more where he ranks in the pantheon of fellow ATGs at lightweight. That's where style tends to influence people's judgment - fans of the tough, brawling guys like Chavez and Duran will usually rank them ahead of slick defensive geniuses who provide few fireworks like Whitaker. But only a fool would deny that Whitaker is not an all-time great.

Like I wrote before, Whitaker was for the connoisseur.

A nice pair of shorts with matching boots.

Being able to fight really, really, really good!

I was just thinking last night that 2 current fighters whose re'sume's are very interesting to evaluate vs. the 2 criteria I put forth are:

Mike Tyson
James Toney

Toney probably just makes the cut because he beat some quality guys (e.g. Nunn and McCallum) during his tenure at middleweight, and had a great comeback last year, after nearly 10 years in the wilderness, as it were.

But Tyson flunks both the first criterion (unless you consider Berbick an ATG or Holmes to have been in his prime when he faced Tyson - neither is credible) and isn't even close on the second.

I would say that ability to perform well in the face of adversity is a quality a great fighter must possess.....cause no matter how many easy fights a guy wins in a riow , sooner or later they have to dig down and gut one out when things aren't going 100% thier way.. The great ones can do that again and again

Tyson will be remembered as an ATG always, like it or not.
Simply because he dominated his era, early years, and when you think of the other ATG from the past he would have to be given a good chance of beating them all.

tonyevs wrote:Tyson will be remembered as an ATG always, like it or not.
Simply because he dominated his era, early years, and when you think of the other ATG from the past he would have to be given a good chance of beating them all.

Tyson was only champ for 19 months actually didn't fight a lot of the top guys from his era ...Guys like Bowe,Witherspoon and Foreman he seemed to avoid

Wins over quality opposition is the only thing I based greatness out of. Everything else is hype.