I agree that any fighter winning a world title when world titles were world titles has acheived a greatness of sorts... perhaps there are levels of greatness. Winning a world title takes you to a certain level, after that the next level is that of being a good champion and then a little higher level of being a great champion. Randy Turpin was a great fighter in my book but wouldn't be classed as a great world champion I think.walshb wrote:Personally, I believe that any fighter thru history who has won a legitimate version of a world title deserves to be called a great fighter. By legitimate, I mean a recognised body like the WBA, WBC or IBF.....I know now that there are so many versions of titles available and it has become farcical........Then there are the real ring legends who are above great, they are SUPER.....In this class I'd have Ali, Louis, Foreman, Holmes, Ray Leonard, Marciano, Holyfield, Ray Robinson, Hearns, Hagler, Monzon, Duran, Chavez, DLH....It's like household names and people know them by their first name or surname only. There are more I know, but the ones I've mentioned automatically came to mind...My idea of greats include, Barry McGuigan, Azumah Nelson, Whitaker, James Toney, Michael Nunn, Aaron Pryor, Hopkins, Floyd Patterson, Ezzard Charles, Walcott, Bob Foster....etc etc etc
I think longevity is a factor but then some fighters with short peaks achieve enough in that time to seal their greatness... Henry Armstrong had a short peak compared with many greats but what a peak it was!.Ezzard wrote:I think three categories define a great fighter. Ability, achievement and longevity.
Ability is everythign from physical attributes (speed, strength, stamina, chin, power, etc...), skills (defense, accuracy) and mental attributes.
I suppose you could class Quarry as a 'great contender'..... he had the ability to have been champion in another less talented era and probably would have beaten quite a few of the men who did win the world title down history.kingpawn wrote:Agree and disagree with a lot of comments being made. Of course, what we're all attempting here is to pin some criteria on greatness -- i.e. have to have held a title, or have to beaten a certain number of other good fighters, or have to have had some extraordinary talent as a fighter. It's similar to this fascination with all time lists.
I definitely disagree that having held a title is a measuring stick for greatness. There have been many champions throughout history who wouldn't have beaten half the contenders in the top 20 at the time they held their belts. In fact, I bet we could run a thread two or three pages long on that point.
I think there is a certain "it" that is not always defined by certain qualities or achievements that make a fighter great. It's just something you recognize in a fighter even when not all the generally accepted critieria necessarily fits. Jerry Quarry is one fighter who comes to mind. Dude was never world champion. No one's got him on their "biggest punchers ever" list. He often took a lot of punishment in his fights. But damned if he didn't rack up some surprising performances along the way over a career with a lot of fights, many against top level competition.
I agree whole heartedly!. 8) I mean to call her an all time great is outrageous! :xBoxBuzz wrote:The mother thing is way over the top.
This is exactly why Boxrec has paid top dollar for highly trained and skilled comedy specialists such as myself. To insure that women and chlidren do not go unprotected within the forum, which is what can happen with your brand X and non union forums. With certified union comedy we all get a good laugh without the annoying toxic afterburn of bad jokes.
Another "violence against mothers" joke and your comedy license will be revoked. You can take that kind of foolishness somewhere else Ringsider.
If you are currently operating without official humor sanctioning of any kind (which is what I suspect) then I suggest you give it a rest, bone up on your rules, regs and protocols and go after your license in a legitimate fashion.
I hope I don't have to issue another warning of this nature.
. Who did she ever beat besides Ringsider???. She never moved up in the weights, never fought abroad and she never granted any rematches cept to Ringsider :x :x :x . 
. Yeah, good points. There are a lot of greats who even many boxing fans don't seem to know much about... fighters like Owen Moran, Ace Hudkins... even some outstanding champions such as Al Brown, and Manuel Ortiz are not mentioned that often despite being indisputabley all time great champions.elmersalsa wrote:When I evaluate the great fighters, I evaluate them by different factors like HISTORICAL IMPACT, QUALITY OF OPPOSITION, LONGEVITY, WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP RECORD, DOMINANCE IN HIS WEIGHT CLASS, CONTRIBUTIONS AND INFLUENCE IN THE SPORT, WORLD RECORDS, AWARDS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS, PRO RECORD and
UNBEATEN STREAKS: which means how often a fighter was on top of his game for a period of time. Every person has a DIFFERENT WAY of evaluating great fighters, which is so hard to do, but some fighters AUTOMATICALLY ARE REMEMBERED by people that do not know NOTHING ABOUT BOXING like Robinson, Ali, Tyson, Duran, Leonard, Greb, Armstrong Dempsey, Louis, Johnson, etc, etc, etc.
Well you can't really argue wth those stastistics.ringsider wrote:Well at least you had the respect to not raise your voice to my mother. Everytime I did the ass beating was doubled.
Also for the record my mother fought many different opponents. Most were related by blood, but there were a few good scrapes in the neighborhood. She was victorious in all bouts. There was one old bag down the street who was much heavier than ma....so to say she never moved up in weight to fight is just not fair or true. It mattered not the age, weight, sex, nationality, race, eye color or your opinion. If you didn't do as you were told, you were in for a fight, and an ass beating!!! The rematches were just more of the same. That to me qualifies as an all time great
