Does Dariusz Michalczewski belong in the Hall of Fame?

Wilfredo Vasquez lost too many big fights IMO. He could be sparked, he could be outmanouvered. Not all that.

Dariusz is overrated, just because Jones didn't fight him. I don't think he should be in there either, I'd put Muangsurin in before him.

EDIT: The Halls criteria is obviously different to mine

 

dm

should be in

ofcourse

 

Not IMO Ottke had way too much help

 

Probably not,but he was a hell of a fighter to watch - far more exciting than Maske and Ottke,who I assume(Maske definitely is) were always more popular than him.

 

Agreed.

 

Some day, not this year.

 

Hm, there are arguments for and against DM. He was lhw champ and cw beltholder. Made quite a few defences of his lhw championship. Unified the championship at lhw. His opposition wasn´t stellar but he faced everyone but Jones Jr. (which I still think was more Jones fault since he was the challenger and should have forced the fight but anyway they didn´t fight) and Maske (he beat the only man to beat Maske in Hill though). Also against him was his acting job when he was losing against Graziano Rocchigiani the fist time around. He easily beat him in the rematch though. DM was about as popular as Ottke in his prime, not as popular as Maske though.
Going by the standards of the HoF he will go in. Probably not in the next few years, also because of American bias.

Maske should also go in. Not because he was a special boxer, even so he was a very good one, but because he put boxing back on the map in Germany and such revived one of the biggest markets in boxing which lead to many decent to very good fighters beeing based there and evening out somewhat the decline of boxing. And he was hugely popular of course as a symbol of German re-unification. IMO despite his lesser accomplishments compared to DM he deseves to go in before DM - and I like DM more.

I´d like to see G. Rocchigiani to go in before both though. Beltholder at smw and lhw, in reality beat both Maske and DM (and Eubank too). Add to that Nunn and quite a few othe decent contenders and he has easily the best resume of the three. Others than those two he was never loved by the Geman public because he was (and in a way still is) what in the US is called "white trash" and reminded the German public that boxing not too recently was something shady and belonged into rings under bars in the red light districts (see the Ritze in Hamburg). Thus he always had the public and often the refs/judges against him. I always was a fan of his.

I also think Ottke will go in at some point. The 2nd most accomplished smw with 21 title defences, unified two belts and beat everyone but Calzaghe (neither fault IMO both ****** and Sauerland wanted to protect their cash cows) and his stable mate Beyer who was around at his time. Yes, he won a fight he should have lost and had a few (2) close calls but neither of those were robberies and the way and number gets hugely exaggerated. He achieved more than a few guys already in and in the last 20 years was after Maske, the Klitschkos and on par with DM and Abraham (who was his sparringpartner in the last few years). Given that Germany is a big market, his popularity there and his accomplishments he deseves to get it at some point.

Those are the four German fighters (yeah, I count DM as German since he was German citizen and fought under the German flag in all but his last fight) of recent times I think deseve to get in. If we would make it all time I would probably only add Bubi Scholz and Eckhard Dagge.

 

Not Michalczewski. His resume doesn't merit it IMO. Although I am aware that my criteria is not the same as the HOF's in reality, so he easily could make it in.

 

A well, I guess you could make an article out of that. Maybe I will.

Yeah, Hearns is a given. The two I´d pick would be Ceferino Garcia (that´s due for quite a while) and Cocoa Kid (Springs Toledo´s article series on him was a real eye opener :thumbsup ). I´d love to pick Mark Johnson and Naseem Hamed since I love those two but they don´t deseve it as much.

 

Criteria: Resume first and foremost. If this sport is about anything, it should be about that IMO.

Who didn't deserve it: Kostya Tszyu. Great fighter in terms of ability for sure, but a resume where the second best win is either Miguel Angel Gonzalez or Sharma Mitchell? Not for me. Not at all.