Is Whitaker in your Top 10 All time Fighters?

My top ten has remained fairly static for some while now but i'll be reviewing it in a few months.

Fitz
Greb
Robinson
Armstrong
Langford
Louis
Charles
Pep
Ali
Duran

Pea isn't far behind but he isn't exactly knocking on the door atm. Like I said though, i'm reviewing my lists at present.

 

No, but he certainly deserves to be named alongside great fighters of other eras. He really was that good, he just was unlucky that he couldn´t prove himself as much as fighters of previous eras.

 

He could have proved himself though, had he fought tito and quartey to unify the belts round about 96 he'd have been regarded much higher.

I'm not sure how or why those fights didn't come off but it's wrong to say he didn't have the means to break the top ten.

After beating pineda he could have unified then with chavez also.

Had he successfully made those 3 fights and had his career still panned out the same (lmw champ, struggles with rivera and robbed by oscar) i'm pretty sure he'd be in my top ten and maybe even higher.

 

Well they don't, losses are minus factors in resumes, otherwise Ross Purrity would rate above Joe Frazier on resume. And allot of these resumes are also overrated through some rose tints

Dominance wise, few have come close to his 10year period of being near untouchable

A splash in the pan like McLarnin above Whitaker, really? I don't see why Canzi/Ross have better resumes either given Pea fought most the top names from 135-147 bar a few

Whitaker was lineal, for whatever reason (politics?) the fights weren't made. On your basis of demanding Whitaker fight Quartey/Trinidad, shouldn't Armstrong drop out of the top10 for failing to face Burley and Cocoa Kid? And what has Louis/Pep achieved that Whitaker has not?

 

I'm liking the love for Fitzsimmons, but why do you have him so high? I know he was pretty much a modern day Welter who sparked Heavyweights, but I don't think his resume is as impressive as Grebs or Charles'.

Above Pea I have:
Greb
Robinson
Armstrong
Langford
Greb
Charles
Fitzsimmons
Benny Leonard
Louis
Pep
Ali
Gans
Ross
Moore
Canzoneri
Ray Leonard
Wilde

 

If i'm not mistaken Trinidad tried to leave King and make a fight with Whitaker.

King didn't let him go and Trinidad was stuck with defenses against Barnes, Moore etc.

Also read somewhere that Whitaker-Quartey was almost made in 1998 but Whitaker failed the drug test and the fight didn't happen.

Maybe someone can tell a bit more about these fights not hapening in a right time.

 

What's lineal got to do with it? Did the fact that pea was lineal make him a better ww than the tito who smashed carr?

No they shouldn't drop out because resume isn't the only factor. All 3 guys here (henry, willie and pernell) are top 10 skillwise imo. Armstrong is top 5 based on an incredible resume and incredible achievement (premiere fighter from fw to mw). Pea was as dominant a champ as you could hope for plus has a victory over the second greatest fw imo.

Louisis the greatest champion in history and cleaned out his era.

I think pea is along the same lines as leonard.

 

Let's turn the question around again, what makes Armstrong a better WW than the Burley who bested Zivic? The Burley who captured the Coloured Title against Cocoa Kid? All this in '38 the same year, the same year Armstrong captures his title. No Armstrong never proved himself the best from WW-MW, in fact he proved he wasn't the best at WW when Zivic beat him who Burley had already proven his superiority over

Now conversely Whitaker beat McGirt who was the number 1 WW and defended against P4P no1 and 140lb champion Chavez and McGirt who gave him a close and controversial fight. What had Trinidad done upto that point to prove he was better challenger than those men as defences? Both he and Carr may look good on film but what did Carr do to be a better proven contender than Julio Cesar Chavez, McGirt (settling a controversial decision), Hurtado or even Rivera? What else had Trinidad done by '94? Beat a Camacho coming off a dominant loss to Chavez, a Blocker coming off 2 KO losses within 2 years, a heavily padded record of Campas before going off to feast on weaker opposition.

95 onwards, alongside Tito alongside Quartey would be the best challenger, but it seemed the fight couldn't be made. 95-97 Whitaker is fighting at a higher level than Trinidad though and moves up to take a 154lb title off a very good LMW fresh off beating Winky Wright. During this period Trinidad despite his belt is in reality a meer contender who hasn't yet stepped up to the elite level

Louis isn't the best HW in history for many and many fighters have cleaned out their divisions and better divisions - Ali for one, Hagler, Monzon, Napoles just 3 others with cases to have done such. He certainly isn't an untouchable in the top 10

Pep wasn't as dominant fighter as you could hope for (I assume you're referring to him as you said he had a win over the second greatest FW - disagree with that too) otherwise he wouldn't be losing to Saddler numerous times from the age of 26 onwards, inevitably losing the series

All these are great fighters no doubt, but let's not pretend they're a level above the greats of the past 30years, they're not, it's just time and a heavy disproportionate criticism of modern fighters skews their standing

Thanks for that, didn't Arum purposely drag Quartey out, asking him to drop fights to get the Oscar fights, making him innactive? I read something about that

 

Whitaker missed two opportunities to fight Ike. First, when he struggled with Rivera and then had to waste another defense settling matters with him in 1996 and secondly in 1998 after the fight was scheduled to take place and he tested positive to coke after the Pestriaev fight.

The Tito fight was never going to happen against a live Pea with King in the way.

Had Whitaker beaten a Norris or Quartey in 1996 he might have had an argument for being top 10, but probably even then I'd say he'd just miss the cut.

 

I can't recall dates from top of my head but henry absolutely proved himself the best ww when he beat ross and garcia. By ducking kid he lost his place at the top when kid beat williams I think. I had him beating garcia at mw also.

Pea was top until tito beat carr. I think then pea regained top spot when he beat rivera in the rematch.

No champ has been as good as louis imo.

I'm not saying they're locks, i'm saying they've been in my top ten for a few month now.

At vano, The top 3 are interchangeable imo, best achievement, best resume and best on film.

 

Rivera now? get a grip and remove Whitaker's sack from over your eyes.It'll help your perspective.

You've got some of Pea's biggest fans on here giving you insightful, unbiased opinions and you're stubbornly bringing up names like him and a faded Jose Luis Ramirez as if they were the gold standard of opposition.

 

Maybe.

But there was also this promoter's mess - here's a little article about it:
http://articles.latimes.com/1998/aug/22/sports/sp-15525