Is Whitaker in your Top 10 All time Fighters?

For me, greatness is measured in 3 steps: resume, achievement and skill level.

I would say pea is easily top ten on skill level.

Resume I wouldn't assume him to be but i'm evaluating that so i'll have a better idea; maybe he does have a better resume than pep, i'll come back on that when i've decided.

Achievement is a good one because he achieved a heck of a lot in his career being number 1 at lw, ww and lmw. With hindsight he'd probably have been the best lww out there also but he never proved it.

For me the only thing I hold against him achievement wise is failing to fight chavez at lww and failing to get the tito and quartey fights (from the time tito beat carr onwards) however he did show great heart down the stretch of his career in the rematch against rivera, the come from behind knockout against hurtado, the tremendous display against a peak oscar and his decision to stand his ground against tito.

Very few men have looked better than pea, even less for a ten year stretch. But over the 3 criteria I couldn't place him top ten, maybe I will when I revaluate, who knows?

 

i have a top 10, judged on film not resume
whitaker is about 8, of all the defensive greats he was damn good attacking too.
plus he was lightweights body vs welters

 

If you seriously had Trinidad beating Carr becoming your imaginary 'premier welterweight' above Whitaker it shows you as pretty clueless on this period with all due respect. Carr had been in with NO ONE pre Tito, Tito beating him proved nothing at that point. Whitaker was facing the best, while Tito was facing borderline gatekeeper types

 

Carr actually had a bit of hype(mostly before he proved a damn thing of course) around him as a prospect.Then the Bramble fight happened and people began to lose interest.

 

Top 30 maybe. Not top 10.

Good athletically but he had flaws, in his record and his style. His defense was good but it was 100% reflexes, he could get tagged. As for his record, he did get robbed a few times, but not enough W's against other ATGs to rank him in the top 10.

My list.

1. Sugar Ray Robinson
2. Henry Armstrong
3. Sam Langford
4. Muhammad Ali
5. Harry Greb
6. Ezzard Charles
7. Roberto Duran
8. Joe Louis
9. Willie Pep
10. Jack Johnson

 

Ah well i'm clueless then.

What's your top ten then?

 

It's the consequence of the fight not happening really... If he'd have beaten chavez he'd have been the top guy from lw to lmw and that extra weight class obviously helps his legacy had he been number 1 there.

 

Wow. I don't even have Johnson in my top-10 heavies.

 

And the premiere fighter isn't an imaginery title, it's just the guy I think is the number 1 in the division at a given point.

For example, pp, if I was to ask you "who do you think is the number 1 ww today" what would you say? That's all I mean by premiere: number 1.

I thinks it's spanish for first as well, because I remember at school "mi cumpleanos es el premiere de deciembre"

 

No. It was not.

 

I've checked my notes for why I put tito as number 1 after carr.

I had it as a debatable pick based on his beating camacho, campas and carr in dominant fashion that year, meanwhile pea beat mcgirt in a rematch.

Is that one victory over mcgirt enough to keep top spot against 3 solid victories by the number 1 contender?

Either way the point is moot because from about 94-97 pea didn't face the number 2 or 3 (if we are to place more value on the mcgirt victory in comparison to 3c) so we're still left with a desire for him to have beat those men.

Granted it's easy to believe tito was matched by king to avoid being sent in against number 1 p4p guy. But what about quartey? It's hard to imagine him ducking pea even in his prime.

 

Admittedly it does seem like i've been blinded by the records of campas and carr. I'll concede that point definitely.

Still maintain his legacy would have improved had he unified the 3 belts (defended his lineal claim against the top 2 contenders).