A CBZ Writers Thoughts On The Greatest Heavies

Thanks again mcvey...

It will be a good thing to read tonight......:good

 

I think the issue here is that rankings in comparison with the old days are being overcomplicated.

It is not under rating Dempsey to leave him out of the top 10.

Guys back then might have had him top 3, but since the 50's there's been plenty of guys who've established themselves as legitimate greats.

Lets say They had it going Louis, Johnson, Dempsey, Jeffries. It is very easy to fill that list with guys like Ali, Tyson, Frazier, Foreman, Lewis, Liston, Marciano, Charles, Walcott, Bivins, Patterson etc.

The order of the pre 50's guys stays the same, it is just that the list is more populated now.

 

:-(

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McVey, Eric Jorgensen has expressed my thoughts on the great heavyweights, with so much more clarity and eloquence that i could ever hope to convey...His article should be required reading for any serious
student of boxing's wonderful past...ESB readers ,especially the young posters please read what may be the most accurate and lucid analysis
of the great heavyweights and Jack Dempsey in particular...His reasoning
comes closer to the truth, than anyone you will EVER read.I'm awed...
Thanks McVey for this public service...:good:good:good

 

An interesting article, but I found this rather odd:

George Foreman: Foreman had his flaws, of course, but his awesome power would have destroyed all but a handful of his fellow champions. His immense physical strength, 2-handed punching power, iron jaw, under-rated speed and intense aggressiveness made up for his lack of polish and, usually, for his lack of stamina. A true monster who was good enough in his 40s to terrorize the division a generation after his prime had passed. Very under-rated.

Ron Lyle proved that the former was untrue.

As to the latter, GF "terrorized" the division in the 90s??

A very strange point of view to say the least. If you consider taking on pathetic opposition and circumventing all the top challengers to cop a criminally undeserved title shot "terrorizing the division" then I guess the writer is correct.

 

Bivins?

 

If anything, the Lyle fight showcased Foreman's heart and recuperative abilities. Getting knocked down by Ron Lyle engaged in the slugfest they were in is no shame. He got up and stopped him.

 

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True, but I wasn't questioning his heart and recuperative abilities. I was questioning whether or not he had an "iron jaw". The Lyle fight proved to me that he didn't. Ron Lyle was the first heavy puncher who really got a chance to unload on Foreman. Knockdowns and staggerings were the result.

George Chuvalo had an iron jaw. Jake LaMotta had an iron jaw. Marvin Hagler had an iron jaw. Julio Cesar Chavez had an iron jaw. Prime George Foreman did not. A good one? Sure. IRON? Not by any reasonable standard.

 

Bivins was a tremendous hw during the war years.

I have a lot of love for his heavyweight credentials.

 

"Preliminarily, I should explain my own peculiar criteria for determining "greatness". Simply put, I rate fighters on a "who would have beaten whom" basis. In other words, I ask how each fighter, on his best night, would have performed against each other fighter, on that fighter's best night, ignoring considerations of "historical significance", "social impact", "longevity", "quality of opposition", etc., except to the extent those considerations bear on my analysis of fighting ability. The more hypothetical victories a fighter compiles in the round-robin tournament of my imagination, the higher I rank him."

I haven't yet read the article since I stumbled across this bit and immediately had a problem.

Frankly, H2H is the biggest pile of pish when ranking fighters...it's a purely subjective viewpoint, and most likely, an incorrect one.

I mean, if people were that good that predicting the outcome of fights in a contemporary sense, then they'd be millionaires from betting. Any millionaires from betting on boxing here???

Now, try doing it across different generations, different rulesets, different equipment etc. in some sort of rubbish fantasy fight! Haha...whatever.

It's infantile and bloody silly if you ask me. (Fun for debate on a forum, but not something to take deadly seriously.)

 

"Dempsey-Ali would have been pretty close to pick 'em, too. Styles make fights, at least when the combatants are in the same "class", to borrow a term from horse racing, and Dempsey had the style to give Ali trouble. Dempsey would have fought Ali the same way Frazier did, hustling forward, keeping the pressure on, throwing a lot of left hooks, which Ali didn’t like. Ali did not really have the punch to keep Dempsey honest, and so would have had difficulty the whole fight. Also, I keep thinking of the trouble Ali had with Henry Cooper. Dempsey was the same size as Cooper and had the same left hook. But, Dempsey had a right hand to go along with it, was much more durable, and, above all, didn’t cut. At the same time, though, I can see Ali’s lightning hands and iron chin earning him a close decision. In any 10 fights, I guess I'd go with Ali winning 5 or 6, so I make him the slightest of favorites."

Here is a prime example of what I mean.

What are the rules for this fight? Which rules do you implement, a ruleset from Dempsey's era or Ali's? What scoring system is used? How many rounds is the fight scheduled for?
What equipment are they using? From Ali's era or Dempsey's?
Who refs the bout? Does he let fighters work inside or does he break them up quickly?
Where are they fighting? In an arena, or outdoors in the sun?

There are SO many critical variables that haven't even been touched on by the writer, let alone explored in depth.
It seems to be, at best if we're honest, a half-baked mish-mash collection of opinions set to reach a conclusion that suits the author's personal preference. That's it.

We do it on the forum too, but most of us don't have all day to sit here and form an in-depth analysis of a fight.