MUHAMMAD ALI is likely the most over rated as folks do not consider all the many phases of the CLAY/ALI story.
Well, on this forum it has to be- 1. Jerry Quarry 2. Montreal Duran 3. Tokyo Douglas 4. Pre-Prison Tyson 5. James J. Jeffries with honorable mention to- Harry Greb, Jack Dempsey, Ron Lyle, Pernell Whitacker, and Old Foreman
Hard to argue with most of the list, although I dunno if some of them were ever really considered great fighters, but Harry Greb? overrated? really? If anything, He's the definition of underrated. Personally. I'd put him at or near the top of any p4p list.
I tried to go with fighters that are overrated after their careers, since hype for active boxers makes it hard to really judge how they will be seen in the end.
Duran was great no doubt. top 25 fighter, but not top 5 where some rank him, so if people think he is top 5, he is overrated. If they think he is great and top 20-25 he is not overrated. He just didn't beat the top fighters necessary to be rated top 5. Ali maybe a little overrated but not much.
Tyson is by far the most overrated fighter of all time. He's overrated by a certain generation, but overrated nonetheless.
he was dominant, but he didn't beat many greats, The greats he beat were Holmes and Spinks. No bad. And knocked them both out. No one ever did that to them.
Sphinx wasn't a great fighter, and Holmes was an old man by the time Tyson fought him. Using Holmes to justify Tyson is like saying Holmes was better than Ali because he beat him h2h. I don't know if Tyson might have had the ability to be a great fighter, but he never had an opportunity to show it if he did. People say Marciano was overrated because he didn't have great competition, but he certainly had better than Mike, and he obviously had a better record.
I think it's popular to say Marciano was overrated because people don't like his perfect record, but in truth, he beat everone that was put up against him, and never ducked a fight with anyone. I think he can stand on his record as a great fighter.
beating Holmes is one thing, but he knocked him out and Larry was never knocked out before. And Larry did ok things in those 4 rounds. A little wasted energy I remember hoping up and down at the beginning of I think round 4, and then he calmed down and Mike started to hit him to the body again. Spinks was great. You dont win the heavyweight title from the legit champion and not be great.
OK, I'll give you Spinks, He was a great Lightheavy, and he was obviously overmatched by Tyson, but as far as Holmes, the guy was 40 years old and had been retired for two years. The fact you use his victory against and old retired Holmes says there really was nothing else on his resume to qualify him as great, or at least as an atg, which is why I couldn't put him over the other guys on the list. ..and let's not forget that Tyson was knocked out 5 times, all before he was as old as Holmes was when Mike won that fight. An ATG should have a better chin.
Mike really fell apart when he started to decline, and that started early when he was 24. Mike was not greater than Holmes I don't think, but he made a bigger impact early. The win against Holmes seemed like a good win at the time. Especially since Larry was only a year and a half from his second fight with Spinks. So I thought to knockout Larry at the time was pretty good. And Larry did fight on well enough. His fight with Butterbean was a bit of a joke.