What says Burley was greater/better than Herol Graham?

Burley beat a far higher level of competition and was more consistent. Which should be enough.

 

If you watch films of Jimmy Slattery he looks like a photo negative of Cassius Clay. Doesn't appear to be too much separating them either. So can we say Clay is truly greater/better than Slattery?

 

Burley's resume was better.

 

burley was a bigger puncher too but i think we over categorize fighters and the differences are not as great as we like to make it. its not as neat and orderly to say fighters are more like 1 and 1a and if everybody fought everybody ten times each we would really have many wildly erratic results. thats a closer statement to reality but its probably not as fulfilling to say it.

 

Putting aside debates about ability, it's pretty much impossible for a post late 50s\mid60s contender to be in a similar situation\not pick up a title and build the kind of record that would get them thought of like Burley.Even if you personally think really highly of them

The kind of boxing environment and matchmaking schedules just don't make for those kind of stories and contenders anymore.

The non-champs who may have had talent to be seen like that. ie modern murderers row sort of fighters(whoever it may be for you) tend to be ones that lost in a title fight or two for whatever reason(past best\simply beaten by better fighter\robbed etc) and may have some good wins outside of title fights, but simply won't have the same depth on their record due to the changes in boxing from circa-mid 50s

Thus less proven overall and not rated as highly.Just not possible to fight as many contenders as it was back then.

 

Even had Burley got a title shot and lost, he'd still be thought of in a higher light, as he mixed with many more contenders than someone like Graham(not his fault) or anyone else you care to mention from the 80s for that matter.

It really does come to how proven people feel a fighter is imo.There will even be a contingent that rate Burley over Hagler\Monzon etc certainly over Hopkins, Toney and co who were all champs

 

Indeed fighters in the past 30years haven't been able to stack up resumes due to TV schedules allowing them to fight say every 2-3 months tops.

If Graham got to fight all the best names in his era 3 times, he'd be rated far higher as a result. As would the names he beat as they would have also fought far more picking up far more quality wins

Lets say Graham has Eubank, Benn, Sibson, Roldan, Duran, Barkley and even say Leonard on his wins list. Those are all pretty feasable wins at 160 for him even if you don't necessarily think he beats them, in fact Hearns and Leonard would be the only 2 Hagler opponents I'd give a shot at beating Bomber at 160

Ability and resume do not necessarily go hand in hand when compared over eras

 

I think that's a damned near perfect summary.

 

Graham was KOd in a fight that he cheated at whereas Burley was never stopped .

Beter question would have been : were all of Burley's fights 4eal ?

 

theres an inverse to that argument: guys today dont fight as much but since they dont fight as much that means too that they dont lose as much, and so they get to benefit from this and create an enhanced image of dominance and unstoppabality that might not exist in reality. you might get a guy like jones or hopkins who comes around one day and looks like he just invented boxing. how do we know this guy is as great as his record says he is? theres no way to control for it if fighters dont fight each other at the same frequency and consistency as they would have before in the old pressure makes diamonds set up boxing used to have. thats really the only legitimate way to get a true sense of who is who and what is what and theres just no way around it.