Mayweather, Jones, and Whitaker were too dominant at their best to have rivals shoul

Pea beat Chavez when they were 1&2 p4p.

Jones Jr beat Toney who was p4p number 2. Probably should have rematched Hopkins in 02 at 50/50 though.

Floyd didn't secure the fight with Pac.

 

I do find it funny how the two most talented fighters of the past twenty years are supposedly the biggest duckers of the past twenty years. Floyd and Roy were just streets ahead of the competition

 

Much as I hate to admit it Floyd and Pac will be forever linked.

 

Anybody that complains about who Whitaker fought doesn't know what they're talking about. The avatar says it all.

Yes, Chavez was #1 at the time. Nelson was also around the Top 5, as well as Buddy McGirt (in addition to being the #1 Welter). Julio Cesar Vasquez was the #1 Junior Middle. He also unified the 135 division.

 

I can't think of any two fighters in history that never fought each other that's as linked together as Pac and Floyd, granted there's still a minute chance that the can still happen but even if it doesn't they're linked just the same.

 

That fight should've happened in 1995-96.

 

Shane was P4P #3 and JMM was P4P #2 when Floyd beat them. Chico was #5 aswell, Hatton around about the same and Cotto was around #10.

 

True, but Chavez, McGirt and Nelson are better than that group, all things considered.

Chavez should be a no-brainer. McGirt was ten years younger than Shane Mosley. Nelson had to go up one division (130 to 135) and was the same size in the ring, Marquez had moved up two though he's since proven his mettle and it gained value in hindsight IMO.

I love Floyd and it's all over my post history. Not trying to throw **** at the fan either, just sayin.

 

Yeah, i rank Whittaker over Floyd in terms of legacy for sure.

 

McGirt is seemingly forgotten (as a fighter) these days.

Whitaker-McGirt is matchup of two of best fighters in world

March 02, 1993|By Michael Katz | New York Daily News

You don't like Pernell Whitaker, you don't deserve him. You don't like watching him duck and parry, you don't like boxing. I take no dissent on this. In the words of the late great sportwriter Barney Nagler, you are not entitled to an opinion if you are wrong.

I say the same about Buddy McGirt. You don't like watching a guy feint with his shoulders, never raising a hand, and move his opponent into range for a right hand, go watch Sparky Anderson change pitchers. You don't appreciate Buddy McGirt, you deserve the infield fly rule engraved on your tombstone.

Now here they are getting ready to fight each other, and it makes me sick that as of yesterday, a grand total of 6,205 seats have been sold for Madison Square Garden's Saturday night special, matching two of the absolute best fighters in the world [10,000+ was actual turn out] This is no Riddick Bowe-Michael Dokes blowout, where 16,329 suckers paid their way in. This is between two of boxing's four best practitoners, which is my opinion, and pound-for-pound that's the only one that counts in this column.

It doesn't happen that often. Two of the best -- pound-for-pound -- meeting in the ring.

I hate that expression, pound-for-pound. Sounds like my doctor admonishing me. What this mythical ratings game is all about is determining the best fighter, no matter what weight. It is an old game and there are no rules. Example: Does Julio Cesar Chavez still rate No. 1?

Not on my list. I mean, normally you would think a guy has to lose his title in the ring, but this is a mythical title and if I were to put Chavez and his 85-0 record No. 1, then I've got to confess my next three picks all would beat him:

In this order, Pernell Whitaker, Terry Norris, Buddy McGirt.

As a precaution, however, I independently solicited the opinions of two of boxing's most astute judges, one from each corner Saturday night. They have the same top five guys I have, though the orders are different.

Al Certo may sound like a lunatic, he may act like a lunatic, but McGirt's manager is still a hell of a good judge of horseflesh and pastrami (joint called Harold's Sandwich Shop in Rutherford has the best I've had west of the Hudson).

Out of respect, he put Chavez first, followed by his guy, James Toney ("youse guys don't realize how good he is"), Norris and Whitaker. He follows this with a couple of bantamweights, Orlando Canizales and Junior Jones, another up-and-coming Jones in Roy Jr., and then Bowe and Lennox Lewis.

Prof. George Benton, Whitaker's trainer, agrees on the top five. He, too, puts Chavez first "even though I think he's a quart low, but he's still there, and nobody's been able to beat him yet." He follows with Whitaker, Norris, McGirt and Toney.

 

Whitaker's biggest 'rival' was really the one in the article mentioned above.

From the vault:

The fighters sold their rematch as high art, a little piece of culture. No blood sport this time. Pernell Whitaker, who is nicknamed for a member of the legume family, promised a "fast-paced chess match." Little Buddy McGirt, whose trademark homburg (he conducted his prefight interviews in bed, with the hat atop his glazed dome) lent an unusual civility to the scene, assured his fans that he would "make Sweet Pea think." This would be an entirely intellectual exercise, elegant and refined. Fans might want to bring their opera glasses.

And, given that these two boxers have been among the game's master craftsmen for a decade, men who favor technique over violence, it was perfectly reasonable to expect something more like ballet than a brawl. What they have done over the course of winning seven titles in three divisions has been more Bolshoi than backalley, the nuances of their performances a delight to the sport's aficionados. Their rematch, like their first fight, would be a showcase of complicated defenses, with a premium put on avoiding contact.

So why did they sling leather in the middle of the ring for 12 rounds, like miniature Joe Fraziers? Of course, throughout the fight at the Scope in Norfolk, Va., last Saturday night, there was more boxing than fight fans can normally expect to see in a year. Whitaker, who holds the WBC welterweight title but deems only the mythical "best fighter pound-for-pound" title worthy of his attention, was so smooth his fans could have just as easily named him Buttermilk as Sweet Pea. Still, didn't it look as if he busted up Buddy pretty good?

Whitaker, now 34-1-1 after winning an easy decision to retain his title and quiet the clamorings of McGirt and his New York legions, fought a surprisingly active fight, peppering the supposedly stronger McGirt with a right jab that had him staggering by the fifth round. Time and again McGirt (64-4-1) was hit with a second jab before he even had a chance to react to the first. And they were stiff jabs. McGirt's left eye was swollen midway through the fight, and his spirit obviously was sapped well before that. Not even his flash knockdown of Whitaker in the second round could bolster his confidence.

In the face of so much aggression—relatively speaking, you understand—all faith in McGirt's chances quickly evaporated. His manager, Secaucus, N.J., tailor Al Certo, said afterward that McGirt just, hadn't had it. Not after the second round? "Not after the first," he replied. "He didn't have it at all. Buddy looked weak in comparison to Whitaker. The other guy, he's a real tough guy to beat."

Whitaker might now be judged impossible to beat. Even before his widely disputed draw a year ago with the fading Julio Cesar Chavez, who once wore that mythical pound-for-pound mantle, Whitaker was regarded as the best boxer in the game. His fights appeal to the cognoscenti, and even though some regard his bouts as mostly boring, if sometimes playful, he has attracted a growing cult. HBO, which is giving him $18 million for four fights (this was the second in the contract), gets better ratings for Whitaker than for any other nonheavyweight. His skills are that obvious.

But now we have learned that Whitaker, when sufficiently motivated, can swing with the big boys. All he needs is the challenge to produce a big event, "a spectacle," as he calls his major fights, or perhaps just the opportunity to right a wrong.

Whitaker, it turned out, had been burning ever since he beat McGirt in March 1993 at Madison Square Garden. McGirt had made it through that fight with a bad left shoulder, had fought with one arm actually and afterward had had the bad sense to make his medical excuse public. Indeed, he had undergone surgery for a torn rotator cuff nine days after that bout, which had ended in a close decision that gave McGirt's welterweight title to Whitaker, and it was natural for McGirt to wonder how he might have done with a proper left arm to complement the right.

Whitaker, who operates out of Norfolk, a seaport that happens not to be a media center as well, has always been suspicious of the good press McGirt enjoys in New York. He was contemptuous of the speculation that was being published there, that McGirt, dually armed, might beat him. Of his own hometown folk, Whitaker said, "We don't like whiners."

Whitaker didn't even believe that McGirt had an excuse. "If you watch the fight on tape," he said, "you'll see he used his left as much as his right. That injury, just something to fall back on. Operation? That's what they say. He's a big phony. If he had an operation. Actually, I don't believe he had surgery."

...

Once the deal had been signed—McGirt got $600,000 to Whitaker's $2 million plus—the challenger had to reach under his homburg and scratch his shaved head and wonder what the fuss had been all about. "Everybody's making him out to be King Kong," he said of Whitaker. "And I just don't see it."

Certo seized on the idea, saying, "I mean, who is this guy? All he does, he ducks and bobs, and then he jumps on the ropes." With one arm, McGirt had kept the first fight close (Whitaker ducking and bobbing and then jumping up on the ropes in celebration). So what might happen if McGirt were to have two arms?

Warned Whitaker, "He better have three arms this time."

An octopus couldn't have beaten Whitaker last Saturday, though he looked vulnerable early on. McGirt issued a combination in the second round that dumped Whitaker but raised nothing more on his face than a smirk. In the third McGirt landed a kidney punch, and Whitaker spilled down the ropes in what was ruled a slip. But, from the third round on, Whitaker was in control. His jab was magnificent, and he countered furiously out of the corner or locked McGirt in the middle of the ring and flurried impressively. By the fifth McGirt looked spent.

 

Yeah but fighters that talented are in a lose. If they don't fight someone then they get accused of avoiding/ducking. If they do fight someone, people will belittle it and say that they were the favorites and should have won anyway.