who's the most overrated past fighter ever?

One more observation regarding the evoloution of boxing. The improvement of the equipment used, the change in bout duration and a different ruleset have played a part in the way boxers fight today as opposed to generations ago. Gloves are alot bigger and better made. No horsehair stuffed 6 oz gloves that fell apart as the fight wore on. No heavy insulation tape on the hands either or a piece of cloth stuffed in the mouth for a mouthpiece. No 20 to 40 round championship fights under a hot sun as there were no air conditioned arenas to fight in back then. Try to fight under those conditions and your style might change a bit. Modern fighters can let thier hands fly with less risk of damage and can hold thier hands up tp protect thier faces with todays gloves. Many fights look like a game of tag because of this. Feinting isn't as necessary a tool in the boxer's arsenal as it was years ago. Form follows function and this applies to boxing. In many ways it's a different sport than it was years ago and I think that equipment evoloution is more responsible for that moreso than style and technique evoloution is. Time machine Mayweather back to 1905 and put him in a 25 round fight under a hot sun in Nevada with the equipment of the time and we'd see a different Mayweather. Make him fight 10 times a year too for far less money per bout and "Money" might look a little different...as just about any modern fighter would

 

Vitali Klitschko.His best wins: the 38 years old fat bum Sanders and the glass-chinned
38 years slow Briggs.
And his fangirls can say his an ATG. Hmm... Bad taste.
Plus lots of loser can say what a modern athlete he is.Vitali is nearly equal with Bolt
by these losers' opinion.
He's not/wasn't a good athlete. Good athlete for examle:
- The weightlifting/powerlifting world champions
- World class sprinters/long distance runners
- Great gymnasts.
-Etc.
Vitali Klitschko ? Never.

 

Well said.

 

Why do you feel this way?

Greb looks good on paper, we've seen some of his opponents on film, we've seen some of the opponents of some of the fighters he faced on film as well. That's really all we can go on.

Now, Sugar Ray Robinson? We've seen a lot of him on film, not everything, but a lot. What we can't see we can read about from well respected reporters, we can even hear a lot of it from recorded audio broadcast... plus we can see film of the guys he beat, and who they beat/lost to, etc. Much more info available of SRR.

It's hard for me to put a guy like Greb above a guy like Robinson based on hand me down stories.

 

Ali

People have great difficulty separating his in-ring performance from his public persona. It's not that he wasn't good, it's that people who DKSAB and haven't even heard of Robinson, Greb and the others you guys are discussing think Ali is far and ahead the best boxer ever, and if you tell them not really, they look at you like you just took a **** in their hand.

 

Thanks for putting it like that because you have summed it up perfectly. I bought a book once called "The 100 greatest boxers" and it had Ali at the top ahead of Robinson! Absolute bollocks!

Yeah, Ali was great, but he gets a bye on everything, too. He was out on his feet against Cooper, only to be rescued by smelling salts and a torn glove.

Frazier beat him fair and square in FOTC only to be derided as the guy who beat a "rusty" Ali. I think Norton beat him 3 times but suffered at the hands of hypnotised judges.

His best "prime" wins were Williams and Folley, where he was magnificent; trouble is Liston had crushed both years earlier.

He beat a past prime Liston in dubious circumstances; who knows what really went on in those fights?

That leaves Foreman. Now I do think Ali was brilliant in this fight; very sharp and accurate, but Foreman was terrible that night! What was his corner telling him to do? He fought like Lacy against Calzaghe: one idea and no plan B.

I don't dispute the fact that Ali was very talented and had speed, guts and later on displayed a great chin, but I think like you do he is vastly overrated.

 

True.

Ali is the greatest heavyweight of all time (imo), but the greatest boxer of all time is SRR.

You meet idiots all the time who have never even heard of SRR.

I met one such idiot during a Pacqiauo/Mayweather dispute in the gym (not boxing gym).

We started discussing Ali and he basically said Ali is the GOAT,
i said yes Ali is the GHOAT but SRR is the GOAT.

So he says SRR? didnt he duck Ali? Had they fought, Ali would have beaten him.

I had to explain to him about weight divisions and eras atsch

 

Harry Greb. Just because Bert Sugar put him No 5 on his list everybody is now rating him as an all time great

 

Dempsey, Greb, Tunney,Frazier and Tyson are the most overrated on this forum

 

If we go on the films, its Ketchel. He's terrible on defense, crude on offense, and not very creative. Yet some feel he's a top 5 all time middle weight.

 

Tyson? Why? You talk about Tyson again and again.He's overrated by you only.
You have Tyson phobia or mania.This shows clearly you are the biggest (still latent)
Tyson fan ever.

 

Roy Jones Jr.
Vitali Klitschko
Wladimir Klitschko
James Toney
Mike Tyson
Lennox Lewis
Pernell Whitaker