Beating a great fighter in his prime is shockingly rare

You could say lewis beat near prime vitali.
And jones beat a prime james toney.


It is very hard to do yes. leonard beating hearns is a good one, but then again you could hearns was a bit young not at 154 his optimal weight, and beat better opponents after leonard then before leonard. thus not prime@!

tough stuff.

 

Lewis beat Vitali even though he has trailing in points?

 

Yes, by virtue of this thing called TKO 6

 

Mosley beating Delahoya comes to mind.
Jones beating Hopkins and Toney.
Pac/Barrera/Morales/JMM fights
SRL beating Hearns
Duran beating SRL

 

Tyson(Spinks), Wlad(Byrd), Jones(Hopkins) and Lewis(Vitali) beat an elite fighter in their prime. Vitali, Calzaghe and De La Hoya didnt. Mosley and ODLH could be Floyd's best wins but they were well past their prime. Cotto perhaps, hardly an ATG though.

 

That's because a boxer's prime is any time he's not getting beat. The minute you beat them someone says they weren't their best anymore. It's pretty ridiculous. I've seen people on these boards p**** facts so thin that a boxers prime was roughly one fight, one afternoon in a twenty year career.

 

This is true. But why doesn't Calzaghe get full credit for beating Lacy and ruining him? Lacy was on the pathway to true greatness, everybody known it. Super middleweight Tyson, The New Roy Jones and Joe took him apart. The same can be said about Kessler, who also was ruined by Joe. Two future greats derailed by Calzaghe.:deal

 

Great fighters do lose in their prime maybe once or twice on average. What's rarer is for an atg to log a win over an atg.

For example, I would claim that Mosley logged a win over an atg in DLH. But for DLH, even if you count the unofficial wins over Tito or Mosley, he didn't necessarily beat prime ATG fighters because a lot of people don't count Shane and Tito as atg.

 

LOL

It's hard for some to understand.

 

I like SSM but there should be asterixes over a lot of his wins post the Balco scandal.

 

Also when would you guys consider Froch's prime?

 

It is tough to decipher.

But for your first two examples I would say that no one views Toney or Vitali as ATG's.

Leonard beating Hearns qualifies to me. But like you say, everyone has an opinion and there are things to point at if you were forced to take either side of the argument.

 

Froch is not an ATG either way, though.

 

I swear some of you must think there are 200+ ATG's in boxing history...

In which case, it has happened quite a bit!


Hagler never beat a prime ATG. Did Chavez? Did Lennox? Did Louis? Did Hearns? Did Sam Langford? I think not.

Ask yourself... which prime ATG's did Sugar Ray Robinson beat? I'd love to see your list.