Unpopular opinions

So GTFO then. Who's asking you to stay?

 

Fmj is hugely overrated post 135 and his style of you can call it that has led to more fighters boring their way to the top.

Lewis would beat any heavyweight in history

 

Prime Frazier beats Foreman

 

Footrace?

 

I'm just gonna copy and paste what I wrote another time. For those of you that have watched their 1973 fight, you may have noticed that the ref does a very bad job in this as he allows Foreman to repeatedly get away with just shoving Joe away and pushing him to the side in order to set up his clubbing shots. Frazier actually has a fair degree of success in getting to Foreman early on and lands some decent left hooks and jabs. Foreman has trouble controlling range and keeping Frazier off him. With a different ref I think it would be interesting to see how Foreman wold have coped if he hadn't been allowed manhandle Frazier and repeatedly shove him back with full on pushes. The ref should have addressed this early.

This brings me to my other point. It may seem bizarre to criticize Foreman in a fight where he blasted out such a high profile opponent - but I've always been bothered by his tactics in this. Very little use of the jab, no real success at keeping Frazier at bay and rather untidy, wild punches. Frazier did most of his best work in close, so I would have expected Foreman to box and use his jab to set up his power shots. But crucially he seemed unable to do this and was allowed to get away with resorting to pushes and shoves followed by wild swings that left him prime to be caught square from a left hook - Frazier's marquee punch.

As it happened, Foreman's power and roughhousing was too much for Frazier but I do think it would have been interesting to see what would have happened with a different ref. As Ali showed, Foreman could be prone to punching himself out with his big swings and the drawback of having power is that you often don't get into later rounds. Frazier for me was reasonably successful at getting to Foreman early on made possible by Foreman neglecting the jab. Had it gone on for longer with a ref that wouldn't let Foreman away with his pushing I think it would have been interesting. Such was Foreman's power, Frazier's added fat, Frazier's decline after the FOTC, and him underestimating Foreman, that the result may well have been the same once he landed a big one but I do think the ref and his tactics made it far easier than it should/could have been.
That being said, Prime vs Prime it's a very different story. Win or lose, Frazier will do much better than he did in '73.
Frazier is not as easy to hit as many think. He was actually harder to hit than Tyson. If he can avoid some of ALI's punches, he can certainly avoid Foreman's Harder but SLOWER and LESS ACCURATE punches.
Another thing that should be added, contrary to popular belief, Frazier could change his style.Frazier was known for his come forward style, but he didn't always just walk right into his opponents power range and try to beat them down. He countered, used his feet better and punched off the angles when pressured himself. He did this against Chuvalo, Quarry, Ellis and Bonavena in their rematch. Against Foreman, Joe thought that he could just out-smart and out-bully the bully and instead he got bullied around himself.
Chuvalo pressured Frazier and backed him up a couple of times in the fight. What did Joe do? He backed up, jabbed, countered and used his right hand more, and in better condition, showed the head movement against Chuvalo that he didn't against Foreman. Plus the fact that Chuvalo wasn't allowed to turn the match into a wrestling contest like Mercante allowed Foreman to do against Frazier. Now we all no there's a distinct difference in punching power between Chuvalo and Foreman, but not a whole lot of difference strength wise.
I know I'm in the minority in this one but I pick Frazier to survive the early rounds and break Foreman down with his relentless body attack.

 

i don't agree but that did make me think it's possible.

 

I always love this thread subject and hearing all the non-mainstream opinions.

As I'm sure you'd guess based on my other posts, I too don't believe Ali was the greatest and I get very frustrated on the many excuses made for him, excuses that are made for no other fighter in history.

Though I'm not a fan, I do think FMJ deserves to be seen as one of the greatest of all time. He beat many, many big names. But I also think Oscar De La Hoya deserved a draw in their fight....and I'm no fan of him either.

I agree that Duran-Leonard I was a sloppy fight, though I'm happy with the outcome.

I think Hagler edged Leonard.

 

I admit that I may be a lunatic for doing this, but I had Hamed edging Barrera by a point or two watching it live, dead sober.

 

Tyson ducked foreman.

Marciano is p4p number one for me. Fury is right. "baddest man on the planet" will always mean HW champion. So therefore by todays criteria who under 200 pounds could even compete with him and the answer is 0.

I had bradley ahead in PAC or a draw

 

Well then you'll just have to settle with hanging with the majority of us then.

 

Both Page and Dokes would have beaten ****ey if they fought in the 81-82 time period.

Prime Camacho beats prime Chavez

Pedroza would've beaten Sanchez in a close fight.

Earnie Shavers beat Muhammad Ali in their fight.

Matthew Saad Muhammad would've destroyed Eddie Mustafa Muhammad in a unification rematch, circa 1981.

 

Is this really an unpopular opinion, though? While most seem to have scored it for Ali, most also seem to agree that it was a close fight that could have gone either way.

 

:good