Sure-- "good" is a very low benchmark, I guess. But I'm curious whether there are any classic fighters who you consider to be significantly overrated? Or are your views more or less completely aligned with the prevailing popular opinion/conventional wisdom re: the pantheon of classic heavyweights?
Significantly overrated? Nobody comes to mind. I love what the internet has done for boxing fans, and boxing history hobbyists. It allows us to spot contradictions and nuances that are, or were prevalent in the "pop culture" of boxing for a long time. Our information has gotten so good, that we know more than most boxing experts of the 20th century. However, sometimes I'm more impressed at what "conventional wisdom" had right, versus what they had wrong. In general, the conventional wisdom of the pantheon of boxing is actually pretty accurate.
Same, I don't rate him. But to put things into perspective, he beat better guys than Ross Purrity too (minus Wlad).
I have to admit that I'm a little bit intrigued by Humphrey Jackson. BoxRec list his birth name as Humphrey Pennyworth. Humphrey Pennyworth was a character in The Joe palooka comic strips and later movies. I am unfamiliar with the comics or the movies but I had always heard the phrase Joe Palooka referring to a fighter and of course remember the phrase from On the Waterfront, " a one-way ticket to Palookaville." Apparently the Humphrey Pennyworth character in The Joe Palooka cartoons was an amiable Giant. BoxRec does not list a date of birth or much other information for Humphrey Jackson other than he was also known as Gerald Jackson. My guess is that Jackson was was merely a shill who made some extra money by padding a couple of Fighters records. It would be very comical, pardon the pun if, that actually was his birth name and there was either a connection to the character or--if better yet it was a coincidence. It appears that one of his qualifications to face Rocky was that he'd lost to a fighter which he outweighed by 90 pounds in his first fight. Perhaps, if Frankel has footage of the fight in his vast collection he would be willing to share a frame or two.
nice try, but if you extend him the courtesy of examining his last TEN fights as I did for Shkor, Purity had won 6-10 as opposed to Shkor only winning 3-10.. And purity's only recent defeats were decisions to contenders along with wins over Prospects and fringe types. shkor was terrible going into the Rocky fight
I think Humphrey is right up there with the guys George Foreman as #1 contender to Joe Frazier was fighting in 1972, like Terry Sorrell. Difference was once Rocky made it into the big leagues he stopped fighting that kind of guy and concentrated on the top contenders.
Yeah but 5 is just as, if not less arbitrary than 10. And if you look beyond recent defeats, he also lost to John Sargent, Cleveland Woods, King Ipitan, etc
Sure, the internet is great. Invaluable if people are reasonable and open-minded. Reminds me of the stories about when the various boxers and fight people in the 60s(?) finally saw footage of the early heavyweights who they had been indoctrinated to regard as the best of the best. They were so shocked and underwhelmed by what they saw that they had to completely reevaluate their perceptions about boxing greatness and the evolution of the sport. Completely changed the way most boxing fans view the arc of the sport, though a narrow subset of hardcore "classic fans" remain unmoved. Are there any instances where this wealth of information and evidence available via the internet has led you to disagree with the conventional wisdom?
Yeah certainly. If Lewis weighed in at 220 he would stop being a SHW. Especially not in a 15 round era anyways.
Yeah he fought Terry Sorrell who had a record of 4 - 15 , the fight before Frazier, and completely ruined Sorrell who only went 4 -6-1 after that.
I can never do enough to overstate the importance that media quality has on perception. I've realized that there is no way a human being can perform the feats that many expect to see from boxers in old school fight films. Most people don't realize how underwhelming Mike Tyson would look through a 1896 camera. In their minds, they imagine a person moving better than the camera technology would allow. You combine the reality of antique camera technology, with insurmountable hype produced by the colorful words from great writers, and this is what you get. Imagine for 50 years, you heard about this legend Golovkin. You never saw footage of him, but you know so much about him. His big fights, his famous quotes. Your dad raised you telling some stories about how great this boxer was. You know the stories of people saying he hits harder than heavyweights. The stories of his KO's in sparring. You're familiar with the colorful glowing testimonies given by the guys he faced in the ring. "Hardest puncher ever." "Nobody can handle his power." "He can knock out heavyweights." "He is a monster in the middleweight division." Then one day, someone miraculously shows up with a Golovkin fight film. It's Golovokin vs. Brook. Except this film is shitty. It's scratched up, it only has two colors. The speed isn't accurate. There is almost no depth. The camera never moves from the same angle. You think you will look at the footage and instantly think "Ah! He's just as amazing as they said he was." ?