Great fighters, but not ATG..........

I know that emile usually is rated in the top 50 all time Great list but in my opinion he was very good but to me definitely not an all time great. He had too many losses that he should not AND HE LOST IN HIS PRIME ALSO AGAINST FIGHTERS THAT WERE NOT A GREAT THING.he lost the most of times to the best guys that he fought. He did beat tiger when was well past his prime. He lost against benvenutti ,fullmer,carter stopped him in 1,napoles, and of course monzon.he never should have lost against guys like randy sandy ,manuel González or denny moyer.
I supect that you rank him that high because you are a monzon fan and grifith was one of his rivals. Carlos is my n°1 mw too.but i don't rate grifith that high

 

Lol

 

Hector wasn't an ATG??

 

I wanna put Wladimir and Vitali but I'm struggling to even call them mere greats.

 

To me he is not.

 

I suppose it depends on how you define an ATG. Just my criteria, off the top of my head... Top 20 of all time in their own division (a stacked division) or top 10 (less stacked division)? ATG. Top 100 of all time? Automatic ATG. But that definition is full of grey areas. Just my initial thoughts.

 

I am a big Monzon fan, but actually, I esteem EG as high as I do because of his 1966 victory over D1ck Tiger...a fight that, back then, kindled my life long love for boxing. This fight captured my imagination because here was Griffith, the welterweight champ, travelling all the way up to middleweight..ceding 10 lbs, BTW, daring to take the title of the proud, strong and resurgent D1ck Tiger...who looked soooo strong and vengeful in conquering his nemesis Joey Giardello to regain his precious middleweight title. Tiger took on Griffith in his first defense, thinking that it was a given that he would be way too much for the smaller welter champ...after all, remember that blowout loss of Emile's to the menacing Rubin Carter, who the Tiger man virtually blew away in turn in '65 before capping off the year by whipping Giardello for all the marbles? Well, upset of upsets, not only did Griffith beat Tiger, in an admittedly close contest, but he not only neatly outboxed Tiger, but he at times appeared to even be the stronger man, incredibly enough, and punctuated the win by being the first to deck the previously thought invincible Tiger. Yes, EG could be erratic, but he looked very damned good vs Tiger, and that victory sort of caps off a distinguished career as a dominant welter champ who stepped up without the benefit of a "junior" division along the way to beat a formidable champion in D1ck Tiger.

 

I don't know, I kinda like "Sprinks".

 

Edit
We can now add Viteli and Quary to the list.

 

Great post cobra. How are you doing today sir?

Tiger was an absolute animal of a man, so I suppose his name was rather apt. I still marvel at how durable he was, a real brick wall. Seemingly having no trouble even with the heaviest of heavy artillery, from the likes of Florentino Fernandez, who even had Fullmer reeling all over the ring with a broken arm for the last two rounds of their contest.

By the way, rc.... any thoughts on Lausse? Been meaning to ask...

 

Hi Russell...I'm ok, for a work day (ugh)...hope you're doing good. Consider this....until Griffith decked Tiger in '66, the Tiger man had gone his whole career without ever being floored...and at the age of 37, had gone on even longer than Marvin Hagler as the "Iron Man" of boxing. Having faced Fernandez, the Hurricane, and other like minded killers, he was IMO, the strongest, most iron chinned champion in boxing at that time, and yessir, as you put it, "a real brick wall"...suddenly Emile Griffith, a welterweight...champion or no, accomplishes the feat of flooring Mr Ihetu for the first time...and almost did it again after Tiger arose. Griff unfortunately fell into one of his rather apathetic "trances" which used to drive his trainer Gil Clancy absolutely nuts...and let Tiger back in to the fight in the latter rounds...not fighting with the skill and purpose of the first half of the fight. It wasn't a stamina issue, just that puzzling lack of focus that he displayed from time to time.....he still deserved the decision IMHO though. I may get some disagreement here about the level of EG's level of greatness, but I'm convinced that he makes the cut...ATG-wise....and let's not forget the difficulties that he posed for the greatest of the middleweight champs, Monzon, in their second fight...and really deserved to be light middle champ after being brutally robbed by the judges after beating Eckard Dagge in 1976.
I'm fascinated by Lausse, really...after all, he bounced the near indestructible Gene Fullmer, another favorite of mine, off the canvas twice en route to decisioning him...and his ko displays were magnificent. I always group him with the aforementioned Fernandez for some reason...and it would have been great if they were at their best at the same time and had fought. Incidently, Eduardo Lausse's daughter used to post here in this forum several years ago...and I'm glad that I had the chance to tell her of my esteem for her dad.

 

He sure should have been...and at the very least, I'm sure that there's plenty of so called "ATG's" who Hector would have had no trouble with at all.

 

Cobra, have you ever seen the documentary about Emile's life, called, I believe, Ring of fire?

Just searched to verify that was the actual title so I wasn't asking you about some phantom movie, and actually found the movie hidden stealthily on youtube.

It's been 10 something years since I watched it but I recall it being absolutely tremendous. Here it is if you (or anyone) wants to take a look.

This content is protected

 

Also I had no idea Lausse's daughter posted here. Would have loved a chance to talk to her and pick her mind a little, actually. Do you recall anything particularly interesting that she said?

 

Genuinely excellent/great but not ATG? Mm....here goes. Probably not a popular pick, but....

The modern Mexican trio: Barrera, Morales and JMM. I love these lads, they've left their mark on the sport indelibly and are legends but they were all beatable at their respective bests with varying weaknesses, enough so that I don't consider any of them h2h monsters on the level of Sanchez, Saldivar, Chavez, Olivares, Zarate etc. More on the level of Medel, Becerra, Macias and Arizmendi. Just below Chucho Castillo and Rafa Herrera. Modern media, tv and the rise of the internet have given them overexposure the likes of which previous generations of top Mexicans would have murdered for.

Marquez is the greatest of them for me. He didn't have the guarded route to the top or backing of the other two and really had to fight for recognition. He was also the only one to get the better of Pac over more than one fight, though this may be harsh on Morales as the first Pac fight was more or less after he'd exited his prime and it was a tremendous one-off achievement. And they don't have the depth of CV outside of their fights with Pac and each other to oust Marquez in that regard.

Great fighters all but not amongst the greatest around their weight class.