After the Keith Thurman upset, is Manny Pacquiao a greater fighter than Muhammad Ali?

I already stated my case as to why I think Pac is greater than Ali in terms of ring achievements. Beat more champions. Won more championships, in more divisions. Has more longevity. Beat more ATGs (depending on how you rank them), beat more HOF'ers. Basically, by every measurable metric, he is greater than Ali.

I'm looking at it without bias, most people just see it through rose-tinted glasses.

Ali basically ruled his division, thats it. But that's replicable, Lewis, Holmes, Wlad, Tyson did that too.

You want to know why there are so many greats in Ali's resume and why its even more glorified? Because his prime was taken away from him.

Imagine this, imagine he wasn't banned. Instead of this big deal between champion vs champion in Ali vs Frazier, it would have just been Ali vs another challenger. At his peak, Frazier would have just been another challenger who would have lost to him, there wouldn't have been a trilogy. Foreman would also just have been another challenger.

By backing away, he allowed other fighters to establish themselves as GREAT fighters, made the fight competitive enough amongst each other that in turn allowed people to rate those guys higher. It's really quite subjective.

Had Ali been someone like Lewis who just beat on all-comers and never got banned to allow these guys to establish themselves, he would have just been another dominant champ with no real competition.

Not knocking Ali at all, but that's how I see it. We consider Frazier great because he beat Ali who was great, see how arbitrary that is? If Ali was still at his peak and just easily beat Frazier which he would have, and we were to compare how Frazier would do against Holmes, Tyson, Wlad, Vitaly, Lewis, Bowe, Wilder, Joshua, Fury - we would probably pick all of them to knock Frazier out.

I don't know where I have Pac, but I have both Floyd and Pac in the top 10-20 somewhere. I like to follow logic, to me, if these 2 guys are considered the greatest fighters of the last 30 years, and there have only been 120 years of recorded boxing history, UNLESS the last 30 years has been absolute dogpile horse**** in comparison to the previous 90 years, then logically, they should at least be top 10-20. Ali is somewhere in the bracket too.

 

Are you talking H2H all time because Liston and Frazier doesn't rank top 10 H2H all-time. If we're talking H2H, MAB, Morales, JMM will easily make the top 10 for FW all time and probably for outright resume too. Also because these guys are jumping weight classes, if we're gonna rate their resume over a division, we should rate it from 122-130 as a single division. Obviously its much easier to establish greatness in a single division if thats all you fought at, look at Hagler.

 

Pac was gifted against JMM as much as Floyd was gifted against Maidana and Castillo 1. Plenty of gifts around for everyone bud.

 

Gowan then let's.
Archie Moore, 46 Years old, doesn't mean anything
Sonny Liston 1, Sonny supposedly cheating with chemicals on his shoulder, Ali made him Quit
Sonny Liston 2, a supposed dive. Or a first round KO.
Floyd Patterson, top 20 HW, Ali toyed with him and stopped him late.
George Chuvalo 1, Clear Ali win despite being having some trouble
Cleveland Williams, was shot before this fight and was past prime, Ali still pummeled and embarrassed a top contender.
Ernie Terrel, an active champion and underrated fighter. Ali toyed with him in way that sums up his career.
Zora Folley, good fighter, top contender. Ali pummeled and embarrassed him
Jerry Quarry 1, good fighter, Ali on his comeback stopped him early, on cuts
Oscar Bonavena, good fighter who seriously troubled and hurt Joe Frazier, Ali toyed with him and stopped him
Joe Frazier 1, Ali was badly beaten and bruised by Joe. Joe is Ali's stylistic poison and I'd pick this Joe to beat any version of Ali. Joe's absolute peak.
Jimmy Elis, former champ. Ali shut out and Stopped
George Chuvalo 2, Ali won clearly again
Jerry Quarry 2, Ali won by stoppage again.
Floyd Patterson 2, Patterson was definitely past prime, but was stopped
Bob Foster, not a good HW, past his prime, pretty poor win
Ken Norton 1, Ali suffered broken jaw, somewhat close, clear Norton win.
Ken Norton 2, Ali fought slightly smarter, won a very close fight.
Joe Frazier 2, avenged loss, poor referring due to the amount of clinching, not Ali's fault tho.
George Foreman, best win on either's résumé, KOed an iron chinned beast who is top 5 puncher of all time, at least. Ali hardly lost a round and developed a whole new technique.
Ron Lyle, excellent puncher, Ali embarrassed and stopped
Joe Frazier 3, Ali won most rounds and got a corner retirement. In an ATG fight which is known universally.
Jimmy Young, good fighter and technician, Close fight.
Ken Norton 3, somewhat close fight, I had Ken winning by 2 points, I think. Ali got the nod.
Earnie Shavers, one of the most dangerous punchers of all time against a very far removed prime Ali, Ali won a close fight and proved his chin and heart
Larry Holmes, a horrendous missmatch. A top 5 HW ever against a poorly prepared Ali and it honestly should have happend.


Ali's résumé shits over Pacs, and I left out the fact that Ali had his prime taken, and a few lessor contenders from the era.

 

No. But I'd have both H2H top 10.

 

Pac is over 40 and Horn > Leon Spinks, probably

 

Nah.
Leon has his gold medal and close fight with Ali

Horn has a close fight with Pacquiao.

Leon > Horn

 

Pacquiao cleaned out 122 except for the bogus Sanchez dirty tactics and cards. He knocked out and dominated the top man there. Ali never dominated the HW division in the way Hopkins dominated weak 160. He beat Liston twice and then he was exiled after beating the unbelievable Cleveland Williams. Then he came back and lost badly to Frazier, then beat Foreman and got into seriously controversial fights with Norton.

 

Pacquiao started at 106 pounds and actually put weights in his pockets so that the fight could get sanctioned. So it's quite likely he started at 99 pounds.

 

2000 Barrera might be the best fighter ever at 122 H2H. I don't see anybody really beating a 2000 Barrera at 122 besides maybe Pac and Gomez. Morales was gifted over Barrera in the first fight.

 

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Some people say Ali NEVER beat Ken Norton

I'd argue that JMM and PBF are better boxers than Ali too

Yet when he finally stepped it up against Holmes we saw what happened

Pac > Ali

 

I don't know how that shits all over Pac's.

Sasakul - Lineal champ, KO, great win.
Ledwaba - Good win, maybe Ledwaba was overrated.
MAB - Amazing win, beating an ATG coming off wins Morales, Hamed, Kelley (3x hof'ers) and Pac absolutely destroys him. MAB may have been distracted.
JMM - Draw, JMM is ahead of Norton p4p all-time, whom Ali had similar struggles with. Pac won except for judging error. Very close fight, arguably JMM won.
Morales 1 - ATG at BW-FW. Clear loss. Gloves controversy.
Larios - Decent win, former champ. Past prime.
Morales 2 - Good win. Gloves made the difference. Or Morales was dehydrated.
MAB 2 - Good win. Proves first fight wasnt a fluke. MAB just gave JMM a tough fight. Past prime.
JMM 2 - Close fight. I scored it a draw. Win on his record, similar to Ali Norton wins.
Diaz - Decent win. Another title in another division. Was champion. Prime. OK fighter at best.
ODLH - Great win. ATG. Took Floyd to SD 10 months prior. Underrated because the narrative was created Pac only won because ODLH was drained but Pac went on to do the same to other WWs meaning the opponent didnt need to be drained for Pac to destroy them. Past prime. Clearly past his best.
Hatton - Lineal champ and ATG at the weight, HOFer, his peak weight. Sensational KO, looked unstoppable. Hatton may have been past it with his bad weight management.
Cotto - Best win. Another championship in 7th weight division against a guy who was only ever beaten with plaster. Cotto may have been damaged goods from the plaster beating. May have been drained.
Clottey - Decent win. former champ. absolutely dominant. Much bigger guy. Decent fighter who arguably beat Cotto. Looked like he came in for a paycheck.
Margarito - Probably a future HOFer if not for controversy. Giant of a man in comparison. Absolutely beat him up. 8 title in 8th weight division. Margarito was probably not as good as the Margo we saw with special wraps.
Mosley - An ATG, HOFer. Good win. Clearly past his prime.
JMM 3 - close fight. Arguably lost.
Tim Bradley 1 - was a robbery. Still lost on cards.
JMM 4 - great fight, arguably his best performance against JMM until KO. He got KTFO.
Rios - Former champ. Ok win against an OK guy. Rios was never that good, specially at WW.
Bradley 2 - great win. Bradley was the man at 140, fight was at 147. Pac was still smaller.
Algeiri - Decent win, former champ. Was a 140 champ at 147. Not that it mattered since Pac was smaller.
Mayweather - Floyd was caught with illegal IVs clearly covering PEDs. Shoulder injured, needed surgery after, wasnt even allowed painkillers. These are facts. Lost the fight. Floyd ran for his life.
Bradley 3 - another win against a future HOFer.
Vargas - another win against a former champ. Vargas is an average champ at best. Maybe Cleveland level though.
Horn - robbery. shouldnt have gone the distance though. horn is shite.
Mathysse - another win against a former champ. clearly past his prime and shot.
Broner - a win over a 4 division champ. Although Broner is nothing but a contender level at 147 if that.
Thurman - another win against a WW champ. The champ with the best WW resume currently. At age 40, making him the oldest WW champ in history, a similar feat to Bhop and Foreman. Thurman was not his best, had 2 years off and only 1 tuneup.

What's crazy about Pac's resume is that most of the guys he fought were unknown too because he was fighting off Asia. It's really only since he got up from 122 that he started beating some names. Had he started off in US and carefully guided, his career would be even more insane.

 

Rigondeaux? Close, I dunno, MAB maybe too big for Rigo. In fact scratch that, I'd pick MAB quite comfortably.

 

Really? If you were a betting man, you had to bet your house on it, you would seriously bet Liston/Frazier to beat:

Tyson, Holmes, Lewis, Vitaly, Wlad, Bowe, Wilder, Joshua, Fury, Foreman, Ali, Holyfield, Louis, Marciano?

It's close but I can't say I'd be confident in removing 5 names there and placing Frazier to make #10.

Holyfield vs Frazier would be the closest fight, a serious war of attrition. Frazier maybe wins. Holyfield does look like the better athlete. He probably also beats Marciano and Louis. After Ruiz-Joshua he might have a shot on beating the giant too but given how he dealt with Foreman's swinging, can't imagine Joshua would do much worse? The rest, I find it hard to picture it.

Maybe not entirely fair since those guys massively outweigh him for the most part.

 

Yes, but Pacquiao was straight in the middle of his prime, in fact he was a beast, Ali was past his prime.

MAB was made for Pacquiao to beat.

What? Pac won coz he readjusted like a great champ. Don't use the gloves as an excuse. I didn't give the lay off as an excuse for Alis Frazier loss.

The Del a Hoya fight was a clear win for Mayweather. Del a Hoya was very very far past his prime. And drained. The fight is as meaningless a win as the Ali Holmes win.

Not a good win. Mosely was very clearly past his prime, coming off an embarrassing loss to Mayweather and an even more embarrassing draw to Mora.

Definitely lost. In fact I'm more sure of this fight being a loss than Ali Norton 3. And Pac was much closer to his prime than Marquez was.

There's a case for a Horn win. And he got it. It's a close fight not a robbery. And yes Horn is shite. He shouldn't have lost, like Ali shouldn't have to Spinks.

What? Bradley is a future Hall of Famer? He shouldn't be in my book. But we'll see ay?