What's the best argument against FMJ being the greatest?

Simple answer...
Floyd Mayweather Junior was very good at boxing. It was probably his favourite sport.
But, if he fought the best men in history, he would lose those fights. And that might make him very sad.
That's why he's not the best ever.
Thank you.

 

Did I miss something, because I didn't see anything about Robinson being offered 50 k for Burley, only that he demanded it?

 

140 was ALWAYS Hatton's best class. It's common knowledge that he looked mediocre (at best) @ WW.

No, Diego found the cut for Floyd brutal. Pretty sure he had a massive court case going on at the same time, too.

Manny done amazing things north of 130, but his "Mexicutioner" run > everything north of that.

2lb is still a lot. Especially for a massive cutter like Saul. Besides, what did he do great before he met Floyd? MATTHEW HATTON gave him kittens ffs.

 

Kalambay ?
GTFOH.

 

He was 140lbs in the Morales rematch

Mayweather and Pacquaio naturally weigh the same amount on fight night. It's some advantage for Pacquaio to not drain. Do you think it'd be an advantage for Pacquaio to bang aload of diuretics to **** and **** out a load of water and to sit in the steam room for 6 hours? Yay or nay?

In answer to the Robinson 'avoidance'. Robinson pulled out twice of fighting Cocoa Kid - see Spring Toledo's book. BTW Cocoa Kid was good, he often wore the wraps, meaning he agreed to lose but when he showed up he was good and Robinson knew it.

Robinson was happy to campaign against MWs like Lamotta from 1942. Burley the rightful welterweight champion offered to fight Robinson at 147 and offered him


August 17th 1945 {The Pittsburgh Press} Burley said "I'd fight Robinson for nothing, he can have my purse".
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1 ... 83,5618807


August 22nd 1945 article {Pittsburgh Post Gazette} SRR wants $50,000 not the $25,000 offered by Burleys team. Instead SRR will fight the heavier LaMotta for a $25,000 purse.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1 ... 62,3804785


August 23rd 1945 {Pittsburgh Post Gazette} SRR team are "demanding $50,000" to fight Burley (a fighter without a title). The author claiming "Robinson fears him and wants no part of him under any circumstances"
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1 ... 15,3620812


December 12th 1945 {The Milwaukee Journal} Promotor Art Rooney offers SRR $20,000 to fight Burley. "Thats one we'd like to see"
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1 ... 21,5389108


January 13th 1946 {The Pittsburgh Press} States "Robinson has refused time and time again to fight the clever Burley"
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1 ... 54,3554843


March 6th 1946 {Pittsburgh Post Gazette} Robinson talking about possible opponents and didn't know who to fight in Pittsburgh after beating Sammy Angott. Jake LaMotta, Beau Jack, Charley Burley and Marty Greco were mentioned as possible opponents. It was said Charley Burley would draw a tremendous throng but SRRs handlers demur (reluctance) when the Pittsburgh fighter is mentioned. SRR team turned down a $25,000 offer in 1945 to fight Burley. SRR earned $12,500 against Angott.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1 ... 45,4485876

 

You said, beat "Pacquiao at his best weight". Unless you think 147 was Pacquiao's best weight, this is wrong.

Do you think it's an advantage for 750ml of illegal painkiller? Do you think it's an advantage when you have two arms to one?

Thank you! I've been meaning to get this one, among others.

Rightful Welterweight champion? Okay then... When he beat Marty Servo I don't know but he wasnt no WW champion except the coloured one.

Okay. So you target the one fighter I said he probably ducked? And still can't link a source for the quote?

What about the other 3/4 guys you accused him of ducking?

 

Hatton was 155lbs+ in all of his 140lb fights. Why do you think cutting 15lbs of waterweight is helping him? His fights at Welter he performed worse because he was fighting slicker boxers. He avoided Witter, Corley and Judah at 140. Remind me how great he looked against Pacquaio at 140.

Also Manny didn't Mexicute **** against Marquez. Lost every fight. I also find his Cotto performance sharper than his Barrera and Morales performances.

 

I think Pacquaio and Mayweather were the same weight and I think Pacquaio has performed better since stepping up for the Delahoya fight, yes.

I take you're claiming Pacquaio had an injured arm, I hadn't read anything about this. But most fighters have excuses when they lose.

Ahh you're right, I mistakenly remembered Zivic being WW champ when they fought. Still I'd scroll up and see how many champions and contenders ducked Burley - I've put a ton of quotes up there. It's sickening.

I've linked you the source for my quotes, the link has expired, but if you can find the newspaper, it's all there.

As for the rest of the Murder's Row they were active boxing at 160 while he was happy to face Lamotta in that weight class. Lamotta and Burley were ranked 1 and 2 and Lamotta openly avoided Burley like the plague

Also did you hear the story of Aaron Wade knocking Sugar Ray down after Ray tried to stiff him over sparring payment? Later Wade would get a Robinson bout but was under orders to take a dive in the 3rd round

 

Chuck Burroughs’ sixty years in the Peoria, Illinois boxing scene began in the crowded backseat of Jack Beaty’s reo. A Golden Gloves champion who later became a referee, ring announcer, corner man, journalist, author, and local historian, Burroughs kept tabs on his old teammates long after their fighting days ended. When he died, several of his scrapbooks were donated to the Peoria Public Library. I tracked them down, hoping to unearth more about the Little Tiger. Burroughs didn’t disappoint.

He had chronicled Peoria’s Golden Gloves history and devoted a long paragraph to “Peoria’s first Negro Golden Glove Champ” Aaron Wade. There is a curious scrap of information midway through it that says Wade was “chief sparring partner for Sugar Ray when he was welterweight champ.” Robinson, of course, was a Harlemite. I knew Wade had been living in New York since 1945. After the embarrassing loss to Wylie Burns in 1947, Wade had no income and one marketable skill; Burroughs’ detail shines a light on where he wandered off to after that loss.

Robinson was scheduled to face Steve Belloise on December 9, 1948. His workouts were held at the Uptown Gymnasium at 252 W. 116th Street and Wade was a sparring partner. On the morning of the fight, national newspapers announced that the bout was cancelled “due to an injury Robinson is reported to have suffered in training.” The write-ups were heavy on details, but neither the Belloise camp nor the boxing beat was buying it.

Already lauded as perhaps “the greatest boxer in history,” Robinson was also despised by many insiders for what they saw as imperiousness. He had a history of mistreating sparring partners. He ran out on contracts. He postponed bouts. The Belloise bout had already been postponed from its original date and ticket sales were lagging when Robinson’s injury was announced. The event, said the New York Herald-Tribune, cost $40,000 though “less than $15,000 was in the till.” It was suspicious enough to force a public explanation from the champion: “It happened in the last minute of my three-round workout with Tiger Wade here on Monday,” Robinson said. “Wade’s a 170-pounder. He hit me with a right uppercut down here. I felt like he stabbed me with a knife.”

Doctors were marched out to reassure a doubting press that Robinson had indeed suffered a separation between the sixth and seventh ribs. Reporters were invited to feel the egg-sized lump under his heart for further proof. Many did, and the fact of his injury had to be accepted. Given the fact that the sparring partner who did it was a once-feared puncher, Robinson’s explanation of how he was injured was likewise accepted.

But Robinson was lying.

Two years ago, boxing historian J.J. Johnston told me about a rumor he had heard. The rumor said that the Little Tiger had once knocked down Robinson outside of a Boston gym. I spent weeks sifting for more leads only to find that the past had pulled the shade. I filed the rumor away. About a month ago I was flipping through pages of Burroughs’ Peoria scrapbook and my eyes darted to a glittering sentence: “Whipped Sugar Ray in a street fight over some money Sugar owed him.” Now that’s independent corroboration, which makes a rumor more than a rumor. However, it still wasn’t enough to justify publishing it—Robinson’s name is like thunder in the boxing world, even today. I needed confirmation, and found it on microfilm at the Boston Public Library.

The Boston Post folded in 1956. Its circulation was in a free-fall in the forties, though it still had at least one shoe-leather reporter in Gerry Hern. As news of Robinson’s so-called sparring injury and the fight cancellation hit the stands, Hern was turning up primary sources. One of them was unnamed but was almost certainly Little Tiger Wade, and Wade had a tale to tell.

“There was nothing accidental about Robinson’s rib separation,” Hern revealed in an article published Friday, December 10,1948. “It was the result of trying to shave the overhead a little bit, his own personal overhead, for the fight.” Here’s what happened: Robinson and Wade sparred the previous Tuesday at the Uptown Gymnasium. Robinson, feeling the pinch of the lagging ticket sales for his fight Thursday, told Wade that he would have to accept less money than promised. Wade objected at first, then relented. “What can I do about it,” he said. “You’re the boss. I’ve got to take it.”

Wade left the gym, but changed his mind and waited for the champion on the sidewalk. When Robinson came out, Wade confronted him. “I want all the dough or none,” he said. “I’m just a punk in this business but I want my money.” Robinson, said Hern, starting telling “his broken-down sparring partner that he would be lucky to get anything—but he didn’t finish. Wade fired his Sunday punch that knocked Robinson to the sidewalk and then gave him a brisk going-over.”

The spectacle of a member of Murderers’ Row finally closing the distance on Robinson and punishing him is startling. Is it poetic justice? Robinson later wrote an article for Ebony magazine defending his business acumen. “A broke fighter is a pitiful sight,” he said. “I’ve seen too many of them not to have learned a lesson or two. Great boxing skill is no sure guarantee that a fighter won’t end up hungry and raggedy. Most fighters end up broke.” Then he offered a little advice. “A fighter these days must express himself, must speak up when he thinks he’s being shoved around.”

It could be said that Wade ‘expressed himself’ on behalf of many; on behalf of many on Murderers’ Row.

The pair would have another ill-fated encounter in February 1950. Robinson was scheduled for a main event in Savannah, Georgia, when his scheduled opponent got shot in New Orleans. The local promoter, Buster White, was desperate to find a substitute; a black substitute, to be precise, because southern law prohibited fair fights between the races. Robinson’s manager remembered that Aaron Wade always needed a buck. For all intents and purposes, Wade had been retired for 793 days; he needed a few bucks.

The doors to the Municipal Auditorium opened at 8:30pm on February 15. “Ladies and gentleman, tonight you will see one of the greatest champions of all time,” the program said. “Robinson could easily become a triple champion if given the opportunity to fight for the middleweight and light-heavyweight titles.” Two thousand black and white citizens streamed in by separate entrances. The blacks were seated in the balcony, the whites around the ring. During the main event, they were booing together.

“Ray battered his stocky, keg-like foe savagely,” said the Savannah Morning News. “Mostly he put on a beautiful combination of foot-work and body weaving which left the Tiger shadow boxing.” Robinson’s “favorite stunt” was to grab the rope with his right glove and leave his left free to “tantalize and punish Wade by smearing that hand all over the Tiger’s face and body.” It was an artistic display. It seemed a little too artistic. Wade fell five times in the second round. The first time seemed more like a slip. The second time saw him “dumped on his rear end through the ropes.” The third time Wade went down, “it looked for certain that the glove missed Wade’s face altogether and caught him in the shoulder instead. At any rate, he went down again.”

The crowd was wild between the second and third round, more “at Wade’s taste for canvas than in appreciation for Ray’s aptitude.” Before the bell, Robinson stood up and gestured that he would bring the fiasco to a conclusion. When the third round began, he set out to do so and, reads the article, “Wade seemed willing to cooperate.”

The Savannah Evening Press was also suspicious. “The Tiger—let’s call him Aaron—,” it said, “began hitting the canvas for apparently no reason at all. As Robinson moved within firing range the husky Wade repeatedly fell to the canvas.” Waldo Spence, sports editor for the Press, got right to the point: “Robinson never during the evening hit Wade with a solid punch.”

Years later, Wade privately confirmed what many thought they saw that night. He told his son he had taken a dive. When Alan told me, a shadow crossed my mind. I had to ask “—did Robinson know?” It turns out that he had asked his father that very question. His father shook his head. “Robinson had nothing to do with it.”

“Who approached your father?” I asked Alan. “It was the promoters,” he said. “They told him to go down in three rounds for a few hundred dollars.”

Alan had one other detail he could recall. Wade, he said, had asked the promoters if he could go “five or six rounds.” It was, I suppose, an attempt to salvage whatever scrap of pride he had left. But they turned him down. “Three,” they said.

I found it a little sad.

 

You know nothing, honestly.

Ricky, at 140, was STRONG & big. Hatton @ 147 is facing naturally bigger guys.

Had the "three rule KD" been in effect, Manny would have held the second greatest win of the 00's.

Maybe because those two are better boxers.

 

Ok, I disagree. Obviously that's fine. Opinions are like you know what.

He had surgery on his (right?) arm. I forget the details. I know he was denied any painkillers/shots for it.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sb...cquiao-injury-shoulder-floyd-mayweather-fight
https://www.espn.co.uk/boxing/story...der-denied-anti-inflammatory-shot-locker-room
https://www.google.com/amp/s/syndic...der-injury-impacted-results-of-fight.amp.html

I haven't read this BTW, it's just what I could quickly dig up.

Yeah I already did. Burley was (and still is) so underappreciated it's appalling.

Cheers, I'll get @BitPlayerVesti to try and let me dig it up.

Personally, I don't hold it against a small welter (weight wise at any rate) for not fighting full-blown, some bigger than, middleweights. Cocoa and Williams weren't close to being prime for a Robinson fight, though.

Yeah, not a good look.

 

This is the opinion garnered through years of reading on the subject of these fighters, including thousands of contemporary reports, next day fight reports and seeing footage of the opponents beaten.

 

I don’t care how good Grebs opponents looked. Did you see him shadow boxing? He wouldn’t get past the first round in a modern day Golden Gloves tournament.
And Lamotta doesn’t look good on film.

FMJ KO Greb 1

 

No. Staying in. Sumbu. Sumbu.