Fighters with the biggest post-career reputation boosts?

I also think that way and I don't want to downgrade Jersey Joe, because I like watching him in work. Very flashy and classy boxer with unique footwork, but he wouldn't be ranked as high without this cute-ness. There is no reason to have him above Schmeling and I'd find probably more than 20 HWs greater than him.

 

Jim Jeffries
Jack Johnson
Wladamir Klitschko!

I see exactly the same trend with all these men.

They were all regarded with extreme skepticism when they lifted the crown, and reasonably so.

By the time they retired/lost, they were all seen as invincible monsters!

Bizarrely Wladamir Klitschko, taught me more about the earlier heavyweight champions, than any other fighter of my lifetime!

 

I like Walcott, and as a Charles fan you'd expect me to overate him but I think his entire legacy is boosted up beyond what's necessary. Skills too.

His best wins are all LHWs, not a good sign for an 'elite' HW. He was held really close by Joey Maxim in his prime. Lost to Layne. Lost to Ray too. His win over Johnson is a complete fluke and an injury, they'd need a rematch for that to be legit imo.

His legacy comes from his KO of Charles, giving Marciano a tough fight and a razor close fight with an old Joe Louis. Sure, there's worse fighters, but there's certainly better. Schmeling among them.

I 100% believe the overrating of Walcott comes to boost Marciano's résumé. But that's a different subject entirely.

 

Wlad and Calzaghe are two recent examples which stand out for me.

I think there's an observable trend for certain guys: a fighter might not quite get the respect or ratings they deserve during their career. Once they've left the sport and you see what follows them, you perhaps realise they weren't so bad after all, and they start getting the 'underrated' tag applied. Everyone starts agreeing - so then to compensate for this underrating, people go too far in the other direction and start overrating them to the same extent. Then that curve flattens too, and in the end the consensus falls in the middle of the two extremes, and the fighter is rated more or less right. Wladimir's stock seems to have risen exponentially these past two or three years with fans and historians, and I've seen some ratings of him on here which seem very generous to me, and which I can't imagine many, if any at all, people giving him before he lost to Fury. Will be interesting to see once the dust settles and his career really is a memory just where he'll be ranked.

With Calzaghe, I think he's lucky that the early reflections on his career have coincided with the Mayweather circus, and the resultant culture in boxing which obsesses over the '0' above everything else.

 

There were other contemporary comments on him that were more positive on him. Watching his fights, it's clear that he was more than just a guy with one punch. I mean, many people call Joe Frazier that way but it doesn't make him bad.

He had very good jab though, not orthodox one but he used lefts well to set up right hand.

I don't view him as someone who could destroy much bigger fighters than himself either. My point is that most people don't view him highly even within his size, which is strange to me.

By the way, you can comment the other Schmeling thread created today

 

Chris Byrd
Tommy Morrison
Old Foreman
Holmes (fairly enough)
Whoever Marciano was fighting
Maybe Langford and Wills?

 

Excellent post.

 

I remember he had a part in a movie called Head, with the singing group The Monkees in the 1960's

 

What's the story here, if someone wouldn't mind catching a newer member up to speed? I know of the YT channel, actually quite a while before i actively posted here*. What it seems like from what I've read here in this thread so far is a poster with pretentious Bert Sugar aficionado type vibe? It just sounds like it would make for a bit of entertaining reading.

*I will say dude appears to have some A/V editing abilities

 

From what I remember (it was a while ago), there was a hilarious poster who would do massive critiques of classic boxers, and classic posters, with cutting and funny posts. He had forum famous quotes when insulting and debating others, such as going on tangents about posters 'being in muggy, smoke filled taverns with old newspaper clippings' etc etc.

Basically, a clever troll poster put out good bait and the classic forum fell for it every time, from what I remember. I don't know anything about the youtube channel.

 

I mentioned the channel as I believe someone earlier said something along the lines of "...he went back to making videos on YT..." I assume it would be this guy, if this was a legit statement... https://www.youtube.com/user/reznick6/videos

 

Kid Williams was a great, great fighter, but totally forgotten and it took me reading Flea's bantam series to know of him. In fact, you could say this for a lot of Fly/Bantam fighters from 1890 - 1940.

 

I honestly can barely remember it, but if Rez was mentioned then I assume it was the poster making a dig at him, not Rez himself as the poster.

 

Oh no, the poster making the comment I am referring to was definitely making a dig/taking swipe at this member "Reznick"