Classic Forum Chat: Size isn't the only factor.

H2H on their best nights,I think he probably beats more champs than beat him,and I think he would have given Lewis a very busy night! For decades.Tunney was an automatic top ten choice on the basis of two wins over a past it great heavy .The rest of his resume is startlingly shallow akin to Corbett's but without the losses.

 

H2H, Bowe's top 10.
In terms of greatness, he ranks 11 to 15.

70s and 80s.

 

This. I can't see who you are responding to but it's funny how we are now being told size was never the crux of the argument. Anyone who spent time here knows it all boiled down to the size argument.

We just had Valuev being picked over Schmeling because he's just too big...

[url]https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/nikolai-valuev-meeting-joe-louis-s-title-opponents.671841/[/url]

 

Most people consider beating the best of your own era to be an essential part of greatness. So essential that I'm not sure exactly what "greatness" would mean otherwise. (Except maybe historical impact / popularity?) So I don't see how rating Bowe outside the top 20 would be unreasonable.

Unless you use a very different definition of greatness than most others?

I thought you considered the 70s fighters to be too small against modern heavies, to the point where Shavers was featherfisted? Or is that true of Bowe as well?

(Or, I suppose I could be horribly misremembering.)

 

Well what else won him a title? He had poor to average power, below average skills and was about as quick as a statue.What he had was size,weight and durabilty.

 

Yeah, and it's not like Braddock was a dazzling fighter. He was a 10-1 underdog against Baer, I think. That's how highly regarded he was by his contemporaries.

 

No, that would be a stretch to say where we stand right now, but I'd still give Usyk a more than decent chance against Lewis of Holy 2, Vitaly of Byrd (even without the injury) and Wlad of the Sanders fight.

 

The main criteria for me is achievements. Bowe became champ in his era, and beat Holyfield twice.
But I also look at H2H ability, as well as historical impact/popularity, but these 2 criteria are worth around 20-25 % each, no more.

You said "comparable", not superior. The 70s and 80s were close.
And I said some 70s guys are small, not all. And I maintain my view on Shavers.

Anyway, please tell me your top 20 HWs that are greater than Bowe.

 

It’s difficult to say that about Bowe. Looking good against Holyfield and Jorge Luis Gonzalez doesn’t tell much. He didn’t look so good against an aging Tubbs, Herbie Hide, and Golota.

I’m not sold on Bowe doing well against the best superheavies, tricky fighters like Usyk, or aggressors like Tyson. He never proved it, but repeatedly showed a shitty defense that was exploitable.

 

I don't see 10 HWs that could beat him H2H. We have Tyson, Lewis, Liston, the Klitschkos, Fury, Ali, Foreman, Holmes. But Bowe might also beat them. So it's not a given. Apart from these men, I can't think of others you might favor over him.

 

That haven't been the argument, though. The argument has rather been "he's not good enough to make up for his size disadvantage". Fighters like Louis, Ali, Holmes, Tyson and Holy have been viewed by many (most?) on this board as good enough to make up for just about any size disadvantage.

Braddock was just never that good. It isn't more mysterious than that.

 

How heavily is achievements rated, compared to H2H? Most people consider beating ranked guys an extremely important achievement.

Right. That's what puzzles me. If the 70s were close in quality to the 80s and 90s (and better than the 2000s to 2020s?), then Shavers's feared status as a puncher back then is very hard to explain. If heavyweights comparably good to the 90s guys are saying Shavers is a murderous puncher, and Shavers is in fact KO'ing ranked, "comparable to the 90s" heavies, then it's hard to square that with being featherfisted.

Liston has the same kind of evidence for his power as Shavers, against similarly sized guys. But you're rating Liston high head to head. Again, it seems like it would be hard to keep all of this consistent, unless you're radically re-appraising fighters like Liston or Shavers to be light hitters who didn't need to rely on their power for much.

Most people who rate Shavers as weak punching or too small attack Shavers's entire era as sucky, to maintain consistency.

I certainly can if you insist, but I don't know how helpful it would be to you, since we seem to use different criteria for greatness.

 

For some reason, he and some of the others seem intent on believing that posters who pick bigger fighters over “greater” or more accomplished fighters do so because they are ignoring every attribute other than size.

 

It's a lazy argument that killed this forum. So many fantasy match ups where the OP seemingly just selected two fighters so he can say "you're crazy, weight divisions exist.." Why even bother?

What stood out for me was the manner Usyk won. It wasn't with a flawless prime Chris Byrd like elusive performance with dazzling speed as the naysayers have been suggesting was the only way for a small man to win anymore. It was a technically sound past prime Cruiser, fighting aggressively and taking some licks, surprise, he wasn't blown out if the ring magically by Joshua's blows because he used to weigh below 200 lbs.

Sadly, we just seeing another problematic take away. The 34 year old Usyk being presented as a demi-god comparable to Ali and Holmes, despite lacking their reach and speed...and even power. Usyk is great but that's ridiculous cope to justify a smaller man winning his first truly significant HW bout.