Who ranks higher as a heavyweight, Joe Frazier or Mike Tyson?

The above is patent nonsense.

Tyson was being speculatively matched against FOTC Ali, as a comparison to Frazier. It is a 15 round fight - period.

Your dismissal of workrate and the ability or lack thereof to KO Ali as an irrelevance, is just ridiculous, on its face.

Now that^^ is irrelevant.

Of course, an interpretation of the stats, on that basis, is a given. But one needs to make the case for the degree of influence these factors have, overall; not to simply dismiss the stats as "completely irrelevant".

I have provided the respective timeframes, from which the stats were derived, in a prior post.

 

Bonecrusher wasn't that good. He lost to Marvis Frazier. He lost to everyone. I wouldn't be making a huge deal out of a boxer's resume if one of their best wins is Bonecrusher.

If you're going to give Tubbs mileage for losing efforts I'm going to give Mathis mileage for losing efforts. The facts of the matter are that Tubbs has more losses despite competing in a worse era and did not accomplish a whole lot in spite of his talent. He certainly did not do enough to convince me that Mathis was "garbage" in comparison. You're acting like Tubbs was some godly h2h monster who had everyone quaking in fear in the 80's.

I didn't say outliers were the norm. You're using the word wrong. Let's back track: you said Ellis would be too small to be competitive in the 80's since he was basically cruiserweight sized. I mentioned not one, not two, but THREE different boxers who were all similar in height and weight to Ellis in the 80's and did ok. 2/3 of them became champions. Therefore your statement that Ellis would not be able to compete due to his size is false.

At no point was I claiming Ellis would have destroyed everyone and been the top dog of the 80's. I was simply saying that there is nothing absurd in the idea Ellis might manage to put together a few good wins or grab a belt since there were in fact men his size in the 80's who did well. The argument was over the moment you started shifting the goal posts talking about how spinks was more talented or how Weaver punched harder. That wasn't part of your original argument.

 

Wow that's interesting. For a moment I assumed the stats were from their entire careers but that certainly puts things in perspective. Prime Frazier more elusive and more accurate than prime Tyson, seems like a blasphemous statement nowadays.

The thing about comparing their competition, while it's true Tyson did usually face larger men, it's not like he was some puny Jim Corbett sized guy taking on behemoths. Tyson was a true HW and was a muscular 215-225ish in his prime. That's roughly how heavy most opponents were, it was rare that he faced guys 235+ lbs. So while it's true he was shorter than most opponents, it was rare that he had to overcome a huge difference in weight.

Another factor to consider is that while some of Frazier's opponents were smaller, they were often faster. That's the trade off. I would imagine it's more difficult to land punches on slippery guys like Machen or Ali than lumbering oaks like Smith or Bruno. Thus the accuracy of Frazier and his ability to slip punches looks even more impressive.

 

It is not factual to say that Ellis competed in a better era than Tubbs.

Ellis wasn’t a true heavyweight like Weaver. They weren’t the same size. Michael Spinks was a special talent. Tillis didn’t do ****. Yes, Ellis could be about Tillis level.

Not gonna type the same thing out again.

 

He might not have had to overcome a huge difference in weight, but most of the time Tyson's opponents were way taller.
But what's more important is that they were on average more skilled than those of Frazier.

 

The 80's coke head, flabby chest era where no one could keep their title for more than a year was better than the 70's?

You are in a very, very extreme minority who believes this.

All of this may be true to an extent, but it wasn't your original argument.

You claimed Ellis would be too small to compete in the 80's and this statement is false.

Then stop shifting the goal posts and admit you were wrong.

 

The same thing applies to Frazier. Ali, Mathis, Bugner, Foreman, hell, even guys like Quarry and Ellis were actually taller than Frazier. I don't recall anyone except Scrap Iron Johnson being shorter than him.

Tyson's opponents being more skilled than Frazier's is very debatable. Many of the guys in Tyson's era were very inconsistent and rarely lived up to their potential. And if you're including men like Holyfield and Lewis, he lost those fights so what difference does it make?

 

1. Having Tyson, Bowe, and Witherspoon to deal with is every bit the problem of a faded Ali, Frazier, and an old Patterson.
2. I don’t consider Tillis to be a real competitor in the 80s. He was more of a Simms, Mitch Green type. Ellis would fit in eith those guys.

 

Yes - it's kind of sacrilegious, on the modern-day internet forum.

But perspectives on Frazier have, I think, been influenced significantly by his matches with Ali and Foreman. I'm sure my views have drifted into that melting pot, at times. It's easy to forget that Frazier's style combined multiple facets of offense and defense into his relentless, perpetual motion. And, he was also efficient with his output.

Interestingly, the Machen bout is not included in the sample from which the averages are derived.

In any event, even if one isn't convinced or impressed by the stats (and there's plenty to play with, in terms of pros and cons), it should at least generate curiosity enough to want to either look into or take another good look at Frazier.

To my mind, the guy was a phenomenon.

 

1. That's partially true. Comparing those opponents you listed the talent level was fairly close. But Bowe and Witherspoon had yo yo careers with so many ups and downs and weren't consistent. When they fell off, they fell of like an avalanche. Everyone in the 70's stayed in shape and bounced back surprisingly quickly even after bad losses. That was the major difference between the eras. Tubbs was basically the poster boy for the underachievers of his era.

2. I don't see weaver as being significantly better than Ellis either. Weaver has some very bad losses and as for his wins, could see Ellis beating some of his opponents.

 

Yeah - well - he did handle Tyson, after all.

 

Well that last paragraph is part of the problem. Some people assess Frazier with one look, come to the conclusion he was simply a brave little flawed swarmer who only had one dimension to him, and then write him off. They don't thoroughly analyze his style and tend to repeat the same things in legacy or h2h discussions. They won't, as you put it, take a good look at him and think there isn't much else to ponder.

But that's why stats are so interesting because they tell you a story that doesn't always fit the narrative. I've seen countless people say Frazier was just a mindless come forward guy who got hit a lot, that he was in the right place at the right time, that any big puncher would take him out, etc.

But the truth is there was a lot of nuance to his style and there are interesting break downs on YouTube. He could be a very frustrating opponent.

 

What's the reason to call 1980s HWs significantly better than Ellis, Quarry or Bonavena? Seriously, I'd love to hear the reasoning.

 

You’ve been blessed with this discussion thanks to Tyson not training for a decent opponent. If Tyson had performed up to his level in Tokyo, there’d be absolutely nothing to debate here.

 

Too true.

The stat, which jumped out at me immediately was the average percentage of jabs landed on Frazier - a mere 16%.

Now, someone has a choice of either dismissing that figure and saying to themselves that Frazier faced a bunch of guys who couldn't jab for toffee, or they can watch how Frazier consistently slips jabs and doesn't just slip jabs but launches punishing attacks off of these maneuvers - all night long.

The seamless integration between Frazier's movement, defense and offense is one of the most complete a person will see, in my opinion.