Surely to god we would need to see Canelo in against somebody bigger, before we start seriously entertaining his chances against Sharkey?
I would contend that all threads are worthless but none moreso than the drooling over inferior athletes based on the sole criteria of the primitive era in which they fought. Alvarez puts on a master class as Sharkey continually can't find the target and gets pummeled between his metronomic beats.
I think there are guys at 160 and 168 who enter the ring in the 180s. So some of the guys Alvarez beat at lower weights were likely heavyweights by the standards of Sharkey's day. Callum Smith for example and Daniel Jacobs are pretty massive, probably 180+ in the ring when they faced Alvarez.
Kovalev was supposed to be around 190 in the ring. That's going to be about right around what Sharkey would be in the ring the night he fought Wills, say. Keeping in mind that you're the man who wants to argue that 50lbs isn't prohibitive. Kovalev is also listed as slightly taller with a slightly longer reach.
Honestly who the **** knows, I could see arguments for both and I’m not a huge fan of Canelo. Also who cares? If it’s for fun then fair enough, but there has to be some kind of agenda behind this. Either you like or hate Canelo, like or hate Sharkey, think fighters from back in the day don’t compare well to modern fighters or vice versa.
There was a light heavyweight division during Sharkey's day. Even if some of Canelo's opponents weighed 180 after rehydrating, they still would only qualify as light heavyweights who are a few cheese burgers over the 175 limit. They certainly wouldn't qualify as actual 200 pound heavyweights. Yes there were some smaller cruiserweight sized heavies in Sharkey's era who hovered around 190+ to just over 200+, but Sharkey also beat multiple men who were over 6 ft and who weighed more than 210+ such as Wills, Godfrey, Carnera, etc. None of this changes the fact Canelo has literally one light heavyweight opponent on his resume, a shot gunshy Kovalev. He conveniently cherry picked him and ignored fighters such as Beterbiev so that he could pretend like he was taking some big risk moving up in weight. That simply isn't enough to go off of to determine if he could beat a heavyweight.
Kovalev was supposed to be 190 in the ring after cutting weight. I presume that this is not being asked of Sharkey, who was in shape at 200lbs. In any event, Kovalev was not exactly the best or brightest of the division. No 50lbs is not prohibitive, but you look at what the fighter has actually done. Sharkey did beat elite fighters who were 50 lbs heavier than him. We have never seen Canelo in against a 200lb fighter, who had not had to make any weight cut. If Canelo beats Makabu, then the question becomes a lot more interesting.
I would also make the observation, that most of the top light heavyweights throughout history, have weighed 190 in catch weight fights. If a light heavy from the 1930s fought at heavyweight, they would have been in the high 180s in the ring.
Right, but he weighed in at 188lbs in his prime. If you set them beside each other, flush, ready to fight, Kovalev would maybe look slightly bigger, maybe not, but they'd look about the same size at the very least. I'm just saying your pure size objection makes no sense because Canelo has already beaten a fighter who was either very slightly smaller or very slightly bigger, depending upon the truth of Kovalev in ring, which version of Sharkey you pick, and how much weight you give his being listed slightly taller. But the bottom line is, your size objection is not reasonable.
Archie Moore weighed 188 when he fought Rocky Marciano, and he was the light heavyweight champion for some time after. There is nothing new about light heavyweights being natural 190 pounders. Sharkey basically was a natural 200 pounder. But OK, let's assume that I am wrong. Beating ancient Kovalev, is not exactly an indication, that you would be competitive with the best light heavies of history. Even if it were, it would not mean that you would be competitive with them, in a catchweight fight.
I don't even understand this whole point about the size. It's not about size - Canelo is bigger than Walker. The point is that Sharkey beat better boxers than Canelo, period. It also happened that these boxers were also bigger than him, so...
The qualifier "natural" seems to be doing a lot of work in @janitor's argument. I suppose there's something there if one already buys that there's a performance difference between natural and bulked up guys. Sharkey presumably got to 190/200 by growing into an adult. Without weight training, potions, etc.
Well to be fair, I didn't claim anything for that victory. Except that Kovalev was about the same size as Sharkey. Which he was.
