Biggest things armchair boxing historians get wrong

You could do a thread on real fights that happened and how people would have expected the outcome to be if they had never met and it were proposed as a fantasy fight.

And not just Tyson-Douglas type upsets.

I think a lot of people would pick Gerrie Coetzee to knock slow-starting Mike Weaver early, for instance. Or have Roberto Duran overwhelming Wilfred Benitez. Etc.

 

I do remember the televised Gerrie Goetzee vs Mike Weaver title bout on Oct 25 1980, it looked as though Weaver was going to lose but he came on to stop Gerrie.

 

Styles don't always make fights.

 

How to score a fight.

 

I have met people who were very knowledgeable about the history of the sport, who had no idea how dangerous a world class boxer would be in a street fight.

 

Mayweather Jr. is the greatest fighter the sport has seen.
Especially the Armchair boxing historians new to the sport.

 

A couple more from me:

1) Dovetailing the ‘what is a robbery’ discussion, a close fight has to go one of three ways: Fighter A wins, Fighter B wins or it’s a draw.

Nobody got robbed in Leonard-Hagler or Canelo-GGG. They were close fights. They went the way they went. You can make an argument for either or perhaps a draw, but the result is not nullified because you didn’t agree with which way it went.

I’ve seen people score fights like that and have some rounds close or even, and then complain that it’s a robbery even though if you shifted the close/even rounds either way then the result could go either way. If you score a 12-round fight 7-5 in rounds (let’s say no knockdowns) and you have three of those rounds close in favor of the guy who won seven rounds, it clearly could shift to the guy you gave five rounds based on those rounds swinging the other way.

There are some fights that are universally considered bad decisions because one guy dominated and lost a decision and, sure, take that into consideration, but to act like (for instance) Hagler won just because you had a close fight scored differently than the judges is preposterous.

2) Ducks. If Fighter A was never even offered a fight against Fighter B, he didn’t duck him. Same as if the financials aren’t right. If Fighter A can make more money fighting Fighter C than Fighter B, he isn’t ducking B … he’s making a business decision to feed his family and pay his bills.

And understanding the context of the times is also important here. A fighter not being willing to tie himself to Don King for future fights isn’t ducking another guy, it’s avoiding signing a contract with a promoter with a proven track record of robbing his fighters blind.

Same with unifications. If the WBA says you have to fight some unworthy Venezuelan or be stripped and that stops you from fighting the WBC champ, that’s not a duck. That’s politics. And the alphabet boys have notoriously always protected their interests over unifications over the years. They make it basically impossible in many cases for unifications to take place.

Archie Moore was the top contender for years and was ducked. Hagler maybe had to wait a year longer for his shot than would have been ideal but I don’t think he was ducked. Ezzard Charles should have gotten a shot at 175 and was ducked, so he moved up to heavyweight. But Aaron Pryor never even fought at welterweight and was openly talking about moving down to 135, so the idea that Leonard ducked him is pretty silly.

Thanks for attending my Ted Talk.

 

That “ATGs” are a breed apart who should be expected to trounce any non-ATGs head to head.

Related to that: That size basically stops mattering once a boxer reaches 185lbs, if the smaller fighter is an ATG and the bigger fighter is not.

The idea that fast, accurate puncher X “wouldn’t have enough power to keep hypothetical opponent Y off of them” gets really overused.

 

The one that always comes to my mind is Foreman vs Morrison. If that fight never happened everyone would assume Foreman eventually KOs Morrison.

 

The problem is with your with your theory of 185 mark is there is enough proof for it then against it. Meaning you wouldn’t have had so many heavyweight champs/contenders weighting in the 180-200 mark if it wasn’t a true statement. The list is long of those that weighed around there and were very successful despite size differences.

 

Not in the last forty years.

 

that’s because there is a cruiser division now. If no cruiser division you’d have seen more guys weigh in under the mark. Steroids/ PEDS have changed the game a bit as well. Allowing all to gain a substantial amount of functional weight. But gaining functional weight is also not a skill and something anyone can do today and they do. Usyk being a prime example. It also happened with Roy Jones Jr grabbing an alphabet title. Also other blown up middle weights and LHWs moved up to compete. Weight is not a skill

 

It is within the rules to fight a heavyweight while weighing 185. Nobody does it because it is a huge disadvantage. And cruiserweight exists to address the size disparity and make things fairer for undersized historical heavyweights. Your examples are trash.

Take the agenda to a different thread.