Would Michael Grant be ranked in the top 10 if he was fighting now in his prime?

nothing to support that. Luis has no wins greater than Grant's over Golota. WTF is with you guys acting like Luis Ortiz was some great monster?? Even in the worst HW era in decades, Luis has a thin resume.

 

Quick review:

Whyte is at 5 for beating a geriatric Povetkin and getting smoked by the same guy and Fury via one punch knockouts since 2020. Grant could do that.

Hrgovic is ranked 9 for doing virtually nothing. Grant could do that.

Sanchez is at 10 for beating Efe and Hammer. Grant could do that.

Grant’s resume of Golota, Cole, Purrity, Savarese, Izon and others before defeat is probably preferable to the resumes of Ortiz, current Whyte, Parker, Joyce, Hrgovic, and Sanchez.

 

Easier to look more technical when you are facing subpar comp Mark.

 

And what of those atop the HW today? Just another one sided view...

 

That has nothing to do with what I said, Mark.

 

Sure but so is Ortiz resume...

His best win was Jennings.
Jennings absolute career best performance amounts to taking 2-4 rounds off of Wlad - and he looked nowhere near as good a fighter the night he fought Ortiz...
It's simply not a credible best win for someone considered to be a contender level fighter.

Ortiz was never anything more than a gatekeeper who looked slick against **** fighters - put him in a stronger era and he certainly wouldn't have fared better.

 

If Michael Grant in his prime would be in the top 10 today, then Lennox Lewis in his prime would be #1 today.

 

No.

If he was fighting today, Grant may have gotten a low rating somewhere at some point, but he wouldn't have been the medai "darling" today like he was briefly back then by HBO.

The label "media creation" has been placed on many fighters, but it was really applicable to Michael Grant.

HBO was determined to make Grant a star, because he had all the attributes they wanted in an American champion. Big, powerful, well-spoken, modeled clothes, played the piano. He was someone they could see carrying HBO boxing into the 21st Century.

Those were the "heady" days of HBO Boxing where they wanted all the champs to vacate their belts and just let HBO make the fights for them. They considered themselves "king makers." They wanted to sign young stars and pit stars against each other. Forget that fights made by sanctioning bodies were often better than the "superfights" HBO made. HBO wanted to be the sanctioning body for boxing. And it decided Grant was going to be the next heavyweight champion.

What they didn't seem to notice was that Grant wasn't really very good or wasn't dominant at all. Despite all the hype, he was just barely getting by when he started to step up

Grant fought to a split decision against Jeff Wooden. Grant lost to Jameel McCline. Late-sub Golota was beating the holy hell out of Grant and was at the point where Golota couldn't lose a decision when he got dropped and inexplicably quit after having yet another panic attack. Even Dominick Guinn beat him up and stopped him.

Grant wasn't really wasn't dominant at all. Despite all the hype, he was really just getting by when he started to step up.

After Grant's sudden demise and Hasim Rahman got punched out of the ring by Oleg Maskaev, and when Maskaev got cold-cocked by Kirk Johnson, along with Johnson losing to John Ruiz, and Vitali also unexpectedly quitting against Byrd, HBO decided to just stick with televising fights and not trying to play "King Maker" for a while. They just couldn't pick a winner that could take over for a while.

After Wlad got steamrolled by Corrie Sanders, and they felt they didn't really have any dominant "face" who could carry the heavyweight division, and it was all but over.

Showtime had basically surpassed them.

Michael Grant's fall was one of the major tipping points in the beginning of the end of HBO's dominance in the sport ... a physical example of the wheels starting to come off at HBO Boxing.

By 2007, HBO was promoting Mayweather-De La Hoya as the fight that NEEDED to happen to SAVE BOXING.

They meant "save HBO boxing."

 

YDKSAB
Jennings had beaten undefeated and ranked Perez, undefeated Szpilka, Fedosov (who recently knocked out Majidov), and far outperformed Pulev against Wlad. Jennings was top 5 material.

Ortiz is the only guy (other than Wilder) who Malik Scott failed to take rounds off of.

Ortiz gave a peaking Wilder lots of problems, twice, and smoked Charles Martin, all of which were past prime performances.

Ortiz would be hof bound if given the right fights at the right time. Guys like Norton and Patterson were not better than him.

 

I don’t know why you used all of those words just to make a biased post. Grant was finished once he lost to Lewis and Atlas got ahold of him. You know exactly what happened in the McCline fight. This kind of drop off has happened to plenty of guys at heavyweight and I can assure you that they didn’t all suck.

He did what was asked of him leading up to the Lewis fight. It wasn’t a very easy path and you can’t suck and win those fights. He was matched against Ibeabuchi but Ike refused….That’s evidence enough that he wasn’t coddled.

And like I pointed out earlier, a lot guys in the top ten currently have done less than him regardless of if they’d be favored to beat him.

 

Quick review, Grant got knocked out in one round by Jameel McCline and he was stopped in seven rounds by freaking Dominick Guinn. Hell, Jeff Wooden nearly derailed his career.

Some of the fighters coming up today (like Hrgovic and Joyce) are highly rated because of their extensive amateur pedigrees. Those guys have historically always gotten preferential treatment.

Grant had 12 amateur fights and didn't even win all them. He wouldn't have gotten preferential treatment today. And there is no HBO today or weekly USA Network or ESPN show to get TV exposure.

He'd have been stuck on undercards like Wilder was and probably never would've gotten past the first fighter he faced who was unbeaten. (Hell, the first fighter Grant fought who was unbeaten - Guinn, who wasn't very good - beat the hell out of Grant and stopped him.)

Grant was lucky he came up when he did. And with all the advantages, he still didn't win anything.

 

Did you watch the McCline fight?

Obv I mean leading up to Lewis.