Do Long Reigns Indicate Greatness?

I would come down strongly on the side of yes.

For every champion who achieved longevity, you could probably find three to five who had a relatively short impressive blitz.

 

Yes. The rules of probability say that a long string of wins over good opposition is usually significantly harder than a single exceptional win.

 

Yes, Because it may be a long upward hill to climb in attaining the title it is harder to keep it. As champion, a huge target is placed on the back of the reigning champion, the contenders become hungry, they imagine the fruits of being champion, the best in the world, the prestige that goes with being champion. An example being Carlos Monzon, he won the title on Nov 7 1970, defended the belt 14 times against the best available challengers in his era and retired as champion on August 29 1977 approximately 1 month following his 14th and final title defense on July 30 1977, a unanimous 15 round decision over no.1 challenger Rodrigo Valdes in Monte Carlo, Monaco. His final record was 89-3-9, 61 KO's.

 

Yes IF you fight consensus quality opposition. Someone like Wilder and Ottke don’t merit someone like Wlad etc

 

But sometimes fighting quality opposition is not possible. A champion can only defend against the rated challengers in his era, he cannot defend against fighters from the past or future. Sometimes a champion cannot be his own promoter of a title defense, only Muhammad Ali was successful in doing so, not everybody is Ali.

 

Certainly not in & of itself. Think Ottke, Michalczewski. Other factors matter.

 

Yeah I think so. Even if the opposition is on the weaker side, it still takes incredible focus and consistency to defend a title over a long stretch.

 

Michalczewski was a legitimately good fighter. Ottke on the other hand may have benefitted from
fixed fights and gift decisions which is obviously a little different and an exception to the norm

 

And sometimes upsets happen like Sugar Ray Leonard after a lengthy 3 year layoff defeated defending World Middleweight Champion Marvelous Marvin Hagler making his 13 th title defense on April 6 1987. If a fighter is not focused, he could possibly lose to an underdog, another example being Mike Tyson losing his World Heavyweight Title to underdog James Buster Douglas on Feb 11 1990, KO 10.

 

Douglas was 45:1 if I remember right.

If you compute the odds of Mayweather going undefeated from Genaro to Berto using the betting lines, 45:1 wouldn’t be remotely close to that number.

 

You are correct.

 

On the money. If it was easy, everyone would do it. Some ATGs were unlucky due to lacking an elite contemporary to face off.

 

Lengthy reigns were probably a better indicator of greatness back when there was one belt per division (and fewer divisions). In the 3 and 4 belt era, you had the occasional guy like Gianfranco Rosi, or Steve Robinson, get ahold of a belt and make several defenses. Haven't heard anybody calling either of them great...