Your unpopular boxing opinions

That doesn’t preclude him from having martial arts fundamentals. He was an instructor whether he was a fighter or not, and having fundamentals doesn’t mean one actually competed.

A person can have good basketball fundamentals without playing in a competitive pro or amateur league if one is taught them and masters them, for instance.

 

Respectfully SL @Showstopper97 is absolutely correct, Marciano and Dempsey are definitely better boxers then Frazier, I respect Frazier but his style was built on a very unsteady foundation.

 

Wanna hear an unpopular Homer opinion? Given the recent Foreman title run thread I thought it was appropriate to restate it here, I think Holmes beat Holyfield last I watched it.

 

The 90's in boxing, especially in HW, is a very overrated era and the last good fight was Moorer - Holyfield 2. It's not even close to the 70's to which it is compared.

 

Fair enough I suppose.

 

hmm, let's see if I have this right....

Leonard beats Duran two out of three, and also convincingly defeats all of the other fighters that beat Duran convincingly (Benitez, Hearns, Hagler), yet for Duran's legions of worshippers, the first Leonard fight is the only one that matters. You can imagine what my opinion of that is.

 

Duran was "The Force" in a weak lightweight division.

 

how’s that an unpopular opinion? I’ve never seen anyone say they think Mercer beat him, and Mercer was in fact stripped of the WBO for fighting him. Had the WBO not stripped Mercer, Holmes absolutely would still have beaten him.

Old Holmes was good at denying a war to guys who wanted one. Which, I mean, is smart. You don’t go to war with Holyfield or Mercer. That’s like mud wrestling a pig. The pig loves that ****.

 

Some fighters tend to get ranked highly due to ''prestige'' rather than their accomplishments, some to lesser extent than others. Does Pernell Whitaker really deserve to be ranked as a top 5 Lightweight purely based on resume at the particular weight ? It consists of Greg Haugen, Jose Luis Ramirez x2, Roger Mayweather, Juan Nazario and a blown up Azumah Nelson who had never fought at 135 before and never would after.

Not bad, but is basically being undefeated over that bunch better than Carlos Ortiz's resume ? He might be 1-2 against Loi (in razor thin fights, mind you) and 1-1 against Kane, but he is also 2-1 against Laguna, 2-0 versus Ramos, 1-0 against Elorde, 1-0 over Brown, and should have gotten the nod over Locche, who got a hometown draw. I don't think this is even a debate, really. Rarely do I see Ortiz over Pernell at 135 lists, though.

You could do this with Packey McFarland, Ike Williams and Tony Canzoneri in a similar manner and the results would be the same. The latter 2 may have lost some big fights, but they lost against guys like that would put Whitaker's LW opponents to shame, and beat guys that would use Pernell's opponent's skin as coat fabric after they're done with them, Cruella De Vil style.

It's not just Whitaker either, it's also guys like Foster at 175, Hearns at 147, and potentially guys like Duran at 135 and Hopkins at 160. With Duran relying on 2 big names, with the rest being a bunch of historically uninspiring fighters, and Hopkins relying on a long reign against equally pedestrian opponents or blown up P4Pers.

 

Quite interesting take,for notes however,that second fight wasn't all that one side actually, Duràn did figure out Leonard at some point by his gas tank just flew away,and he quits!
I respect your take though.

 

I do agree in Duràn for this one though,I'd still say his wins over Vilomar Fernandez,Edwin Viruet and Hiroshi Kobayashi, is still very good, Ishimatsu and Thompson are honorable mentions of tuff hometown fighters who's able to dig some gold in the world level,but fell off asap when they face a real champ.

 

What if Louis vs Ali was actually really boring, like it's fun to think Louis finds a jab or counter and cracks Ali good in a brawl happening more in Ali's pocket as compared to Frazier coming all the way in, but what if Ali's jab and movement are just too fast and Louis never really finds anything, and when he thinks he does Ali can hold his own, so it has its moments but by and large it's Ali dancing around and staying slightly up on the cards

 

I think with certain fighters (whitaker, Duran, Hearns) it's more a case of rating them higher when all things are considered. Everyone has a different weighting of record, ability, h2h, etc. hardly anyone seems to make these lists based on some attempt to be as objective as possible to the numerical record (number of top ranked/top five/ top ten contenders, world champs/title challengers fought, etc) there's always significant subjective value judgement as to the worth of the opposition involved as you've just done yourself...it doesn't take much to narrow it down to the point where if someone thinks Whitaker just looks better than Ortiz, then they might not see a big enough gap in record to have Carlos above him, even if they agree he has a deeper resume of good wins. All it takes is someone to think Old Bones was too far past his best to be a great/good win, Elorde and Ramos just as undersized/not as good as Nelson (despite their more extensive campaigning in the division) and there you go. Not saying these are my opinions, but I don't find it hard to grasp someone viewing things that way.

I'm not a strict numerical lists guy myself, especially when you're mixing fighters with very little footage and ones that we can extensively scrutinise in the ring down to the fine details. imo we'd be better off keeping things within broader tiers with fighters within each arranged in no particular order. That's subjective enough as it is. I'd have Ortiz, Whitaker and Duran all in the all-time great tier for 135.

 

The 30s should have the 90s spot in the pecking order IMO.

Part of this overrating is the time period and if we're right its going to get corrected. Just not now.

 

Wasn’t Lee honest about it? I recall some asshat asking him if he could beat Muhammad Ali in a fight, and him responding with something along the lines of “no way, he competes regularly against the best and he’s much bigger than I am”.

I’m kind of glad that UFC mostly killed the mystique about kung fu / karate. That stuff doesn’t work. UFC resulted in us pretty quickly learning what works. A combo of ju-jitsu, Greco Roman wrestling, and boxing. And if we are talking a one against multiple self defense situation, boxing with sufficient wrestling experience to defend against an attempted takedown.