Why do fighters that retired undefeated get **** all over?

???
The Internet is full with videos of Gayweather saying outrageous things:

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Little ***** has lot of money, I give him that, but no class at all.

Gayweather should clean his mouth of male seminal fluid before talking about Ali.

 

So by actions you mean confidence and saying he was the greatest … which Ali also did lol?

If that’s a reason for you to hate him, cool. That’s a lot of how he made all that money, wearing the black hat and playing the heel, getting people to put down their own hard-earned money to see him get beat … and disappointing them by winning.

I’m not a huge fan, but a fighter saying/believing he’s the best doesn’t trigger me.

 

It isn't unreasonable, I just think he should clarify what he means by "deep". I was very clear about that and what the word means to me.

So if it boils down to the depth of their win resume, we obviously need to look at the quality of his opposition: not just who he faced, but WHEN he faced them. Which is why I said his resume looks more like a quantity over quality thing, but I'm willing to discuss the particulars. He doesn't seem willing for whatever reason.

 

Number of ranked contenders, number of current, former and future world titlests beaten, are all reasonable indicators of the depth of a win resume to me. Which unbeaten fighter comes close to Mayweather in those?

Deep suggests, well depth, not who has the best elite win or 2.

Even then, which undefeated fighter has a higher quality win resume than Mayweather?

I'll ask for the third time, which, if any, undefeated fighters do you rank higher than Mayweather p4p?

I'm no Mayweather fan BTW, I've had many Mayweather-oriented debates on here, those arguing for him in a minority. It's just he should rank the highest of all undefeated fighters on account of having the deepest win resume, across 5 weight divisions, and it really isn't even close.

 

Ooft, irony or hypocrisy? The choice is your's....

 

As others have suggested, deep simply suggests well, depth. The sheer amount of current, ex and future world champions he beat. Their combined records. The nature in which he defeated them, ie skill, not explosive power, pure boxing ability, the range of fighters he fought, the styles he prevailed over. It has become fashionable to mock Mayweather because of his personality and the ungratfying way he ended his career, but his who's who of victories is pretty incomparable amongst undefeated fighters for me. Other opinions are available and that's cool, I'm not claiming mine is the right one, just that it's mine and its how I feel. I also think Mayweather likely compares well to the greats of his weight classes, but there isn't a record to 'prove' that, just a gut feeling. To steal a phrase from Angelo Dundee, I doubt many fighters could hit him in the ass with a handful of sand...

 

For the second time, I didn't say those were unreasonable metrics when evaluating the death of an undefeated fighter's career, but they're not the only metrics. Pretty sure I've already addressed that.

No, "depth" refers to how far you can go below surface level things like number of ranked fighters beaten, number of title defenses, numbers of fights won, etc. Those are just raw stats with no context.

Depth would be how GOOD were the ranked fighters someone beat? Two guys can both be the #1 contender in different eras, but that doesn't mean they're equal in skill or name worth. For context, Ken Norton and Chris Arreola, at one point, had both become the worthy #1 contenders in the HW division. Does beating Norton=beating Arreola since they were both #1 contenders? Obviously not.

Floyd beat a 40 year old past his prime Mosley. Forrest beat a prime, undefeated 30 year old Mosley. Are these wins equal?

This is why context matters and it's silly to act as if the only thing that matters is if you beat some good names on paper and then retired undefeated.

You can ask 4, 5, or 6 more times if you want. I answered your question. I'm not sure exactly how I'd rank Floyd p4p for the reasons I've listed, but he's obviously up there in terms of pure skill. I have him as the #1 defensive fighter of all time, but not necessarily overall if we include offense and overall fighting ability.

 

See my reply to Greg Price for how I view the word depth in the context of boxing resumes.

Arguing on the basis of "sheer amount" is a quantity over quality argument lacking context. It's the same thing LeBron James fans use to argue he's the greatest by saying things like "well look at how MANY points he's scored" while ignoring factors such as how many of those points contributed to actual wins.

For Floyd, the question is what was the quality/condition of the fighters he beat, not just the fact he beat them and they were a decent name on paper.

 

That's all fine, but this began with Philospher saying Mayweather had the deepest resume of any undefeated fighter and you responding in a way that suggests you question and/or challenge that assertion.

That is something you've not seen fit to either repeat (but rather highlight the limitations of Mayweather's resume in general terms, not specific to the relatively shallow resumes of other undefeated fighters) or back down on since. After an initial post suggesting you disagree, you've very much been on the fence since and seemingly wishing to avoid comparing Mayweather's resume with other undefeated fighters. I.e. the very point from the initial post that you challenged.

You've made some legitimate observations as to the limits of Mayweather's resume, but made no attempt to specifically contradict Philospher's initial claim. That's because that would require you to argue that another undefeated fighter has deeper win resume than Mayweather, which simply can't be done credibly.

You briefly mentioned Ward and Marciano a few posts ago, but very sensibly have decided not to push the depth of either resume, relative to Mayweather's, since.

Context can be applied to their key wins too - Dawson weight drained, Kovalev 1 debatable decision and whose form fell of a cliff afterwards, Moore, Charles and Walcott all old, past prime and two of them natural LHWs at their beat.

That's before comparing relative sizes of opponent (neither Ward nor Marciano beat world class fighters at a size disadvantage comparable to Mayweather's versus De La Hoya and Canelo, amongst others), number of ranked opponents and world champions beat, all of which, as you concede, are reasonable and crucially objective indicators, to be viewed in context, of depth of resume.

There are many, many fighters with deeper resumes than Mayweather and a few with vastly deeper win resumes. None of them undefeated, however.

P.s. to the majority of people, "depth of win resume" would indicate relative quality of wins after the best two or three wins.

 

Good article here, and quite a fair one I feel.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.th.../floyd-mayweather-boxing-great-ducking-fights

 

Literally all of this is wrong.

I challenged how he used the word "deep". Not once did I say his opinion was ludicrous or that his criteria was unreasonable.

I literally did compare him to other undefeated fighters such as Ward and Rocky. You not only saw that, you responded to what I wrote about how their resumes compare to Floyd.

I very explicitly gave detailed explanations for why it's tricky rating Floyd's overall p4p skill twice. You weren't happy with my explanation and insisted I just give a black and white answer. That's your issue, not mine. I wasn't even originally talking to you.

Yes, I did actually argue that other undefeated fighters such as Ward, Rocky, Froch, or Lopez could be argued to have deeper resumes depending on how you apply the word "deep" in the context of boxing resumes. I never shied away from that discussion, you never really followed up on it. If you want to push that discussion, go for it. I can address every aspect of their careers. All you seem to be interested in doing is trying to trap me in some "gotcha" moment as if I don't truly believe what I'm typing.

Nobody said Ward and Rocky's key wins had no issues or that they had perfect resumes way better than Floyd.

Size, age, and rank of opponents are all stat related stuff. It's important but not the end all, be all.

Source for you claim that's what depth means to the majority of people?


Now, if you actually want an honest debate, let's stick to 1-2 topics at a time instead of being all over the place with these petty back and forths as if I can't remember what I wrote a couple hours ago on a topic I've thought about at least 30x. Should we start with comparing the quality of Floyd's best wins compared to other undefeated fighters with proper context?

 

Froch isn't unbeaten.

Comparing the depth of Ricardo Lopez's resume to Mayweather's is a new low.

I only have 1 point on 1 topic. That point is Mayweather's resume is clearly the deepest of unbeaten fighters.

Fighters are ranked based on how much their win resume does for them vs how much their losses detract from that. As all unbeaten fighters never lost, the win resume is the sole factor to determine how they are ranked.

Yes, the respective quality of unbeaten fighters resumes = how they rank relative to one another.

You questioned Philospher's assertion that Mayweather has the deepest win resume of unbeaten fighters, then when asked, said it's too tricky to say if other unbeaten fighters rank above him. Therefore, by definition, you're saying you're not certain about the initial point you disagreed with.

I am certain that Mayweather ranks the highest of all unbeaten fighters. That's my opinion and the consensus opinion.

This is the best and most well researched top 100 p4p lost I've ever seen, from February 2013- https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/the-top-100-pound-for-pound-all-time-greats.459918/ - Mayweather is the highest ranked unbeaten fighter at #48, with Marciano next at #65. Mayweather has added to his legacy since then and I think McGrain has said he'd likely have him around 20 now. You'll note Ricardo Lopez not only doesn't feature in this top 100, but he's doesn't even feature in the subsequent "short" list during discussions about expanding the list to 150.

A few years ago 24 x classic posters voted for their P4P ATGs. Here are the results -

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- Mayweather is again the highest ranked undefeated fighter at #17 and Marciano again the next highest at #40 (a little high for me, but just about defensible).

For my end, we are having a 1 topic debate and our difference of opinion can be defined as - I, like most other classic posters, am absolutely certain that Mayweather is not only the highest ranked unbeaten fighter, but he is by a good distance, whereas after effectively initially challenging that assertion, you have since said that you're not certain.

 

...and #17 is an outstanding ranking for someone that retired just a few years before that poll was taken. That more than likely means a shoo-in for top 10 status in a decade or three.

 

Possibly, though I think Glass City Cobra makes some valid observations, when made in isolation, about the context surrounding Floyd's best wins.

It's his argument that Mayweather's resume isn't the deepest of all unbeaten fighters that I consider to be so clearly erroneous.

The best fighters who retire undefeated have, in the main, incredibly thin win resumes relative the greatest fighters of all time.

That's self evident in the sense it's extremely difficult, if not virtually impossible, to consistently fight the best, at their best, under neutral conditions and retire unbeaten.

Which I suppose speaks to my thoughts on the question posed in the thread title.

 

I think we as people are indoctrinated into believing losing shows ultimate character. If a fighter is undefeated, it's looked as though that fighter did not truly challenge themselves otherwise they would have lost. Fans tend to overly criticize those fighters resumes but you could play that game with any fighter. As someone who is a fan of other sports, I see this across all sports. Consistently winning brings a lot of hate. People want to see them fail. They want to see how they respond to adversity. I think simply being the best while remaining undefeated will always be criticized. Instead of it being viewed as a positive, there is always a dismal of it because other great fighters have lost. But what about the ones who didn't? Fans/media should be more fair. Being undefeated doesn't automatically make someone the GOAT but it does hold some significance IMO. The goal of any sport is to win. Respect those that went out there and consistently did that.