Alexis Arguello: Where P4P?

I fail to see why it should be an either/or situation.

When assessing someone with a strong record number-wise (lotta wins, not many losses) where there aren’t a lot of quality wins, then I wouldn’t rate that fighter highly.

When assessing a guy with a lot of losses, I wouldn’t rate that fighter highly by ignoring those losses with a shrug, saying ‘well at least he fought those people.’

Tony Tucker is an example of a fighter with a thin, unimpressive list of wins who lost to basically every good fighter he faced (except for Buster Douglas, who more or less quit while ahead as soon as he faced a tad of adversity). Getting beat by Tyson and Lewis, etc., doesn’t make Tucker better to me than if he had good wins. I don’t rate him highly … in fact, I don’t rate him at all.

Joe Walcott has a ton of losses and caught a bit of lightning at the end of his career. I don’t have him very high either with all those L’s hanging around his neck.

I generally do not dock a fighter for fighting on well after his sell-by date: Roy Jones Jr and Ray Robinson and Ezzard Charles are great fighters and I pretty much ignore that for whatever reason (putting food on the table or in Roy’s case an inability to let it go) they amassed some fairly embarrassing losses when they were no longer viable. The shells of themselves don’t detract to me from what they were when they had their stuff.

 

At some point it has to be either/or. You either have fighter A ranked higher or fighter B - and then You need to have some kind of criteria that lead You to whatever decision You made.

It would be good to work on examples here, although the problem for me is I'm not versed enough on the old-timers to find right analogies...
I agree that Tucker should not be ranked highly just for losing to some great fighters - question is if his losses should be the reason to rank him lower than a fighter with comparable "win-tally"(quality wise), but fewer losses.
I think it's fair to say Jersey Joe Walcott's wins are far more impressive, but He also has quite a few more losses in or around his prime. I suspect You'd still rank Jersey Joe above Tucker - but could You maybe find a fighter whose wins are far less impressive than Jersey Joe's, but You'd still rank him above him due to him having smaller amount of losses? Hope I expressed myself clearly enough - it would give me idea of just how much weight You give to defeats.

I think here You already open the door - a little bit - towards what I'm proposing.

If it does not make sense to punish fighter for fighting way past his prime - can't We also disregard some of the early career losses? Some fighters - let's take Siri Salido or Freddie Pendleon- start out as a journeymen before They really put it all together and break out as world class fighters.
I find those kind of career paths far more impressive than the typical modern-day prospect-carrying, when You know those guys are fed the right opponent, usually have full training camp while their opponent is brought in with maybe a week before the fight etc.
I would absolutely disregard early career losses of Salido's and Pendleto's of the world - while crediting them for any good wins and performances They had in that period.

 

There’s certainly room for a fighter who comes into his own a bit later, but to use a for-instance I don’t think we can discount Mike Weaver’s rocky start in assessing him as a whole.

To me, it’s all part of their resume but we have to use common sense. Matthew Saad Muhammad was a great light heavyweight (wherever you choose to rank him in that division) but basically after the two Qawi fights his career — as far as what should count for or against him — was over. That’s common sense to me.

Losses tell us as much about how a fighter stacks up as do wins imo. Carlos Palomino didn’t have a lot of losses, but in his physical prime (and with enough experience to matter) he lost to Roberto Duran, Wilfred Benitez and Andy Price. That tells me something about his level, as do his best wins.

Then we can look at Pipino Cuevas and note that he had a troubled start, but also use common sense that he was fighting seasoned fighters who were full-grown men while turning pro at 15. By the time he grew into it, he still had his own loss to Price (tricky sucker who obviously could give good fighters fits) but then went on a tear through the division knocking out basically everyone (except Randy Shields, another troublesome guy) until he ran into Hearns. I think that loss more or less shattered him, so after Duran or thereabouts I really consider his career over as far as what should be assessed for his greatness.

So Pipino had more losses but was a child fighting men for many of them and had a far higher and more dominant peak. I’d place Cuevas above Carlos but have them around the same tier. His title reign sets him apart.

 

I agree - and thanks for taking the time to reply - but it's still not quite clear to me to what extent You take losses into consideration.

My assertion is - even if You disregard the losses completely and just judge a fighter by his victories, the picture You'll get will reflect fighters accomplishments and legacy perfectly well.
Then, the reason why Palomino is not ranked higher is not because He lost to Duran, Benitez and Price ... but He would be ranked higher had He beat them.
It might seem like exactly the same thing, but what I'm trying to get to the bottom of lays in the question: Would you rank Palomino higher not only had He won some of those fights He lost (Where the answer is obvious)- but also had He not fought Duran, Benitez and Price at all(Which would also allow him to avoid losing)?

I believe that Greatness should be judges by one's accomplishments. Failing to accomplish something and not trying at all are either equally neutral, or if anything - it's trying alone that athlethes should be given more credit for.
"It's not the critic who counts." (c).

 

I don’t know how to answer except to give some examples of what I consider common sense. I don’t have a one-size-fits-all scrubber that I run everything through that I can articulate to you.

Let’s see if I can get to it with some of what I think are pretty obvious examples:

If Rocky Marciano had lost the first fight to Joe Walcott by decision — never landed the big one — and somehow immediately got a rematch (Joe did after losing title fights, as we know, so not out of the realm) and won by KO 1 … I would rate Marciano lower than I rate him now.

Wouldn’t you? Would you say ‘well he has a KO win over Walcott, so what if he lost the first time?’

So, yes, the loss would count against him rather than giving him a gold star for fighting the guy.

(BTW, I do not have or keep or spend time on lists, but I come up with them from time to time for this forum when it seems prudent to do so for a particular discussion … and almost always say ‘if I rated ‘em again tomorrow, I’d almost certainly have it at least a little different.’)

Likewise, I rate Mike Tyson lower for losing to Buster Douglas than if he had never fought him (since that’s one of your things). Same for getting beaten by Holyfield twice. The rest of his losses rate lower since he was fading into mediocrity, although the way Lewis manhandled him might figure into my thinking but not in a big way.

You have to look at a fighter’s complete resume. A 10-10 guy who has 10 really good wins is still a 10-10 guy. Emmanuel Augustus was a very talented fighter and he gave some really nice performances in losses to good fighters, but he’s not a great fighter simply because he fought those guys — all those losses add up to him being competitive at the top levels but not enough to consistently get over against the best.

I don’t know if that helps, but hopefully that addresses some of what we’re talking about.

And I thank you for the discussion. This kind of talk about how to look at different fighters adds to the value of this, the best boxing forum (Classic, I mean … the main board is something of a cesspool to me, at least much of the time). I don’t discount your way of approaching it in any way, but to me (and I mean that literally, as in ‘just me’) losses define a fighter as much as what some people around these parts call ‘win resume.’

Ali was the greatest heavyweight, indeed, but if he beats Frazier in the FotC then he’s even that much greater and he’s tiers above anyone else (presuming the rest of his career plays out the same). The loss doesn’t tumble him from the stars, but it keeps him in the same galaxy, so to speak.

 

Yes, it does. I would not have started this discussion if I was totally convinced that my way of going about it was the right way. I like making lists and ranking fighters - and I'm still trying to figure out the right criteria.
You made some good points, will have to think about it.

 

Watt was indeed a "good" fighter. Obviously we have different definitions of good. He beat a young Howard Davis Jr and O'Grady back to back before facing the great Alexis Arguello. McGrain might be inclined to ban you if he see's you running down his fellow Scott.

Boza was having his 71st fight and was to retire two fights later. Arguello beat him 6 years earlier for heavens sake, he was at his peak then and at his strongest weight. Tyson looked crap against Lewis, do you judge Tyson off that?!?!?!?! Well the silliness is comparable.

Camacho was the one that actually copped a flogging in the media for being so cautious and timid against against an old Boza. Rosariogate had just begun.

 

Rosario beat out the guns off Camacho.

 

Very possible.

 

Howard came with 15 seconds of dethroning Edwin Rosario. He was dropped with 15 seconds to go and that decided the event. More was expected of him but he ended up having his moments.

Tell me why a guy with an ATG jab, one punch KO power in both hands, textbook punching form, a vaunted body attack, a great chin, superb stamina and brilliant counter punching skills is suddenly going to **** the bed when fighting a tall guy?

Because that's part of what Arguello brought to the table. You used to flock to textbook boxers and hate on Roy Jones Jr types, what changed?

I'll wait.

 

atg numbers are a bit pointless.

i liked mcgrains tier thing.

arguello is the third tier, so like 30-60 all time for me.

 

You've managed to get a long way off topic Mark, for a while now.

Edwin Rosario was not "overrated". The expectations of him ended up being way over the top but that was discovered quite early and expectation were scaled way back. They were actually scaled back too far and he was given little chance of toppling Camacho. Even after that he was a 4-1 underdog vs Bramble, and absolutely pumped him.

I'm still keen for you to answer the below to me Mark.

Tell me why a guy with an ATG jab, one punch KO power in both hands, textbook punching form, a vaunted body attack, a great chin, superb stamina and brilliant counter punching skills is suddenly going to **** the bed when fighting a tall guy?