Your Hottest Takes:

Hagler is overrated
Liston and Vitali are ridiculously overrated by this forum
Benavidez wouldve knocked out Froch and Calzaghe
Thommy Hearns wouldve beaten any other Welterweight in history the night he lost to Sugar Ray
Joe Louis loses to everyone in todays top 10
Sugar Ray Robinsons skills were basic by todays standards
Ali losing to Leon Spinks is a massive blemish on his career which should be brought up more as a negative. (And dont give me the parkinsons excuse cause he won the immediate rematch anyway)
Sugar Ray Leonard wouldve beaten Duran in the rematch and the not enough time to prepare excuse has been greatly exaggerated.
Duran is not a g-d hes human and would almost always lose to Hagler, Hearns and Leonard
Ward beat Kovalev legitimately in their first fight.
De La Hoya is a better pound for pound fighter than Hagler (not sure if this is controversial)
Chavez is overrated; Canelo is the best Mexican fighter of all time
Wilder is underrated in head to head fights on this forum
Leonard beat Hagler easily. At least 8-4 maybe even 9-3
Beterbiev steamrolls Michael Spinks
If it wasnt for Anthony Joshua the heavyweight division wouldnt be relevant and even with Fury and Usyk it would feel more like the Klitschko era. Anthony Joshua is the most important boxer of this era in that sense.
GGG was overrated even though he shouldve gotten credit for wins in the first 2 Canelo fights.
The 10-9 scoring in boxing is outdated.

 

What about MMA?

 

I don't think this should be that controversial. Saddler after all won 3 out of their 4 fights, all 3 by the way of stoppage. Some will claim that Pep was not the same fighter after the injury he sustained in a plane crash, but he returned to the ring just 5 months after the crash. He won 26 consecutive fights until he was KO'd by Saddler in 1948. He then went on an 18 fight winning streak until he was again stopped by Saddler. Another 8 fight winning streak until he was stopped by Saddler in their final encounter. I think Pep's alleged diminished abilities tend to get exaggerated and that Saddler simply had Pep's number.

 

I'm sure boxing does lose a lot of potentially great fighters to MMA. I'm still of the belief that boxing requires more skill overall than MMA but I very well could be wrong. A sizeable amount of world-ranked MMA fighters aren't particularly good at throwing punches and rely on wrestling instead so I'm not sure how good they'd be at boxing if they had trained that instead, especially when they're given ample opportunity to learn how to box for their own profession and still ignore it. Even a lot of the best boxers in the UFC are simply guys who can throw a jab like Sean Strickland, who isn't too much of a boxer outside of his admittedly very clean jab. Ilia Topuria has some lovely punching technique though.
MMA remains a pretty niche sport to my knowledge though compared to something like rugby even if it is probably just as international if not moreso since countries which produce smaller are better represented in MMA than rugby.

 

Hearns beats Barkley most times prime for prime, context matters, the first fight was a lucky punch and his legs were shot in the rematch, he got away with it against Hill because Hill wasn’t a guy to impose size and pressure guys, Hearns could just sit on the outside and outjab him, Barkley exposed that his legs were shot in the rematch.
Prime for prime, I think Hearns wins 7-8 out of 10 times at 160lbs.

 

As someone who watches MMA the level of fighters in boxing is much higher then MMA

 

I don't watch it. I just follow a few of the fighters here and there.

 

Trust me if MMA fighters could make it in boxing they would have gone into boxing. MMA fighters are usually guys who couldn't make it in boxing

 

Theres probably no MMA fighters who would be top tier in boxing. If they could they would. Simple as that. The pay is higher.

 

Topuria could've done quite well for a boxer I imagine.

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But, yeah, I agree.

 

Despite the clear H2H dominance, when was the last time you saw Saddler rated over Pep p4p or even at FW?

I would pay top money to sit ringside for Saddler Vs PBF at 130 lbs, Madison Square Garden, 1948.

 

I have always preferred boxing anyway. I have seen some MMA fights and can't get into it the same way.

 

Some more.

* Leon Spinks had a damned good chance of defeating Norton had he chosen to defend against him rather than meet Ali in the rematch. He's also kinda underrated in general.

* The 1930's featherweight division is probably as deep as that division has ever been, and there are at least five guys in that division who are stone cold locks for spots in the top twenty. The fact that Miller held the championship for so long makes him automatic for top 10, and a serious contender for top 5. The fact that Armstrong ultimately emerged as its top fighter makes him automatic top five, and a very legit contender for GOAT at the weight.

 

Not necessarily. The wrestlers, judo guys, etc. wouldn't have ordinarily found any need for boxing skills if not for their MMA careers.

Kickboxers (who have more of an overlap with MMA than boxers) would probably do top flight boxing if they could, but the guys who successfully cross over from KB to boxing (Vitali, Skelton, etc.) aren't always the best kickboxers, so it's hard to make categorical judgments that kickboxers are just unsuccessful boxers, or that MMA guys are.

 

Gary Russel Jr. might’ve been better than Hamed, Morales, and Barrera h2h.