What is the greatest matchup of all time?

Yes NoNeck, I'm sure with your massive amounts of research and glorious knowledge that I should be taking ranking tips from you

Pre TV is an arbitrary way of you propping up the modern fighters. They're all on film, I've seen them all.

 

Won't get much agreement but SRR besting Kid Gavilan is a phenomenal feat.

 

Trying to pick some outliers here.
Langford v Walcott
Langford vJohnson
Langford v Gans
Attell v Driscoll
Welsh v Leonard
Griffo v Gans
Griffo v Dixon
Johnson v Fitzsimmons
Leonard v Britton

 

Mayweathers own family admitted Duran would beat him. Mayweather was a brilliant boxer but he wouldn’t beat Leonard or Duran. All his fights have big caveats next to them. He wouldn’t live with those old school fighters. Life and death with old de la Hoya , dodgy Castillo and Maidana scorecards. Hatton fight, the ref. Mosley, de la Hoya were old. He didn’t take risks, needed everything stacked for him. I have him higher than Pac on boxing ability but he doesn’t belong with the greatest fighters.

Pac got schooled by a prime Morales before he was all roided up. Pac is a great physical specimen but he never had the boxing ability to be said to be better than Leonard or Duran, or plenty of other fighters. See Morales or Marquez fights. Early career knockouts defeats, bad knockout by his biggest rival Marquez. Should really have lost to him 3/4. I like Pac and he was a beast at his best but I’m often surprised how high people have him all time.

Neither are in the top 20 for me, I don’t care how many weights they fought at or belts they won, they’re great fighters but they never showed that they belonged with the very best of all time.

 

I'm sure you're able to back up having No Mas almost twenty spots ahead of Pac and Floyd.

I'm also amused that you think that when I say "since television," I'm talking about footage available and not something else that changed.

 

Laing.

 

I was also thinking Sam vs Johnson. Wasn't Langford around 150 pounds when they fought? Too bad they didn't do it layer but Johnson avoided Sammy like the plague afterwards.

Sullivan vs Corbett comes to mind. And Jeffries vs Fitzsimmons when Jeffries was bleeding all over the place before losing. Or was that Corbett?

 

Yeah and I would far from being alone, but it'd go over your head. Do you consider it an insult to have Pacquiao and Floyd as the greatest modern fighters and top 30 of all time? I can assure you it's not.

Yes, it's almost like when someone says something as specific as since television, they usually mean since television if you don't mean that, why don't you just state what you actually mean? Is it that fighters have improved? Is it the literal invention of the television? Or is it just that you want to try and find a way to put Floyd in a thread where he's arguably not top 10?

 

Pac and especially Floyd aren’t limited to top 30 unless you have special criteria that heavily favor pre-television era.

The sport may have changed in tandem with the rise of TV. TV might have even changed the sport. You can watch grainy 1.5x speed snippets of 1920s fights on YouTube though.

 

This is correct Also Freddie Roach has said more than once Duran would beat Manny. Manny and Floyd were good fighters but nowhere close to top 10 p4p.

 

ChatGPT:
“I could not find any credible public statement from any member of Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s family saying that Roberto Durán would beat him.”

 

Floyd knows Roberto would beat him, I don't know if his family stated it I was saying they were correct is they did. Floyd will always be an **** fighter, he picked and chose when to fight his opponents. Great fighters don't do that. So he's not in the top 10, 20, or 30.

 

He outclassed an undefeated Chico who entered the ring at welterweight for a 130 fight. He outclassed an undefeated Canelo at a huge size and age disadvantage for Canelo’s belts. He outclassed Manny, the pfp number 1 in the sport other than himself, at age 38.

Perhaps you should get over yourself.

 

I would push back on the comment that Floyd "outclassed " Manny. He had a good game plan, that is, avoid all contact and punch mostly from counters, which made for a win that disappointed every boxing fan who witnessed the bout.

Basically he won a fight in as dismal a manner as Fury did versus Wlad.

 

No, they're top 30 because they're achievements are worse than about 20 other fighters and better than everyone else's. There isn't special criteria to **** on Floyd & Pac or to boost anyone from "pre TV" as you put it. My criteria is about 90% who you beat and how good were they at that time. Floyd and Pac are exactly where they should be under this criteria.

How about you just specify when exactly you mean? The TV was invented in 1926? Do you mean then? Do you mean when broadcasts become more widespread in the late 30s? Do you mean when boxing became more televised and the footage stored more often in the early 50s? Or did you just wanna say that Pacquiao and Floyd are the best fighters you've ever seen and so nothing else matters?