From Jeffries to Klitschko the sport of boxing has emerged like with any other sport. While nutritional advances and modern training methods has made better athletes over time fighters from yester year tend to get the short end of the stick. Meanwhile some modern fighters who were unlikely candidates for the Crown tend get undermined despite taking the title from ATG fighters. The purpose of the thread is to choose the fighter from that you feel typically gets the short end of the stick in fantasy match ups. Which one of these guys is alot better than given credit for? ps. One a side note, which one of these fighters would come out on top if a round robin tournament held?
If Shannon Briggs was on the list I would say him, Briggs at his best was a very good fighter but his inconsistency with his weight hurts him and the controvertial decision to Foreman does also. Out of the list you gave I would probably say Michael Moorer.
Joe Frazier gets the shitty end of the stick, more so than any of those fighters you listed I reckon, well, for apparently being such a great fighter anyway. You wouldn't think it - according to most, he gets mashed by Tyson, Foreman, Louis, Marciano, Dempsey, Holmes, Lewis, Bowe, Liston, and some of the older fans will pick Johnson and Jeffries over him, too. But of the list, Floyd Patterson. With his skill set he was a bit too light to compete with the greats, but fighting men his own weight he was dynamite.
Frazier like Manassa said. In short, most posters think any power puncher bombs him out like Foreman. Out of that list, it's got to be Patterson; this mainly has to do with durablility issues.
Riddick Bowe? I think Holyfield occasionaly can get underrated in H2H. Out of a round robin tourney I might pick Moorer out of that list. As for Frazier... I'm not so sure I can agree with that. Like Marciano, he has his really big fans. Then he has a lot of others that don't give him much chances against the bombers/sluggers. Understandably as they see stylistic issues. But the thing is, he doesn't have nearly as many as the detractors as Dempsey or Marciano. Foreman gets constantly underrated H2H and in ranking. He's just this big slugger with power and bad skills. Nobody credits his improvements, his accomplishments, and his abilities/smarts as a fighter. Nobody makes point that he had Archie Moore help him among many other things to improve him. He's the only big strong fighter people see almost with no skill.
I would have to say Jess Willard by a country mile. You routinely have people on this site implying that he had less skill than most amateur boxers and that he would be destroyed by prety much any heavyweight champion in their prime. The reality is that his combination of size, power and durability combined with the skills he had would make him a dangerous undertaking for anybody. It is an extreme case of something looking easy after the event.
What are the improvements that you talk about? The fact that he only lost a landslide decision to the first skilled boxer he faced after Ali, instead of punching himself out again? His post-40 accomplishments are unquestionably great, but that doesn't mean he suddenly was a less limited fighter during his prime.
Tunney I can understand. But Bowe? He seems to get his fair shake in fantasy match-ups. He's ocassionally deemed as a super heavyweight who can fight. He certainly doesnt rank high as an ATG fighter, but head to head I'd imagine he's consensus for top 10.