Pernell Whitaker Or Bob Fitzsimmons Who Should Be Remembered As The Greater Fighter?

:good A quite superb post. Of course, there are a lot of fighters upon who's "Ratings" you and I disagree, but that is what this site is all about. But the fact is this is a great list, with your ratings and methodology available for all to view and discuss accordingly.:good

 

Whitaker was a better fighter than Fitzsimmons, but its Bob whose the greater p4p fighter. To be no more than a middleweight and capture the heavyweight title and in his 40's capture the 175 pound crown, is amazing. Fitzsimmons also had a very good amateur background. But, that being said, Whitaker was better than Fitzsimmons.

 

Depends what you mean by ability.

I would submit that as a finisher Fitzsimmons has few peers pound for pound in any era.

 

Appreciated :good

For me longevity is about two things:
1. Being at the top of the sport for a long time.
2. Having a lot of fights (especially meaningful ones, not record padding ones) at the top of the sport.

Granted, Bob has point 1 covered. But as for point 2, I don't think he's had enough fights to really score well in that regard.

Scores of 9 and above are reserved for the likes of Archie Moore, Ray Robinson, Benny Leonard, Roberto Duran, Willie Pep. Guys that were at the top of the sport for a long time but also had a stack of meaningful fights in that time.

I'm happy for you to argue that he deserves about an 8 as far as longevity goes, but he's not amongst the absolute elite by my criteria.

If it wasn't for the fact that Bob was slaying giants, I don't think his resume would be near that of Hagler or Monzon. I mean in terms of the names each has on their ledger, it far outstrips Bob's in my opinion.

Who are the good fighters that Bob Fitzsimmons has beaten?

Non-Pareil Dempsey (Excellent fighter, but he had gone 3-2-1 in his previous 6 fights).
James Corbett (Was he anything more than say an Antonio Tarver level fighter?)
Tom Sharkey
Joe Choynski
Jim Hall
Dan Creedon
Peter Maher
Gus Ruhlin
George Gardner

Simply not nearly as good a resume as what Hagler or Monzon has AS FAR AS THE QUALITY OF THE FIGHTERs FACED goes.

Taking into account that Bob was outweighed significantly in quite a few of those fights though, THAT'S what makes me bring up his resume to the level of a Hagler or Monzon.

I've given him a score of 32.75 out of 40 for dominance, which is quite a high score, but I do think you have merit to what you say here, and he could move up a bit as far as domainance goes. He did lose a few fights here and there, but he didn't lose to any hacks and they were giant men compared to him. And for sure his kO ratio was pretty insane...

You're entitled to you opinion mate, but I disagree mostly, for the reasons given above.

I would be willing to give Bob an extra point for his dominance, and perhaps half a point in terms of longevity, but unless I'm ignorant of something you know, I just don't think the people he beat are good enough to propel him to such lofty standards as far as resumes go.

 

Cheers man. :thumbsup

I like my criteria probably more than the list I've made (still has a bit of work to do and a few things to tweak for sure), but it's a start.

Here are the explanations for my criteria btw, just in case you were interested:

P4P CRITERIA

[FONT=&quot]RESUME (50 POINTS) [/FONT][FONT=&quot]
The focus is on the quality of fighters beaten, but:
- The size of the opponent and difficulty of the task is relevant to the quality of the opponent (e.g. John Ruiz is a better win for Roy Jones than Juan Manuel Marquez is for Floyd Mayweather, even though Juan Manuel Marquez is a better fighter than John Ruiz).
- Beating someone at their peak/in their prime counts for more than beating someone past their peak/prime, so it's not just the 'name' that is relevant to the quality of the fighter but the stage they were at in their careers.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]- Beating a fighter in a title fight should count for more than beating a fighter in a non-title fight, assuming that the fighter was at their best for the title fight and the fight was over a championship length, which tests a fighter’s limits to a greater extent than a fight scheduled for less rounds (e.g. a win in a 15 round fight is worth more than a win in a 6 round fight, all other things being equal).
- The quantity of fighters beaten counts a little too, so beating a quality opponent more than once is a plus.
- Close losses contribute to assessing the quality of one's resume.
- Not close but nevertheless honourable losses count somewhat too.

DOMINANCE (40 POINTS)
Indicators of dominance include:
- Consistently winning (early losses or past prime losses don't get penalised that much).
- The manner of victory (ko's, shut outs and near shutouts etc. are all indicative of dominance).
- Cleaning out divisions.
- Conquering in multiple weight divisions.

LONGEVITY (10 POINTS)
A fighter scores well for longevity if:
- They are around at a high level for a long duration of time.
- They have a lot of fights at a high level.
- Ideally a fighter should have a combination of both of the above to score extremely well for longevity.

CHARACTER (10 POINTS)
One gets points for character if they do things like:
- Take risks (e.g. fight everyone in and around their weight division and not duck opponents, offer rematches, go out on their shields in an effort to win fights rather than hold on just to survive etc)
- Overcome adversity.
- Bear up well to adversity even if they don't win (and this is shown by the ability to take an ass whipping when it's your way coming, so durability counts here).[/FONT]

 

Different eras, different classes, different styles.

Oh God! Why should I answer this?

 

Different eras doesn't matter.

I think I've got a good scope of the gap. Most throw away these comparisons because they sport the infantile thought of "Boxing was prehistoric back then!", which of course is both ridiculous and false.

Both were super outstanding fighters, but you can never underrate the Cornishman’s destruction of many men far bigger than himself.

 

All I'm saying is anybody that thinks boxing hasnt evolved into a sport of higher skill in the last hundred years is deluding themselves which is why I value abilty at the time over anything else. No doubt if Fitz was trained today with the natural skills he possessed he would be a phenomenal fighter but at the time he was as good as he was able to be given the ability of his opponents and was a great in his time, which is why I rank him so highly.

 

It's Boab.

 

You will have to put me down as deluding myself then because I think that Fitzsimmons was every bit as skillful under the rule set of his own era as Whitaker was under the rules of his.

 

Yeah I agree what I'm saying is with the skills he possessed at the time he would struggle now. Theres no doubting his greatness at the time I acknowledged that.

 

Or maybe the modern boys would struggle! You never know.

Styles mesh and things happen. Because boxing relies so much on intangibles and experience you can never count a great man out!

It is utterly different to any other physical competition. There are too many variables. In areas where boxing has improved it has also degenerated!

Heed the word of Jimmy!

 

Your right I dont know for sure but I would honestly be suprised if it were true. Dont get me wrong I certainly hold Fitzsimmons in higher regard than Pavlik or any middleweights champs around now, thats for sure.

 

That's cool mister!

It's just so that similar thoughts often prove the catalyst for Met-Rx swiggin' MMA junkies to proclaim modern training measures as the be-all-and-end-all of one-on-one combat.

You of course are certainly no such silly!

 

What I do know about Fitzsimmons is that he was knocking durable 200lb fighters out so cold that they had to be carried back to their dressing rooms.

Now even if we accept that his power was comparable to sombody like Gerald McClellan he must have had incredible timing and delivery.

I have to think that any middleweight who fought him in any era would be staring down the barrel of a laser guided cannon.