Most underrated fighters of all time?

I respectfully disagree. Holmes sits in a great position nowadays. Granted some shun him a bit but rememebr that Holmes career is one of the oh so rare ones where one can bring up near bulletproof arguments both for and against.

But IMO he now sits very high in the majorities eyes.

 

This is a good point.

 

No notable heavyweight champion that has a large group of fans considering them great belong in a thread like this imo.

 

close range/in-fighters are all underrated H2H i feel. Joe Frazier and Marciano particularly. I don't think neither Holmes or Lewis should be favoured H2H against a prime Frazier, but you wont find many who share that opinion.

Larry Holmes on here atleast, considering his actual resume is not that impressive, is absolutely in no way underrated on here. H2H is probably more favoured than anyone, on par with Ali maybe(who proved and deserves that recognition).

Miguel Cotto, who has fought absolutely everybody, shown world class skills, shown heart and pulled through when in wars, losing only to Brickarito and the best fighter alive today, Pacquiao.

 

Good pick. I think a lot of people also forget how difficult it was to face the likes of Alberto Davila and Jorge Lujuan at batamweight in the 70's.

 

C'mon, maybe some of us have been harsh on him on this tiny classic forum here, but overall Cotto has been given hype far beyond his ability imo.

he was certainly not underrated by the networks and boxing press/internet media.

 

An underrated fighter (most underrated of all time is a little strong for me) is Jeff Chandler.

 

Holmes is under-rated? He's on every single top 10 HW list I've ever seen, usually top 5, sometimes as high as 3.

 

Acelino Freitas was a monster not too long back and yet is already forgotten

 

In this case you have to put Lupe Pintor right beside him. One of the great crimes in boxing that they didn't unify. Pintor did however give Gomez an incredible fight. All the experts used to shade Chandler over Pintor but jeez i'd hate to have my life on it. Pintor's losing effort to Gomez was possibly the best thing either ever done among plenty of decent accomplishments.

Weird - i was a MASSIVE fan of Pintor and always liked him over Chandler but after their careers i came to respect Jeff so much more than i had.

Chandler had the better talent and ability but was he the better fighter? It's a tough one!

 

Thats cause he had no balls. He won a razor close decision over Casamayor, then ran in fear from a rematch. Then beat a bunch of 2nd raters before getting exposed by Corrales.

 

Joey Archer

 

This is correct. People forget that this corner of the boxing world is small, there's a whole lot of other people overrating fighters, and by comparison they dwarf this place.

I don't see Cotto as underrated. He's one of the best exponents of educacted pressure in the world now, but his shortcomings have proven fatal and would always do on the biggest of stages imo.

 

Tommy Ryan
Frank Klaus
Gunboat Smith
Paul Berlenbach