I wonder on what basis you say ,"solid,but not first class opponents", since NONE of those he beat in his first 2 years had ANY RECORD AT ALL?:huh
"Solid,but not first class opponents". On what do you base this opinion? NONE of his losing opponents in his first two years had any form at all. C Millward had a career total of 1 fight L ko1 T Mulverhill , ditto J Galvin , ditto C Stokes , ditto These were worse than tough man quality opponents they were debuting novices who had one fight, were kod in one round, and did not fight again. Solid opponents . MY ARSE!
Munroe was nothing much, as pointed out Maher was an alcoholic by this time but still nearly ko'd Jack by mistake. Hank Griffin is greatly over-rated by some here and Sharkey was back for a payday. The Jeff kd was just ballyhoo IMO
Your statement lack teeth (no pun) and is a transparent personal attack. I will show you respect this time and leave it at that. Perhaps as a Board elder statesman you can dedicate time to ensuring ALL meet your criteria ...
What statement? Transparent personal attack? If I attack you there will be nothing transparent about it. I responded to you, calling those who disagreed with you "uninformed". I require respect from the people I in turn respect, I could not care less about your opinion of me. I am no" elder statesman" ,just elder. Your last sentence ,like your first, makes no coherent sense.
If you didn't thrash the guy to make your point it would have so much more validity ... instead, you don't simply say you think so and so is better but to build the point you completely try and destroy the other fighters credibility. That is my point.
OK, but wasn't he just the sort of fighter that would make the typical heavyweight title challenger today?
Nietzsche ,and Nihilism have what relevance to this debate exactly ? NB. If you must quote, try and do so correctly. It is. Thus Spake Zarathustra. NIne, ten and out!:good ps , I not only have all my 32 teeth ,I have two small , "extra" ones under the front two ,so 34. How many have you got left ?
This is exactly my point. He beat the guys who were not world class, comfortably, usually by KO in the first few rounds. He beat the World class guys (Maher and Sharkey) who were older and past it, as any good challenger would, and against the really top in prime guys he fought, (Johnson, Griffin) he was very competitive with, including a 20 rnd draw, a No Decision and a loss. The 20 rnd loss was early in his career and was reversed to a draw. In fact, against Griffin his draw was the exact same result that Johnson had managed at virtually the same time. So, if you achieve the same as Johnson, can you not be said to be in the same rough class at this time? Munroe was blown out by the champ, but plenty of good challengers are, and this was probably the best Jeffries that ever existed. Without hindsight, he was as good a challenger as was available.
Oh please, this just isnt good enough ! He beat, for the most part novices who had not fought before, did not fight again, or men who had very limited careers ,and losing ones generally. Competitive with Johnson ? Why ,because he went 6 rds? Al Kaufmann went the distance with Johnson Tony Ross ditto,Sailor Burke ditto, Sandy Ferguson did several times until one afternoon he got a trifle ambitious and Johnson began to beat the **** out of him, Ferguson quickly came back to earth and fouled out to save himself from his imminent crucifixion. Going the distance with Johnson does NOT mean he was competitive. Sharkey came back for his pension plan, he had been retired for 2 years. Maher was a drunk and had a ko losing record. This is a horse that will not run.atsch
Cmon McVey, You know much better than that. 1 fight and 1 KO? In a time where club fighters fought every single week and often twice a week or more often, i know you dont honestly think that these guys had one fight and that was the end of it. By solid, i should say that i meant club fighters. No one know how good these guys were or werent. If we take someone today, a good challenger lets say a Nicolai Valuev type fighter. Wins over these guys were about as good as wins over Toakipa Tasefa, Yuriy Yalistratove, John Tupuo, Andreas Siddon etc. It is interesting that Montana Jack Sullivan who drew with Munroe(or possibly lost a short 4 round bout) "on debut" went on to draw with future world title challenger Stanley Ketchell in his next fight! - 3 years later! He also went on to defeat Multiple world title challenger and a man with a win over the great Jack Dempsey, Fireman Jim Flynn. He lost a newspaper decision to Jeff Clarke, who was world class also. Munroe was not a standout challenger, but he had as much right as anyone to be the challenger. Much like today, there is no one single challenger who has really taken the bull by the horns and earned a title shot against the Klitchskos. I would liken Munroe to Haye, who has used an angle (in his case an alpabet strap and words, in Munroes, a fake knockdown and words) to position himself as the no 1 challenger. Barrett, Valuev and Ruiz are the guys Haye beat. Munroe beat Sharkey, Maher and Sullivan. That is as much as anyone ever does nowadays.