Blah blah blah....Morales was weight-drained and looked like a zombie at the weigh-in for the rematch. Trinidad spent too much time in the 2 weeks prior to the Hopkins fight visiting NYC firefighters and police officers after 9/11. Corrales was about to go to prison when Mayweather beat him. Trinidad hit Vargas in the balls after he got knocked down. Leonard-Hagler was 12 rounds instead of 15 and a big ring. Tyson spent his Tokyo training camp banging Japanese prostitutes. Bowe gained 11 pounds of flab for the Holyfield rematch. Hearns is over 6 feet tall and weighed 145, cutting two pounds too many when he fought Leonard. Dejesus was already a heroin addict for the rubber match with Duran. Tarver had to lose too much weight from being a fat ass in Rocky Balboa when he fought Hopkins. There's a gazillion excuses you can make, but people only seem to take them seriously when the defeated fighter is someone they like.
Also I think Donaire's win over Darchinyan is slightly underrated. He was something like an 8-1 underdog.
especially considering what Darchinyan went on to accomplish after, and also that Donaire was in control of that fight from start to finihs.
Its funny how Morales being shot is a universally accepted excuse, but the fact that Pacquiao was moving up in weight in the first fight and had his vision impaired by a cut caused by a headbutt is just brushed aside as a bull**** excuse.
Brilliant list Popkins. I'm not going to nitpick, you put real thought into this, must've taken a while.
I disagree mate. I can accept that these are good wins, but I can't accept that they are great wins. An injury call-off to me is just not conclusive enough, it is not adequate proof of superiority in my eyes to justify being called a great win. It's always an anti-climax for me. The way I look at it is this: Calzaghe beat a slightly fresher and more confident version of Kessler (Kessler's decline is often highly overstated on here), but whereas Calzaghe struggled early on then outboxed him down the stretch to a decision, Ward dominated him from the get-go, won more or less every round, plus Ward was an underdog whereas Joe C was the favourite. I can't separate those two wins by much at all, hence their proximity. Fair enough. Great win. Nah. This is a great symbolic win, but it's not really a stellar win, because it was Ruiz. A horribly out-of-shape James Toney slapped the **** out of him around the same time. I actually think I was kind to Jones-Ruiz purely because it was a great feat at the time. :huh This clearly is listed as an honourable mention. Check back and see. I am sensing you may be a British boxing fan... An honourable mention. I can't rate it any higher than that because I don't rate Judah very highly. Tszyu KO'd the best Judah, Baldo outpointed an inferior version. Honourable status only. Good call. What exactly has Kessler done that makes you rate a points win over him so highly? :huh I think this was just a routine unification fight (there are several of these more or less every year in boxing) over a very good but most definitely not great fighter, and it wasn't an overly dominant win, it was a very competitive fight. Nah, I do not see any justification for moving this any higher. - Raheem was a massive underdog and comfortably outboxed a great boxer coming off the best win of his career - Come on man, be serious - A fluke isn't a fluke when Purrity had already done it and Brewster did it not long after. The Purrity fight was in the 90s, Brewster faced a shellshocked Wlad, it was Sanders who crushed him in a high-profile title fight, considering that and the physical disadvantages he faced, it's a great hw win IMO - Rahman vs Lewis was the biggest upset and best KO of the decade as I see it - Knocking out Castillo (who was on a brilliant run of results) is not worthy of great, great credit?? It is to me. I did mention Pac-Hoya, and I think you must be joking about Morales-Chi and Mormeck-Bell. I don't think either of these comes close to being an honourable mention. Good wins, but not deserving of this discussion at all. If you include those two, you include literally hundreds of similar fights as well as honourable mentions.
He didn't mean mentioned inside the top 50, because earlier in his post he says "not even an honourable mention". Thanks mate.