Who is higher on your ATG p4p list, Ali or Pep? Why?

I'd say on ability they are about the same, Pep had better technique and skill, but Ali had more durability and athleticism/speed.

I don't agree Ali has clearly the better resume - going 2:1 vs guys like Frazier and Norton is not as impressive as beating ALL the top contenders and cleaning out the division without losing. The only blotch on Pep's pre-crash record is his unavenged loss on Sammy Angott, which came when he was young and not a champion. Up until the plane crash, Pep's record was absurd, over 100 wins with only 1 draw and one close points loss to a Hall of Famer. That is more dominant than Ali. His record after the crash was still impressive.

Pep had the more dominant title reign, and even if his opposition was a bit weaker (I'm not sure it was), he did better against them (winning ALL his title bouts pre-crash).

So I would say that Pep just proved the slightly more dominant fighter - more difficult to beat, more clearly above his opposition. I'd put Pep in the 3-5 slots, and Ali more like 5-8.

 

That's fine if you're going to be consistent with the application of your logic. This would mean that you can't use resume as your main ranking criteria anymore though.

 

from the pages i've read, this is a better debate and discussion than i anticipated.

my vote is for ali at the moment based on a combination of resume, dominance and skills. however, if you were to say it was pep for those same reasons, i wouldn't be surprised

 

For skills there's no denying Willie Pep is easily one of the goats. He remains one of the finest boxers to ever do it and maybe is even peerless in terms of pure boxing. It's just that when it comes to the debate of ranking them in terms of greatness, i see no argument for Pep, i can't ignore resume. People reply to me with really patronising posts about how i mustn't know how good Pep's opposition was and it makes me laugh. That's a cop out.

 

R, for what it's worth, I saw Willie Pep and Ali in their primes !
It is not fair to match a heavyweight with a featherweight in a P4P pick,as the featherweight can do things skillfully that a 200 pounder cannot be expected to do. Having said that,
1-Ali had 61 total bouts. After 55 bouts he was about through as a great fighter,fighting Leon Spinks...FIFTY FIVE fights...
1-Willie Pep had over 60 fights in his first FOUR years,with a total of 242
fights overall. He lost i bout in his first 150 fights and was still a topnotch fighter until late in his career,and all this after suffering a near fatal airplane crash in 1947. Until the crash Pep was virtually unbeatable.
2- How can you compare Ali, who was through after 55 bouts, to a Willie Pep
who survived a terrible plane-crash in his prime,and lost one or two fights
in about ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY FIVE or so bouts, maintaining his
unbelievable skills,whilst having 4 times as many fights as Ali.? YOU CAN"T !!
3-How can a man as Ali, who was shot after 55 bouts, be superior to a Pep
who depended on speed and boxing acumen, to fight and beat his rivals in a 242 bout career,and be at his peak for about 175 bouts.?
4- Most everyone on ESB have seen films of willie pep fighting Sandy Saddler
after his near fatal crash in 1947. He truly was not the same fighter after that crash,that I saw in 1943. And no film of the peak Willie Pep exists to illustrate
the phenomenal skills of the "Will Of The Wisp ". If films did exist of the prime Willie Pep, this thread wouldn't even be posted...

 

pep's resume has been critiqued before on here and likely will again. going through his resume though, he did face quite a few top 10 ranked opponents. like a LOT and this is a time when top 10 ranks were earned (for the most part)

HOWEVER, his resume is berift of all time great names. he faced (as far as i know) 3 HOF fights: saddler, wright and angott.

as said, saddler CLEARLY got the better of their series, he dominated wright and angott smothered him to victory. compared with the all time greats on ali's resume (as least 3 potential top 10 heavies) it's a little pale

 

This is how I grade them:

Resume (out of 50)
Ali: 35.75
Pep: 34

Dominance: (out of 40)
Ali: 31.5
Pep: 36.75

Longevity (out of 10)
Ali: 7.75
Pep: 9.5

Character: (out of 10)
Ali: 9.5Pep: 7.75

Totals
Ali: 84.5
Pep: 88


Basically it's Pep's ridiculous level of dominance that distinguishes them for me.

As for resumes, whilst I think Ali's is better, Pep's isn't that far behind.

I don't care what the HOF says, to me, guys like Ken Norton are no better than a Willie Joyce or Paddy Demarco, even though Ken's in the HOF and Joyce and Demarco aren't.

As for those bringing up Pep and how he got beat by Saddler, well Sandy is a better fighter than Ali ever fought and Willie fought him during the 'Ken Norton' phase of his career. No shame in losing to Sandy whatsoever.



A breakdown of my 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]

 

Character? What´s next? Looks?

 

This post only tells us that you didn't read my whole post. Thanks for that valuable info :good

 

Ali. Systematically cleaning out a stacked heavyweight division over 15 years and beating numerous stone-cold ATGs has an edge over Pep's incredible featherweight career, IMO.

 

You do a clear distinction between Pep's career pre-crash and after (which is fair), but doesn't do the same for Ali's exile.

 

Didn't Pep systematically clean out a stacked featherweight division over 15 years also?

Didn't Pep also beat numerous stone cold ATGs? I mean, Sandy Saddler and Manuel Ortiz probably rank over the likes of Frazier, Foreman and Liston, all things considered.

 

Saddler bested Pep though. And if you go fight by fight, I like Ali's championship resume more.

 

Sure, but Ken Norton and Jimmy Young bested Ali too, if you call a spade and spade and overlook the bogus decisions handed down.

I know who I'd rather lose to, as well...

 

I take it that you'll think I'm shifting the goal posts on you here, since I mentioned Liston, Frazier and Foreman before, and not Young or Norton. Ok, fair enough.

Personally i do agree that Ali beat better comp, but my argument is more so that their resumes aren't really that far apart all things considered, and Pep has other things in his favour which makes him the greater fighter.