which fighters were one win away from being the goat?

I don't really care about casuals or ali stans. It's not like I think Ali isn't the better fighter or anything either, I just have a personal preference.

 

Ali wasn't a joy to watch in the pros? :huh

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qTCSQfqf4s[/ame]

 

We all have personal preference. Everyone knows what fighters I tend to admire the most, but Ali's achievements speak for itself.

 

Fair enough.

I must admit, I'm more of a fan of textbook, boxer punchers. Nothing more pleasing than watching a fighter systematically break down their opposition with accurate composite punching, body and head.

 

If true, you should be all over Louis' nuts, TBQH.

 

My favorite fighters all fit that description. Barrera? Yuh? Arguello? Canizales? Penalosa? I love Louis' style, but that doesn't get in the way of the fact that Ali beat some absolute monsters...albeit with ineffective flurrying, roughhouse tactics, and bad punching in general.

 

I disagree with that notion. You have to remember that every win you reverse although you're adding a scalp to one's resume you subtracting from another fighter. Holmes losing to Ali would have seriously detracted from Holmes and he'd be treated like a 2nd tier champion for the remainder of his career. It would be a good win but given the hit that Holmes would take I'd wager to say that it's significance would be diminished by what our perception of Larry would be.

Vitaly Klitscko suffered from criticism throughout his career because he failed to deliver in what should have been the passing of the torch instead he lost to Lewis thereby undermining his efforts in subsequent years despite his success. Imagine if vitaly won? He would be looked at alot different today.

The best way to examine this is taking a win over fighter whose stock would still remain high at that time even if he lost.

A good example would be Tyson beating holyfield in the rematch or dempsey beating Tunney in the rematch both fighters were held in esteem so whoever won would get appropriate credit.

Patterson beating Liston in the first fight would be huge because Liston had already established himself leading to the patterson fight.

It can't be a win over someone you were supposed to beat anyway and it can't be win over someone whose credibility would be damaged severly by reversing the loss otherwise it's a situation where instead of you getting credit your opponent is getting discredited.

 

Maybe I'm overthinking this, but Holmes would've had to have absolutely sucked for Ali to have beaten him. Ali was a zombie, so I can't see how he'd muster up a good enough performance. Something would have to go wrong with Holmes--whose subsequent status would drop a lot.

On the other hand, Spinks wasn't past it (not much anyway) when he faced Tyson. If he got a lucky shot in or found a way to outbox Tyson, he'd retire undefeated and Tyson would resume domination. So Spinks is a better answer.

 

Lee Ramage also looks all right to me, certainly not a great like Conn and JJW, but he didn't lose to Joe by committing a fatal error like many Louis victims. Watching Ramage it's easy to understand why Louis and Blackburn held him in such high regard.

 

I figured you'd throw that out there, and i agree with the ideas in what you're saying but maybe not as much with how important it would be. I think Walcott gives any boxer-type(mobile or planted) fighter headaches with his rhythm breaking techniques and i think especially he'd mess ali up with his feinting prowess(i don't think ali really ever faced an opponent great at this particular skill). I just don't know if that gap in experience and perhaps durability would be relevant often enough to clearly favor jersey joe. Perhaps too big of a speed edge, methinks. Although it's certainly true that JJW has the edge in the bag-o-trick's edge that decides these kinds of chessmatches. I do think he'd outbox 70's ali though, even the quarry return fight and FotC versions.