Lewis as 9th best HW ever?

Jojoba that is a good point, in terms of H2H meaning nothing to do with rankings.

Although personally, Lewis on his best day might just have the correct blend of range, strength and Boxing I.Q to win a tight points decision over Kid Dynamite IMO. Just ;-)

 

Ive done it to death on so many occasions -


But a few points-


We can all agree, that each era is hard to judge how good a fighter truly is as they only fight guys of that era. THE ONLY WAY...we ever get to understand what could have happened or how good fighter is...through watching DVD, tapes, footage etc, also taking into account heights, weights, speed, power etc.


The real problem comes even during Ali era, the footage is not as good as it is now. We get to see things up close, Jeffries, Johnson, Dempsey and Louis all had poor footage on them by any modern standard we have now.

So yet again its hard to really guage how good fighters of the very past are, hence why I feel we should divide time periods and group eras togeather.

The world before WW2 was vastly different, with vastly different cultures....its changing even faster today.

Sullivan, Jeffries, Johnson, Dempsey, Tunney, Louis and Marciano....all belong in the first phase of heavyweight boxing history....thats only fair. But to start saying Marciano was greater than Vitali Klitshcko or saying Lennox Lewis is way below him is stretching real hard...real rose tinted glasses. His resume is less, his style is less, his physical being is less....his dominance is less.

Rocky is even the best fighter of the first phase of boxing history, Johnson, Dempey and Louis are far better, had more longevity, had more impact and had better resumes.

At one point or another we might have to consider putting a new era together as fighters will become bigger, and time periods out grow the old.

To compare the 1950s to now is a huge change and too much in reality....Marciano would have more luck beating Ali than the Klits brothers. Whereas I feel Ali would be able to beat both Klit brothers especially from his 1964 to 1975 period as it is much closer to now.

Same with Sullivan, im sure he would have more luck fighting J. Louis than Frazier....


Larry Holmes had a strange reign, good head to head, good longevity, proved his fighting heart yet Tyson took apart similar opponents.

Possibly Tyson ushered a new era of fighters, Tyson, Holyfield, Bowe, Lewis, Klit brothers...are bigger, stronger.

I dont belive in ranking guys in number order, as it too black and white-

Pre 1956- The great fighters

First Group - J. Louis, Jack Johnson
Second Group - Dempsey, Tunney, Jeffries
Third Group - Marciano, Walcott, Charles,

There may be other fighters but no one has seen Sullivan fight, Burns just isnt good enough, Willard was pretty bad and nothing about his regime including the dubious win over Johnson.

Post 1956-
First Group - M. Ali, L. Lewis
Second Group - M. Tyson, Holmes, Holyfield, Frazier, Foreman
Third Group - S. Liston, R. Bowe, W. Klitshcko, V. Klitshcko

 

I have adressed some of these. I will add that I actually think boxing technique and skillsets have digressed over the past few years, but with no ability to find a cut off point, I have to rank fighters based on my personal opinion of opponents ability/skillset. Therefore, I would never rank Wlad over Joe Louis. A. because even by sparking Haye, Louis fought better opponents B. Joe Louis is clearly the more complete fighter.

Speaking of Louis, who has bettered his technique in all these years? Even Arguello, an obvious rival in the stakes of 'finest textbook puncher' was a big admirer of Louis' technique supposedly. You claim Ali would be better suited and yet limited bruisers like Shavers and Lyle had success in his era. Why wouldn't Louis?

I agree that H2H, Marciano doesn't fare brilliantly against the massive guys, mainly because he never fought any to prove it. But we know his opponents did, and we know they were a formidable punch. They were top HWs, he beat them, therefore he was a top HW of his time. Then I would say, how strong was his era, as I've already said, it wasn't the 70s, 80s or 90s, but it was good, it had a good mix of fighters in there.

Which is why Ali, Louis, Lennox, Larry, George, Evander, Mike (and probably Joe) should all be in front of him. But it doesn't mean he wasn't a great Heavyweight. After all, he won THE World title, he wasn't the 'WBC Emeritus champion' for beating who, Kirk Johnson and Danny Williams? All clearly better than Walcott, Charles and Moore.

Also, you're going on about Vitali too much, he's an average champion, not the no.1 in the division, and his resume stinks. He isn't even in the top 30 HWs regardless of era.

 

Oh, give him a pat on the back for mentioning something I've been saying for the last 4 pages!!

 

Well of course, but he's a noob so I'm being nice. Of course I'd probably agree with you anyway ;-)

What do you think of the point Black is making and my own reply? Which side do you lean towards? It's an interesting argument IMO :tong

 

You? Nice to a noob?

I agree that size and weight would play a bigs factor H2H in the heavyweight division but I don't think that stops you being able to at least try to rank their careers.

The way Black has done it with 2 sets is also interesting but if you largely ignore H2H when ranking, which I do, then its not really nessarcery IMHO.

On H2H in the lighter divisions, if you ignore the changes to the weigh-in times that means middleweights are probably 10-15 pounds heavier on fight night than they used to be then I think the improvements in conditioning for modern fighters is more than counter-balanced by the skills, activity levels and size of the talent pool of boxing in bygone eras.

At least from the 1930s onwards when I think there was a shift towards what we now think of as modern styles.

 

This is tend to agree with, although there are obviously a few exceptions. Good post :good

 

Yeah, mate.I'm not saying everyone pre-1930 wasn''t "modern" and everyone after was "modern" (Leonard being a fore runner) just that I think you do start to see a change around that time generally.

By the time 1940s were really getting going, if you watched the top guys from back then in HD colour with Al Bernstien commentating you could believe you were watching a modern day fight.

 

Guys, read 'The Arc of Boxing' if you haven't and can get hold of a copy. Bit on the pricey side though.

But if you compare head to head you are applying factors that were not true when they fought and in effect penalising someone for something which was irrelevant to when they were fighting (be it number of rounds, rules such as the neutral corner, modern weigh ins).

 

As well Scott when people doing H2Hs with modern vs. older fighters there always seems to be this unwritten rule that the fight will take place over 15 rounds, with 10oz gloves, foul proof protectors etc....

 

I think they probably take place over the rule sets the author is most familiar with, which obviously benefits the guys fighting in there era.

It's funny how also a lot of modern obsessed fans believe any big changes to have stopped around the time they started watching boxing, or at a time to protect their favourite boxers, like Ali for example. In reality I think modern boxers have some benefits, old timers have quite a few too.

 

I think the depth of technical skill across the game has slipped somewhat, as with anything there are some exceptions to the rule.

 

A fairly logical assumption looking at the number of fights people have and the amount of 25-0 boxers fighting for titles.

 

[on soapbox] If you are only fighting 3, 4 times a year against handpicked opponents as a prospect then, no matter what you work on in the gym, you arn't going to pick up as much as fighter who fights 10 times a year against a variety of styles in a "sink or swim" era.[/off soapbox]

 

Does the book basically agree with what we are getting at here?