Please tell me how he looked different to the Baer, Sharkey or Braddock fights. Sorry but this is just revisionism. Thanks, even so the second sentence must be an exxageration with guys like Ross and Canzi around and the competition of Louis until then - as fine as it was, not comparable to Langford, Greb, Fitz and Co.
The fact that Lennox Lewis is rated top 10, top 5, and top 3 even, so often around here - on the All-Time HW lists - I would have expect Rahman KO5 Lewis to be considered a truly great win in HW history.
In terms of pure ability, "head to head" as they call it around here, he was considered perfect fighting machine, some said the best ever - compared to Fitz, Gans and Dempsey. (Not the greatest on the achievement, he was still just a 2-year pro or less.) :good
People were saying the same thing about Tyson before he fought Douglas, but nobody thinks he was the same fighter physically or mentally for that fight than he was for the Spinks fight. Difference is, Louis didn't have a bunch of "yes" men around him and had the discipline to get focused and back on track.
Douglas beat a prime Tyson. Schmeling beat a prime Louis. I don't go much for the excuses, but if you must then Tyson has a better excuse for his loss because he was minus his trainer and had amateurs in his corner. Louis didn't have that issue.
Unsure what the actual criteria for great heavyweight win is but a personal favourite of mine is Hide V Bent Hide, fighting way above his level for a version of the heavyweight belt and being cheered on by his terminally ill little brother. Hide got the win and seemed he did it all for his brother - priceless moments - About a year after the fight his brother would be dead.
As I said before, it's the fighters responsibility to get prepared for the fight, so a loss is on him. But the fact is, neither were properly prepared for these respective fights.
Foreman K02 Frazier is no.1. When has a PRIME ATG ever being destroyed so fast?? Only Big G could ever do that to an other PRIME ATG.
Considering Frazier never dared test his chin against any other puncher besides Foreman,we will never know if Foreman was the only man capable of producing such an emphatic,laughably one-sided victory.Getting knocked down half a dozen times in two rounds is pretty alarming,quite frankly.
The punchers you wanted him to fight were all beaten before getting close enough to force a fight. If course Frazier did beat their conqueror and went on to fight more meaningful fights. Of course now you will say he could have fought this one or that one at different times, but I can always provide a timeline that proves Frazier was fighting better fighters or those fighters were unavailable or undeserving.
I think we've gone through this discussion enough times - no need to simply rehash the same arguments that will drag out into some long-winded debate.I don't believe in triangle theories,and I don't believe one single loss should be held against a fighter. Like it or not,Lyle remained a top,viable contender in the heavyweight ranks,regardless of him suffering a loss to Jerry Quarry.As the third best heavyweight contender prior to his upset loss to Jimmy Young,he most certainly was a more credible challenger than the unranked Jimmy Ellis was. By the way,was Bob Foster a deserving challenger to the heavyweight title in 1970? The same Bob Foster that had never,at any point in his life,been ranked in the top ten?
No, Bonavena KDed Joe 2x in early Rds in their first fight, only to lose the decision to Joe, as he did again in the rematch. But Oscar could punch as those 2KDs showed. Joe came out on top in both fights with Oscar--the bull of the Pampas.
Lyle may have been deserving, but he wasn't more deserving than Quarry, Ali or Foreman, and he wasn't a more dangerous fight than those three. No, Foster wasn't a hugely deserving challenger. But he was a more stylistically suited challenger for Fraziers upcoming fight with Ali less than 4 months later. You seem to think Joe should have fought a killer every time out when almost every champion in history did the same thing as Frazier. I agree we have run our course on this topic though, but how else am I going to get you to change your mind about the greatness of Frazier? :hey