What is the criteria for being considered an ATG?

Currently its
How little can I fight
How much smaller of an opponent should i handpick
How many titles I vacate
How many true ATGs can I avoid
Very sad really it does change depending on the fighter and how much hype we as fans choose to buy into

 

it depends on the fighters personality

 

Mike Tyson is given unique criteria for some reason.

 

Most of all accomplishments and the way of winning career defining fights makes someone to the ATG status. With that, no matter how many great fights Gatti had, the historians will be sad to say, but there's no place for Gatti there. Not for Corrales either, he just couldn't win enough big ones.

Now everyone talking about Money' ATG status comparing him to ATG top 5s, top 20s etc. I just was to say that before 2007 Mayweather barely made an ATG status (he was in of course). And in 2007 he made himself a place in the top 25 in my opinion as he defeated top100 ATG De La Hoya and one of the best fighters of our era (according to The Ring), Go Ricky Hatton. This was the year Calzaghe joined the ATG list as he became the best fighter ever in SMW in probably the most important fight in 2007 defeating - as historians said - one of the best SMW ever, Kessler. Both fighters had 'ATG skills' before 2007, but they had to win more big fights, and they did.

So first and foremost career achievements make someone on the list and of course the way of winning (or losing) the biggest fights, the level of competition, domination in his weight class (fighters who he avoided, if there’s any), overall skill level, charisma, popularity, place on the P4P list at the time of the active career.

Today’s active ATGs: Evander Holyfield, Bernard Hopkins, Roy Jones Jr., Joe Calzaghe, Oscar De La Hoya, Shane Mosley, Floyd Mayweather Jr. Probably close but not in IMO: Winky Wright (a win over DLH, Forrest and/or Taylor/Pavlik winner should be enough), Vernon Forrest (dominating in LMW or defeating Spinks, Wright and maybe De La Hoya would be a good win), Cory Spinks (win over the guys previously mentioned – not too much chance), Juan Manuel Marquez and Manny Pacquiao (both one big win away – their rematch – so after that one of them will be in definitely, the other should win a big one to make it), Rafael Marquez (if he defeats Vazquez, he should be in, if Vazquez wins he’ll has a little more to do as he wasn’t THAT dominating in his division as Rafael in BW), Ivan Calderon (defeating Solis, a better win against Cazares and a few more wins needed.) and maybe Wonjongkam (he did won 2 of the 3 fights with Naito convincingly but he should defeat at least 3 great names like Donaire, Mijares, Sakata).

You see ATG status is one hell of a job to get and while we all like to speak about that historians say that only the best of the best can make it and making it is a damn hard and long work to do.

 

Resume/Accomplishments
Dominance/In ring performance
Head to Head ability

If one of those criteria is lacking you have to make up for it in the other areas.

 

Taking these criteria that you've listed--are we saying that at ''some stage'' people have taken the time to feed in all the relevant info to arrive at a rating of ATG's from 1 to 100 ????? or is everyone just sucking their thumbs ?:smoke :smoke

 

I think Chad Dawson and Miguel Cotto have the potential to be considered ATG. I see big things for them in the future.

 

All you have to do is beat King Kong, Godzilla, and Bigfoot all in the same night with one hand tied behind your back and a broken leg. Oh yea, don't forget your opponents get to wear football helmets too.

 

becoming an atg is easy, just be born before 1920.

 

I think both dominance of a divsion an mak u an ATG Marciano, tyson etc didnt have that many GREAT win but were great all the same. Lopez and alzaghe havnt been blessed with talent packed divisions but are considered ATGs - and rightly so!

Mosley is great for a few reasons, he has won the apprpriate amount of titles but he also has some top daw wins, he beat DLH, another ATg when DLH was at his very best and at his peak weight.

Mosley is old skool he didnt have to fight Vernon Forrest OR Winky Wright, nobody was going after those guys, but he fought them all the same.

Going off topic a bit, Id also pick lightweight Mosley to beat lightweight Mayweather H2H.

 

who, other than people in this forum (like boxing analysts) have called calzaghe an atg?

 

Thats pretty much it.