Hi Rummy, nice to see you..... As to Robinson, well sure age matters. But all we can do is judge the body of work before us. I look at things like this in the whole, and take into consideration not only the highs like Lamotta 6 and Turpin 2 but all those losses along the way too. Maybe it is too bad that he fought there when he did but.........he did, you know? There are some that will say no middleweight was ever better than Ray was on the night he stopped Lamotta for the title, and I might actually agree. But it's only part of his middleweight story.
Personally i have SRR above Hagler and Monzon but can see the other side. For me he does well on quality of opposition.
Robinson turned professional in 1941 and by 1960 he'd only picked up 5 losses to middleweights (3 of which were in the second half of the 1950s). 5 losses in 18 years isn't much, and he beat loads of middleweight contenders since the early-mid-1940s. So "all those losses along the way" must refer to Robinson of the 1960s. Which is frankly insane.
While I don't consider him the G.O.A.T at middleweight I do see him as top 5-10 middles of all time. His competition is so weak is my main issue. Theirs not one fighter he fought at middleweight during his championship run anyone who doesn't have blinders on would or should be considered anything close to great or very good for that matter . The only "Great" fighters he faced were two men whom had seen better days and were small,,,,,,,,,,,, welterweights! Griffith by the time he went up to middle was losing all most as much as he won. Napoles clearly was past prime and clearly looked much smaller than Monzon in the fight. Valdes was a great puncher and a true middleweight but was he special? Same with Bennie Briscoe whom by the way a lot of folks who actually saw the fight in Argentina feel he actually beat Monzon. Monzon got some home town cooking (But that happens,he definitely wasn't the 1st) I'd take most of Hagler's competition at middleweight to defeat most of Monzon's. So yes he does deserve to be top ten in middle history but in my opinion he isn't the best their was.
Okay. It's just very unusual to down-rate a fighter for losses that occurred when so many years past his prime days. I mean, where he's fighting at a point where most comparable fighters are permanently retired. 18, 19, 20+ years and over 150 fights into his career, after previous retirements. I'm all for a holistic approach and I always factor in significant losses, but the significance of the losses diminish as a fighter gets older and older. Surely. In some cases, the fighter carries on so long the losses count for nothing. Also, we balance out against the wins.
To be frank, I'm not even as holistic as I purport. I don't even consider his 60's losses when examining his career. To me, losing the title and regaining it that often just doesn't spell "greatest ever" to me.
He had compiled a very adequate middleweight resume before he even lost the title the first time. I do think the Turpin rematch and later the Fullmer rematch KO add something to his resume, but his main work is in the 1942 to 1951 period.
It may have been, but then it continued. And continued. It may or may not be right to lump all his post-prime performances into the mix when ranking a fighter, but in my view at least, it is more wrong to ignore them.
Monzon was quizzed about Ray being champ so many times.His reply was, well he had to keep losing it to win it back didn't he?
Here is why i dont rate Monzon as highly as some ...when we talk about pound for pound greatness. I am not impressed by a fighter who stays in one weight division and makes a dozen title defenses in a shallow division. I am also not impressed by a fighter who resume is built on smaller men going up in weight to fight him. That goes for Monzon ...for Hopkins ...for Golovkin ..for Hagler .
