the best Virtuoso Performences in the ring (Poll)

Roy Jones vs. anyone before moving to LHW.
Floyd Jr. vs. Gatti and Hatton
Cotto vs. Gomez

 

Mayweather beat the breaks off Corrales, that fight is engrained in my mind. Floyd beat Diego like a government mule.

 

Calzaghe destroying Lacy.

 

Great thread Mr President.

I think it absolutely has to be HOPKINS W12 TARVER. Absolutely. Pacman-Barrera I, Jones-Toney, Hopkins-Trinidad are all good contenders, and I remember at the time thinking De La Hoya KO2 Rafael Ruelas was a stunningly dominant win in what was viewed as a more or less 50/50 fight, but B-Hop coming off 2 losses to the no-better-than-decent Jermain Taylor at middleweight, then jumping 2 weight classes to light-heavyweight and taking on The Ring#1 Antonio Tarver, and beating him in such magnificent style truly is unmatched. I think it even tops Jones-Ruiz. He won the mental battle, he showed he carried his power up by flooring the champion, he was just so dominant. A performance for the ages, which is now looking even better as Tarver looks the best of the bunch of the top 3 genuine light-heavys (him, Dawson, Johnson) as I expect Calzaghe to drop back down to fight Pavlik.

also Toney-Jirov, Barrera-Hamed, Duran-Barkley and, strangely, virtuoso performances from Whitaker v Chavez and De La Hoya against Trinidad that were ruined by appalling judges' decisions.

 

Yeah, absolutely. Mayweather slaughtered Gatti so bad it was painful, but nobody realistically believed that that was going to be a tough as nails battle between #1 and #2. Calzaghe-Lacy shocked the whole boxing world (except maybe those who really knew the extent of Calzaghe's talent). It turned me into a big fan.

 

De La Hoya Vs. Trinidad
(Class A Boxing lesson Oscar gave him, Too bad De La Hoya is the wrong color to ever get credit for Boxing, because he's Latino it's called "running")

 

It was called "running" because he got tired and stayed away, or "ran", for the last 3 rounds.

If he boxed in rounds 10-12 like he did for the majority of the fight, there wouldn't be much criticism.

 

Level of opposition plays a role in this choice, so I gave it to Manny Pacquiao over Marco Antonio Barrera. Jeff Lacy was a tough strong undefeated titlist, Diego Corrales was a hard-hitting, terrific in-fighting, undefeated titlist (or former titlist), but they weren't on the level of a Marco Antonio Barrera. Pacquiao moved up in weight and completely annihilated Barrera.

B-Hop over Felix Trinidad was very impressive as well. People always talk bout Tito being undersized, but he was a very big welterweight, and had destroyed the consensus #2 middleweight in the world 4 months earlier.

And James Toney was very highly regarded when Roy shut him out.

 

There are a lot but the two that jump to mind first are Winky/Tito and Calzaghe/Lacy.

 

WInky vs Tito was incredible
RJ vs GLen Kelly, RJ str8 wooped his ass
RJ vs RIchard Hall he str8 tapped his ass
shiit RJ vs anybody be4 he started slipping in the athletic department

FLoyd vs Gatti was another one

 

It shouldn't have mattered if DLH had tap-danced for the last 3 rounds, he won the 1st 9 so he won the fight. It was a disgrace. Tito never had half of the talent or skill the young DLH had. He was a murderous puncher, but not much else.

 

Gatti vs floyd does it for me

 

It can't be Mayweather-Gatti. Fights can be 1 of 3 types: 50/50s, fights where 1 guy is favoured but it's still a live fight, and fights where 1 guy is heavily favoured. To be the greatest virtuoso performance ever the winner cannot have been favoured, or it wasn't a virtuoso performance, and Mayweather was definitely a big favourite for the Gatti fight. I still say it was Hopkins-Tarver.