How would history remember these fighters if there was no film?

tyson would be considered the potential greatest of them all

duran would possibly be considered less than what he is

lewis would be held in less regard - altohugh in 10-20 years his resume and achievements will take over and he'll shoot up the heavyweight rankings

roy jones would be considered the second coming of harry greb - in a way, whereas greb has the resume that makes him such a big conundrum, jones would have the skillset and ability, plus his two wins over bhop and toney would make him VERY difficult to rank, especially as his resume isnt the greatest, but his achievements are VERY strong.

he might find himself elevated up the p4p rankings in time.

winky - i dont know enough about to warrant a guess, i'd have to say he probably wouldnt be considered anything on the previous fighters without any film.

 

I'll comment on Tyson. He would drop alot IMO, because people would only look at his resume and see that he lost to the best fighters he fought. Because we have film, though, it's clear that as early as Bruno I he was slipping from his dedication - he wasn't using the jab, punching in his combinations, or moving his head.

The unbiased, savvy observer can tell that the Tyson who fought from 1989ish onward was not the same machine that fought prior to then.

In a way, we'd become the Nat Fleischers of our era - we'd claim that Tyson only lost when he lost his inner fire and wasn't at his best, but the paper facts would look like he just got owned by underdogs...Tyson would be just like Dempsey, actually, except a thicker resume.

On paper, he would have blown out a long list of nobodys (remember, his opponents wouldn't be filmed, either, so many would label big men like Biggs, Tucker, Smith et. al as a bunch of big oafs) before being crushed by an even worse nobody (Douglas, who on paper is a terrible fighter, but on film he looks very good when "on") and the best fighters he fought (Holyfield and Lewis).

 

Lewis would be the greatest of them all.

You see, he survived punches from big hitters like Tua, Briggs, etc, so the McCall and Rahman fights clearly were fixes where he laid down for money. Although no actual fight reports mentions this, several years after his legacy is sealed, unknown eye witnesses suddenly testified to it.

 

Ah, come on, man!

 

What about McCall! He obviously wore the cuffs in most of his fights as evidenced by the fact that he was never off his feet, or troubled by another fighter, but simply held back, and relied on corrupt judges decisions. When he got his chance against Lewis, he knocked him cold. IN the rematch his acting was so bad that he simply refused to even throw a punch or raise a guard and the ref stopped the fight (although, i wonder whether this would be construed as more fiction than fact).

Another interesting fighter could be Joe Mesi. May have been anything if the Vlad Klitchsko hadnt drawn a Jack Johnson style reverse colour line.

 

Depends really. I mean Tyson would be rated extremely highly if you listened to what people said, because everybody would be going on about how he destroyed people early on, but if you look at his record he would be rated lower than he is because of the lack of names who you would regard as elite.

 

That's what I said. :huh

If you didn't look at his record and hadn't seen him fight, people that did would go on about how impressive he looked KO'ing journeyman.

But if you looked at his record you would see a lack of names and defeats against the elite fighters he did take on.