"Greatest" vs "Best"

Not necessarily. Holyfield beat better fighters than Louis, but was he better? Not IMO.

The best fight who they can, whereas the greatest fight the best.

 

Good discussion. Babe Ruth is the GREATEST baseball player, but not the BEST. Wilt Chamberlain (IMO) is the GREATEST basketball player but is not the BEST. Ali or Dempsey is the GREATEST boxer (and I'm not a fan of his) but not the BEST.

Greatest means to me that rules were changed because of his play, or he had worldwide attention as no one before, or set records
only recently or never broken.

 

Dempsey Firpo did make some rule changes that would affect the 2nd Tunney fight.

 

Yes, that's why Dempsey to me is tied with Ali as GREATEST. He certainly was a massive phenomenon media wise. Was making nearly 1 million in the early 20's whereas Ruth was making $20,000.

 

He was never going to trouble someone like Lewis.

Edwin fought bums and there's nothing sad about him taking his life lol

Great fighter with great names. Would have still never surpassed Pep and Armstrong in resume and he wouldn't have beat them either.

Ali didn't have mixed results. He was still the best HW in the 70's.

Tyson being number 1 is mainly just over hype. He was never at any point the best h2h fighter the division had seen. Not with Louis, Holmes, Foreman and Ali existing.

Never. Before Douglas and prison, he was not improving, he was declining. We saw Tyson maximize his skills, hardwork, and potential for 3 great years, and that was that. We already saw the best Tyson we were ever going to get.

See above ^^

Eh. Closest I can think is Hearns at 147 but I reckon SRR is more formidable because he has a way better chin

 

I mean, he only really beat Bowe. Foreman, Holmes, and Tyson were not at their best.

 

Here are my thoughts... Anyone who self proclaims themselves to be the greatest is not the greatest. Guess who im talking about? lol.

Joe Louis is the greatest and the best at the same time! Try to wrap that concept around your head. End of thread!

 

The basketball comparison is a tricky one because it’s still a team sport whereas boxing (regardless of trainers, managers and other supporting figures in a fighter’s career) is an individual sport. Tennis is maybe a better comparison as another individual sport.

There’s been a debate in tennis over the last few years about who is the greatest tennis player of all time among the big three of the last 20 years - Federer, Djokovic and Nadal. Djokovic has a head-to-head winning record over both Federer and Nadal and has 23 majors to Nadal’s 22 and Federer’s 20. On paper, at least, that should make him the greatest.

But there’s some nuance there. Does that make him the best? Federer was in his prime 5 years before Djokovic came into his and he consistently beat Novak. Then, when Djokovic reached his peak Federer was past his best, but was still good enough to push him all the way (the 2019 Wimbledon final is evidence of that).

But when you just take those three player’s achievements in terms of overall dominance of their era and weight those achievements (most major wins) over other eras, you might also be misrepresenting or overvaluing certain things.

Does most majors mean they are the greatest? What about the surfaces changing to become more homogenised so that everyone plays baseline tennis now. Or that in Rod Laver’s era, all the majors were played on grass and that Laver, although he has only 11 majors was ineligible while he was a professional to play the majors in the amateur era and as soon as he become eligible again when the Open Era began, did the calendar grand slam (all four majors in a year), something that none of the three aforementioned greats have achieved (yet).

And what about the fact that many great players of the past didn’t even bother entering one of those four majors, the Australian Open, because they considered it a lesser major (think of it as the WBO of majors before it become legitimised), when Wimbledon was considered to be the most important tournament to win.

How we rate greatness can change over time and can be affected by distinct circumstances of the eras as well as by different perceptions and weighting of those eras. To bring it back to boxing, the most a fighter can do is meet and beat (hopefully in some style, too) the best available opposition to be considered the greatest of their era. The rest is open to interpretation… but we love to try to nail it down anyway.