Your Hottest Takes:

Have you ever seen a fight in the NBA? It's downright embarrassing.

And Holland and Bosnia and Serbia and Montenegro and the Baltic countries all have tons of super tall folk so the pool is there.

 

Are you the reincarnation of Howard Cosell?

 

You're right about the fights being embarrassing, but we're talking about guys who probably had zero boxing training. One example of an NBA fight that comes to mind is Larry Johnson-Alonzo Mourning. Neither could really fight, but if they picked up boxing instead of basketball as kids, maybe with that size and natural athletic ability, somebody like that could be developed into something.

Derrick Jefferson got a late start in boxing after being a D1 basketball player, and did pretty well all things considered. Maybe he does even better with an earlier start.

No way of knowing for sure, but I'd guess there were plenty of LeBron James or Karl Malone types who would have done well in boxing had they chosen that path early on. Not sure about the 7'+ fellows though. Haven't seen tons of evidence that guys that height can do well in the ring.

 

Larry Johnson was actually a Golden Gloves boxer before he moved to basketball. And still looked like crap fighting. Case closed.

 

Probably another one:thinking again,by single weight domination, longevity and consistency Vicente Saldivar might be better than Ruben Olivares or Salvador Sanchez.

 

1)Jack dempsey was the single greatest athlete in the heavyweight division. The guy had it all. Strong, fast, natural aggression, heart, Hit like a mule. All of this while weighing 190lbs. Crazy stuff.
2)Joe Louis's case for #1 heavyweight is better than Ali's and it isn't even close. Louis dominated his era and rarely had any close decisions fly his way, While Ali had better wins he often times got lucky with decisions like the 3rd Ken norton fight abd was excessively clinch Frazier in their second fight.
3)P4P Ezzard Charles is the greatest fighter of all time
4)If Wladimir Klitschko was in the 90s I'd give him a good shot at beating evander holyfield and riddick bowe. but would choose tyson and Lewis to knock him out. Klitschko also had underrated heart.
5)Rocky Marciano hit harder punch for punch than Sonny Liston.

 

I'm not saying Klitschko wrote a step aside cheque to Kirk Johnson for a sudden crack at an ageing, (likely) undertrained, undermotivated and underprepared Lewis...but it would have been a really smart move if he had.

 

Alright I agree with everything you’ve written here…. Expect I have no idea who Gerry Penalosa is… anyway, hot takes MY HOTTEST is that James Toney at 190lbs-230lbs would beat the devil out of 70s Foreman. Boxing has regressed just look at paid olympians like Bivol compared to Moore… different sport now… “amateur pedigree” medals etc is mostly a big nothing compared to equal time in the pros Manuel Medina had the right idea not Lomachenko.

 

Boxing being something I should feel bad about watching… tongue in cheek but with @NoNeck saying it should be illegal I’ll refer to the wife of Jerry Quarry who suffered a boxing afflicted husband “As long as there are men there will be boxing” it will always be this way there isn’t a proper rationale it just is.

 

Cross Trainer still on his mission to convince me that Charlie Z was an ATG not buying it, sorry. And he caught the "big marine guy" in the spinning section of the gym by surprise.

 

Great post @cross_trainer . Can I pick those I disagree with?

Why? I can't come up with a single good argument for this, other than boosting Mauricio Suleiman's and Gilberto Mendoza's egos a little bit.

Volenti non fit iniuria.

I disagree. Clear criteria can be established and then it can be straightforward enough. The issue is sometimes people don't make that first step and talk past one another.

 

I think the argument was, The Ring rates the fighters off of alphabet bodies rankings anyway. Only after the fighter gets a chance from the alphabet body and get a good fight, he can be rated by The Ring. That's why in my opinion body rankings are a joke, but they are needed in the sport. Just like alphabet belts. They are good in crowning contenders. But they are not automatically champions in my eyes.

 

Larry Johnson was ranked in the top 10 at both LHW and HW in the 1920s. He was in the 1933 NBA LHW tournament.

I mean the National Boxing Association of course I have no idea what else those 3 letters could stand for.

 

As I understood it, he's saying that rankings in these belts are actually competed for, and can be challenged in court if the rules aren't followed. There's no comparable guarantee -- however minimal -- that a Ring ranking means anything.

I would disagree with this as a universal moral principle. Even as a legal principle, most legal systems reject it sometimes, since stuff like suicide is often illegal.

The problem comes at the "clear criteria can be established" part.

That's like saying, "Once you establish clear criteria for the best ice cream flavor, then it can be straightforward enough."

Well, sure. If you just stipulate criteria, then you can probably figure out what best fits those criteria.

If I stipulate that the greatest fighter is the guy who beat the most people in the Hall of Fame, then it's very easy to figure out who my greatest fighter is. But my initial preference for that criterion is subjective. There's no law written in the stars that beating HOF fighters makes you great.

 

I agree with this statement as well, actually. There will probably always be violent competitive sports. It's ingrained in the species at a very deep level.