The greater middleweight: Ray Robinson or Dick Tiger?

SRR easily. His resume is far stronger, despite past prime losses. Robinson is a top 5 middle, Tiger isn't top 10.

 

Robinson. Tiger was kinda limited in his approach for me to rank him super high.

 

SRR and by quite a distance.

I think a lot of people think of SRR as a WW until he vacated the world title there, whereas the reality is that even whilst WW champion, SRR fought at MW more often.

Allowing a few lbs for slightly over the weight non title fights, SRR went 104-17-6 at MW. He went 66-1-2 until his loss to Turpin, which he avenged, his sole defeat being vs LaMotta, whom Ray went 5-1 with. All other losses at the weight were post a 3-year retirement and aged 33 or above. In addition to LaMotta x 5 and Turpin, SRR beat Bobo Olsen x 4, Gene Fullmer, George Abrams, Aaron Wade, Rocky Graziano, Carmen Bassilo, Robert Vileman x 2, Rocky Casteliani and Denny Moyer at the weight.

Tiger went 48-16-3 at the same weight. Imo, he has 6 x defeats at the weight during his prime years, compared to Ray's 2. Tiger beat Gene Fullmer x 2, Joey Giardello x 2, Rubin Carter, Henry Hank, Florentino Fernandez, Hank Casey, Gene Armstrong x 3, Holly Mims and Pat McAteer.

Both brilliant MWs with incredible opposition, but imo, at their respective primes, Ray was far more dominant over even better opposition. The wins he added post prime give his MW legacy a substantial boost too.

 

Robinson







































Tiger

 

Robinson is the definite pick for me but I think there's been some kind of pendulum swing around Tiger on here. He's getting more and more underrated whenever he's mentioned, he's got a very underrated resume with some very good fighters on it. Armstrong, Mims, Webb, Hank, Carter, and Fernandez are all very good wins against good fighters. Throw in his pair of wins over both Joey Giardello, and Gene Fullmer and you've got a resume worthy of being between about 8 and 15 at 160 imo. He's a lot more proven at MW than basically anyone since Hopkins for sure.

Ultimately though, Robinson is definitely the pick here. What's more interesting imo, is that Tiger could very plausibly beat Robinson imo; he's got the strength based style of power you see and despite not having the most dynamic pair of feet you'll ever see, he certainly didn't have bad footwork and he could give Robinson a lot of the same issues he faced throughout his career against lesser pressure fighters. Tiger's guard and ability to hit a moving target were very good and in some ways, actually pretty similar to Canelo.

He has that sense of impending exhaustion about him, where you know he's gonna drag his man into exchanges over the nine yards which are gonna wear his opponent out more than they will him and these are the guys Robi could lose to; but Tiger wasn't the smothering style of infighter (he could infight, for sure, but it was cleaner and relied on space a bit more than someone like Fullmer) and so I think that space would let Robi flurry quite a bit. Very interesting fight imo.

 

I think Tiger is the sort of guy that might do very well if the other guy fights his fight and not so well if he is forced to fight out of his comfort zone. You mention the Fernandez fight and that's a good one to illustrate what I mean. FF looks great on film, and he's clearly a big puncher that is used to caving other guys in. But he tries that with Tiger and it didn't work out so well for him

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I agree, those guys are absolutely food. Someone like Gerald McClellan or Nigel Benn are gonna get thrashed imo, but I don't think he's limited to success against that style. I actually think he's really good at getting guys to fight that kind of fight when they shouldn't do too, imo. Not in the sense of a guy like Marciano, Moon or Armstrong just forcing the pace until it's a brawl, but in the sense that he uses exchanges really well. He'll start them when his man isn't really ready and he'll keep them going just a bit longer than they expect. It's cool stuff, and it did work against a pretty big range of styles. Hank fought more like James Toney or George Benton than he did Fernandez or Carter and he got soundly beat; Torres wanted a more technical shootout but Tiger controlled enough of the exchanges to take both of those fights. Mims and Giardello both want to move off and fight at arm's reach but Tiger dealt with that well enough.

I think the blueprint to beat Tiger is the Griffith fight. A sharp shooting ring general with faster feet and a good strong clinch. Monzon would be absolutely terrible for him imo.

 

Tiger's first win over Giardello and the one over Mims were both a couple of years before he reached his prime too. The same for some of the close/ controversial losses on away soil.

Watching back some of Tiger's fights from the 50s, it's striking how much he developed and improved into the excellent technical fighter of the early/mid sixties part of his career. The fighter who battered Carter and Fernandez etc was visibly more expansive and refined than the fighter who was still able to beat a very capable, mobile boxer like Gene Armstrong three times. Gradually incorporating more stuff into his game and becoming more rounded and authoritative. Better timing and selection, punch slipping, upper body positioning etc with fewer lunging or overextended shots and a lot of compact straight lines and short arcs.

It's worth mentioning that he cleanly beat the likes of Don Fullmer too, who was a very good stand up fighter at his best and fought really negatively, and the likes of Billy Pickett etc. The Griffith and Archer fights were both plenty controversial in their day and thought by a good few people to be bad decisions which gets overlooked quite a lot imo. Both fights where the narrative has shifted over the years I'd say, and neither Griffith nor Archer were likely to have close decisions go against them at that time in New York. Archer especially, top fighter though he was, was a bit of a ******* at times for backpedalling through rounds just flicking his jab out and hoping that the judges would get him by. Griffith was able to match Tiger technically (when Tiger was nearly always the more skilled fighter vs other opponents) and do just enough to stifle him for periods at close range between trying to maintain the range and the controlling angle to make the fight hard to score in places (which it was, like a lot of Griffiths fights). Tiger had had to be disciplined as all f*ck for years to make 160 and finally looked more drained and flat than usual vs Griffith, not helped by Emile being a tank himself and in brilliant condition.

And far past his own best, post -Foster, Tiger boxed/countered the ears off Benvenuti for the better part of the duration, who was the champion and still in the late part of his prime imo (though characteristically erratic as he could be).

Not to say that Tiger was more comfortable on the front foot than when being allowed to be a bit more static or only having to take small steps, he wasn't. But it was more a smaller stretch of his comfort zone than a major weakness in the way it was for someone like Eubank or some of the toilers who've succeeded at 160 post -Hopkins. He was still very capable of beating world class fighters who came to make him fight on the front foot or lead in the way that George said and because he was a sophisticated technician who was fast of hand (if not foot, though still with decent footwork mechanics) and a great counterpuncher with very good defensive schooling, responsibility and reflexes while still willing to let his hands go with abandon and finesse at the same time. Able to transition very quickly from defence to attack and punish you in combination for missing or half-telegraphing if you were in range. You either then take risks and punch with him, which almost certainly means losing, or disengage and take little to no risk, which might get you by with a favourable judge but might also lose you the fight on negativity unless you're a Holman Williams or Kalambay level multi-faceted pure boxer, or a RJJ/Robinson/Greb/Langfordesque freak. Few fighters around 160 outside that type are likely to strike the right balance most of the time imo other than your Haglers, Hopkins's, possibly Monzon (though the Valdez fights give me pause considering the latter's common ground with Tiger). Or a hard as nails old time fencer like Gibbons maybe.

McGrain called him unbrawleable, rightly. And you're not that without some serious technical traits and speed other than the expected iron chin, great stamina and strength etc, similar to someone like Gavilan. Tiger had more in common with likes of Valdez, McCallum, Toney (lazy fat bast*rd syndrome notwithstanding), Griffith and the like rather than some of the cruder fighters he often draws comparison to imo.

 

I agree with George that a Tiger-Robinson fight is very intriguing as well, though obviously Robinson is the greater fighter and it's reasonable to favour him. Tiger isn't out of place in a top ten to me (though the opposite is also true) and I don't think there's the huge h2h gap between them at the weight that some might think, mostly on account of me thinking that Robinson might have faced relatively fewer atg bangers and elite slick all rounders than you would think for a fighter who had so many fights against top opposition at 160. Though I'd still rate him a bit higher than Tiger running a gauntlet so to speak; his CV is inarguable in that regard.

 

Intriguing comparison and some brilliant responses here. Great thread!

 

Robinson is the greater middleweight in terms of accomplishments and, I guess, by a pretty fair margin. I think that, if they fought, Robinson would win but I think that the margin would not be all that wide. Tiger would make Robinson work for all of it.

 

This is the sort of stuff I'm here for mate. Unmatched.