After the Keith Thurman upset, is Manny Pacquiao a greater fighter than Muhammad Ali?

No.

Ali's résumé shits over Pacs
And the whole 8 weight thing is blown up due to there being like 20 weights
Ali was a 3 time lineal HW champ.

 

Well to be honest, if we were to take away the stuff Ali did outside of the ring, and look at solely his ring achievements, Pac is already greater than Ali. Pac has beaten more champions. Has beaten more ATG's and hall of famers. Has more longevity. Has won more championships, in more divisions and practically had multiple careers within the sport.

It's an unpopular opinion because of how popular Ali was, but Ali is limited to being stuck in 1 division. There are only so many great fighters he could have fought.

However, its pretty much blasphemy to claim anyone is greater than the man who practically invented the term in boxing, "I must be the greatest!". Ali achieved everything he could have achieved, and more, the guy was extremely sharp. I could sit through his interviews, no fighter came close in terms of charisma and just that aura. Tyson was probably the only one, when he did interviews you never know what to expect, it wasn't forced, so quotable and you just had to pay attention almost in anticipation of what he's going to come out with.

 

Pac has won 4-5 lineal titles in 4-5 weight divisions across 10 weight divisions. You can claim blown up all you like but no one has come close to going through 10 weight divisions and winning championships in 8 of them.

 

6*
He never weighed at 154 and never won a major title at 140

His résumé let's him down against Ali, who's résumé is unbelievable

 

He beat the lineal champ at 140, something you just bragged about, and the ring belt. He also won the IBO if we want to get technical. "major" is arbitrary, most would rank those 2 belts above the rest.

He didn't need to weigh in at 154, he just needed to fight an opponent above 147, the JMW limit is above 147, not 154 exact.

As I said, Pac has beaten more champions. Has beaten more ATG's and hall of famers. Has more longevity. Has won more championships, in more divisions and practically had multiple careers within the sport. - without being bias, that's inarguable facts. The rest is subjective.

 

I think he's already greater than Ali. Ali is not the #1 boxer ever, there's numerous guys that rate more than him on a P4P basis. Names like Robinson, Greb, Armstrong come to mind amongst others.

People have already listed Pac's accomplishments, but if you take out the microscope, you could argue that some of Pacquiao's losses were dubious (such as Bradley in particular) and you could say Ali got some lucky breaks in his judging as well, for example, against Ken Norton.

Ali was definitely #1 at self promotion though

 

Hatton? Who had just lost to Floyd?
And I said lineal champ at HW because its easier than typing undisputed.

He was given a belt there. It was a belt at 150. It's not a real title

Yes, but not over as a good a competition.
Had Ali faced Holmes's competition or Louis's he'd have some of the best longevity ever, and Ali had very good longevity anyway

Not more ATGs, he come up against 1 and Lost
Not to mention he was beaten by Morales and not once convincingly beat Marquez
His ATG competition isn't as impressive as Ali's, Ali has beaten 3 of my top 10 HWs, he beat 2 twice and there's an argument they were all prime.
Pac hasn't beaten gotten 5 wins over any top 10 guy in any division he's fought in.

Because there are more governing bodies and weights meaning more champions who never proved themselves number 1 in the division. Ali's win over Foreman is the best win between the two by a very long way.

So did Ali

Well yeah. Ali was a HW.

 

Ali would never have lost to someone as small as Floyd mayweather. Ridiculous thread

 

McGrain is a big Ali fan and even he can only rank him at around #7

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/the-top-100-pound-for-pound-all-time-greats.459918/

 

Yes Hatton who lost to Floyd at 147 therefore retaining his Ring and Lineal 140 championship. And stay consistent, you claim Ali's 3 time lineal championship to show how great he is yet discount it for Pac, lol.

MAB, JMM, Morales, thats 3 ATGs he's beaten. You could also argue ODLH so thats 4. Ali has beaten 3 ATGs, Liston, Foreman and Frazier. You could argue Patterson but I'm not sure I'd classify him as such, just another solid champ IMO.

HOF'ers is not even a competition, in 10 years time you'll lose count of how many HOFers Pac has beaten.

Hasnt got 5 wins over a top 10 guy? I'm assuming you mean all time top 10. That's fair enough, although you could argue that MAB, Morales, JMM are all top 10 all time at their weight. Hatton and Bradley could probably make top 10 all time at 140. It is also far harder to be an ATG top 10 at LW-WW than it is at HW, simply because there are far more talent as fighters move around in weights. When you're competing to be top 10 WW, you're competing with all the fighters from LW to JMW who may one day pass by WW. HW is just HW.

That's my point, Ali was usually the bigger guy feasting on smaller opponents with his size and reach. Not his fault but he was limited with what he could achieve. Pac rose up through the weights. You downplay that but try to look for anyone else who can do it? Mikey just got obliterated. Loma wouldn't even fight a grandpa Pac at 140. It is extremely hard to win lineal belts in 3 weight divisions, you know beat the man who beat the man, yet alone 5.

Pac has risen up across 5 of the original weight classes. FlyW, BW, FW, LW, WW. That's ****ING insane.

Just picture any flyweight champ, not just any flyweight who starved themselves to that weight and is dysfunctional as a result of it, a flyweight champ, like chocolatito, coming up to WW and beating even someone of Margarito's level at JMW? Picture it, I dare ya.

With Ali's achievements, I can definitely picture a HW champ beating all contenders. Lewis did it. Wlad did it. Holmes did it. Tyson did it (to an extent). Ali's ring achievements are much more easily replicable in comparison to Pac's, and even just imagining it, a lot easier to fathom.

 

Undisputed*

We use the word ATG differently my friend. Not one of them would make my top 10 for their respective weights, that's usually how I'd define it. All incredible wins but not top 10 worthy imo. His only actual ATG he had to compete with imo was Mayweather and he struggled to win 3 rounds, if that.

I agree. I'd have both in my top 10 140
It is very difficult to beat an ATG top LW and WW when there's only 1 to fight and the fight doesn't get made.

There's plenty of people that have done it. Bob Fitzsimmons, Sam Langford, Henry Armstrong, Roy Jones Jr, James Toney and a few others.

Langford rose from LW to HW
Both Meehan and Houck fought in all 8, both have very good résumés and success at all

It's incredible, I completely agree but my point is that Ali's résumé is too deep for me to put Pac over him. Pac will 100% be if he beats Spence and Crawford

Not with a résumé like his. He has about 25 wins over top 5 guys at the time. His résumé is head and shoulders the best at HW, it's insane.

Pac is a beast but Ali's résumé is just too much.

 

Gonna have to agree to disagree mate, as I said, its almost blasphemous to claim anyone being greater than Ali aside from SRR. Its similar to when Michael Jai White claiming he could beat Bruce Lee. Maybe he can, maybe not, either way, probably best to just not even go there.

That said, regarding your weight climbers. Sam Langford fought 1st quarter of the century, that doesn't even count. Remember when there was no weight classes in UFC and Royce Gracie beat everyone from LW to HW weighing as a WW? Yep, same case. Lets try seeing a WW beat a HW now.

I discount the 1/4 of the century fighters, pioneers but we have no videos, no context to determine exactly how good they were.

Recently, the closest one to do what Pac did was RJJ. Thats still across only 5 weight divisions, not 10. Again, can you picture a p4p 1 chocolatito fighting Thurman or Floyd? Just lol. Loma can't even and wont dare make the next jump to his 4th weight class, and he agreed completely that Rigo lost because he was a smaller fighter.

 

Or out boxed in the fashion Pacquiao was.

 

Well then I have no arguments to put forward then.

Agreed. I hope Pac beats Crawford and Spence. Then it will be undisputable that he's better than Mayweather, Duran, Ali and Leonard