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

118-110

Funny way of looking at it

 

I still consider Ali greater than Pac but only because he was heavyweight.

 

No. It means you've proven yourself the best without a shred of doubt. Pacquiao was never one for unifying

I know, there's an argument he was the best in all of them but he didn't prove it by unifying. I'd be more impressed by a 3 weight, or time, undisputed Champion than an 8 weight champion who for the most part won 1 or 2 alphabet titles and not prove himself the best, just beat one of the champions.

Given that Manny started at Flyweight

Yes. There has been 1 person good enough to do it since the introduction of another 10 weights. Look at Henry Armstrong, started at 120lbs, moved up to MW, won undisputed titles at FW, LW and WW and was robbed for one at MW. That to me is far more impressive as

1. He did with no hydration, no catch weights
2. He was clearly and undeniably the number 1 in each division.

Well it's hard to fail tests you don't take

No. What Ali did is what is similar to if Wilder KOed Joe Louis, made Wladimir Klitschko quit and beat Evander Holyfield twice.
I'd say yes beating those 3 is more impressive, especially considering all of the other contenders he'd have to beat. As well as winning the undisputed HW championship and making 8 title defences, losing, winning it back and making another 10 then after finding scars on his brain and losing to an up and coming Olympic prospect turning back the clock to win one last time.
Yes I'd say thats more impressive than using catch-weights and stardom to get the belts he rarely unified or defended.
So to answer your question, no. That is the bar Ali set.

Not really. Plenty of respectable lists don't have Pacquiao, Mayweather or Ali in the top 10. There are people with far deeper résumés than Pac and Mayweather, people who's accomplishments are mind blowing. Those 23 champions, in a different era, there's an argument only 10 of them would be champions. If that. His achievements are blown up due to how boxing has progressed, there are more champions now, more weights, more people get in the HOF. He'd be much more impressive had he done this before the sanctioning body's. Then all of his achievements would be what they are on face value. Then he'd be an undeniable top 5. But he's not.

Pac is amazing, a modern day great, top 30 staple and a living legend.
But to say he's better than Ali? Nah.

 

Well we’re always going to differ because you see the old timer much different than I do. I see modern day boxing as more competitive than the 1st half of the century where most of the competition are local bums and Irish tough men. Like all sports, competition just gets tougher.

I was referring to the feat only of becoming undisputed champ, it’s not a big deal and certainly no bigger deal than 8 weight division champ.

In some ways the lineal champ is the undisputed champ since it’s the man who beat the man. Back in the good ol days you love they only had 1 belt, so nothing to unify. That 1 belt holder would have been the lineal champ. He wasn’t just beating some belt holder, he beat the man who beat the man. It’s not like he did a broner except for 135 and 154.

Pac took 5 vada tests and all the other usual tests. That’s still 5 more vada tests than floyd yet floyd was caught with IVs and Pac wasn’t caught with anything. As I said, not a single shred of evidence. Can’t say the same for Holyfield, RJJ, Mosley, floyd, Morales etc. Point is, he’s as innocent as everyone else that doesn’t have a shred of evidence for ped use pointing to them.

And again, personally wouldn’t even rank Frazier top 20 h2h, I just don’t see it. The man was small and slow and unskilled. He gave Ali such a hard time because Ali was past it and was a good styled match up.

No ATG gets thoroughly wrecked by another guy in the same weight class like he did vs foreman. It wasn’t a lucky shot, he wasn’t outboxed, he was destroyed like he didn’t belong. If you don’t belong with an ATG, how can you be an atg?

For the most part, Frazier is an atg because a past it Ali lost to him. If Ali never retired, he wouldn’t have been champion, he would have just been another challenger that lost to Ali.

You can really only go with empirical data. Pac has beaten 23 champions and won god knows how many titles with 8 weight divisions. And if we were to add up their opponents total win/loss ratio, I’d suspect he would be somewhere in the top 10 too, that’s how you can objectively measure competition. The rest is subjective.

 

Why even mention it. I didn't, Pac is clearly greater than Crawford, Usyk and Hopkins. Ali did it 3 times over incredible eras. But anyway this argument is getting stale and we're not gonna change each others minds

You saying that proves you don't know about that Era. For the most part they were against ATGs and had record filler like today.

No. There has been vacant titles.

You know what I agree, I just wanted to see if CJ would go nuts

Frazier was definitely skilled, his head movement in the FOTC is arguably the best ever at HW. He was definitely not slow.

Ali wasn't that far past it. He had better longevity than Joe so he won the second and third fights.

He was destroyed because Foreman was a beast and he was blind and past it himself. Not saying that it goes any differently during his prime, but Joe was not his best for that.
Dempsey and Tyson are both Legends at HW, I'd pick George Foreman to do that to both as well.

I disagree, Joe was always good enough to beat the best Ali imo. FOTC Joe beats any Ali imo.

We've been through this and I can't be arsed typing it again so agree to disagree

 

To answer the thread starters original question, YES!!!!! Hes better than Ali

 

It screams at me too, Frazier was all wrong for Ali. If you couldn't KO FOTC Frazier he would cripple you, and Foreman fought a past it Frazier who's style would burn out way quicker than a text book fighter too

 

Wrong! The HW division Ali fought in was great when he was active.

 

Loses count don't make excuses for them. JMM is a good fighter but if you say Pac is better than PBF then you shouldn't need 4 fights against him never beating him clearly and getting KTFO against him period. You should also not be losing to a faded Erik Morales no excuses and a horrible loss to Horn. PBF doesn't lose to any of those dudes.

If it was Pac who had the exact same resume as PBF and was 50-0-0 like PBF is and beat him H2H easily like PBF beat Pac and PBF has Pac's same exact resume and was 62-7-2 there is no way in hell would people say PBF is greater than Pac. No ****ing way! Pac would be called the GOAT, hell people here are already calling him that with his 62-7-2 record I can only imagine what they would say if he was 50-0-0. People like Pac more so they give him the benefit of the doubt, it's a popularity contest around here nothing more.

 

Was it better than, say, middleweight? No!

 

You're right I don't but there's a great chance that he does. He won't be the favorite over Spence like he was the favorite over Thurman. Thurman outlanded Pac in power punches and busted him up. Spence will do that and more and he will tax Pac's body and drain his gas tank, I can see Pac up against the ropes and with his hands up as Spence goes to work on his body. Spence hasn't been inactive he's a bigger man than Thurman who can box and bang. You can want to see that fight all you want but when it happens and Pac gets the beating of a life time and his career is ended don't say I didn't try to warn you. Fighting Horn is a much less risky fight and a shot at redemption or a guy like Lipinets who he would beat but stay away form Spence unless he wants to go off into retirement sooner than he wanted to.

 

In the 70s? Yes.

 

The HW division Ali fought in was one of the best ever. What are you talking about?

 

By your logic Hopkins is greater than Pac after all he had wins over the age of 40 he fought until he was damn near 50. Who cares about his losses? He fought past 40.

 

Much like how Thurman was supposed to beat up and outbox Pac, right? Thing is, Pac has just as much of a chance to shock Spence and prove doubters wrong again. Once again, I think you're really underselling Pac's capabilities. Depending on how Spence looks against Porter I still see a Pac/Spence fight as a tough competitive fight, maybe a 60/40 fight in favor of Spence due to his age and size. But to say that Pac gets outclassed easily in one sided fashion when he's never been consistently punished is absurd IMO. Until we see Pac beaten up soundly by lower tier fighters then that's when we can say that he should hang them up.