Ali beat the best opposition in title matches. Who's #2?

I promise you that I will react the next time I see "Der Führer", "Commandante Franco", "Bin Ladin" etc. I certainly haven't seen anything remotely similar here before.

And his posts were so nonsensical that they didn't bother me at all. It does bother me having a user name like that, though, and you don't choose such a one on a whim. I don't know if you're naive about this or just pretending too, but I'll give you the benefit of a doubt and go for the latter.:good

 

Bokaj = Jakob,

Get over it,,,,,,,its just a User Name.
You can't really be telling the viewers here, that the name Il Duce bothers you.

Nonsensical posts, have you read some of your posts,,,,,,,
You look at things through shaded-glasses,, not everything is 'so deep'.

I pick a User Name in a light-hearted manner, and you're the only one offended,
because I do not agree with all your diatribe.

Were talking about a fighter for God's Sake, not the Messiah.

 

Mongoose, aren't you related to the 'weasel family'

In case you forgot, in 1922, Italy was an 'economic disaster', before Mussolini
got involved.
Of course his methods to turn the country around were cruel, but the place was spiraling down faster than,,,,,,,,lets say Lorenzo Zanon.

Since Il Duce offends you, you may call me,,,,, Comando' Supremo'

Or Idi Amin, who by the way was a good friend of Mr. Ali.

 

I don't know that Ali made him quit at all. I don't accept that. The fight was just getting started and Liston threw the towel in.
I don't feel I need to explain this again. You know exactly what's wrong with quitting like that.

Well, he didn't attempt to throw a punch after that, so how does he know that he can't ?
I believe he was injured. In all likelihood a bigger missed punch earlier in the fight aggravated or caused the injury.
And what do you expect the doctors to say ? You think they are going to look Sonny Liston in the eye and say, "Yeah, it hurts, yeah, it will hamper you, but Gene Tunney woulda fought 15 rounds with this, and worse, you big bum !"

"Ali made him quit" is your line, not mine.
But now you're coming at me with the injury too, while still retaining the possibility of a fix.

I've never said that.
You're obviously not clear on anything any more.

I'm not determindely blinkered to anything.
But, if you want to persist with the possibility that an injury happened at the dying seconds of round 6, then Liston really did fold up his tent as first sign of trouble.

No, not at all.
Far from it. I take it on a case-by-case basis. I said many posts ago, Liston had both eyes, both arms, he hadn't taken a beating. Hell, even if he had one arm, he quit far too early. He didn't make a full effort.

The reason for Sonny's quit job is irrelevant, because I can see enough on film.
Unless you come up with evidence that he was punched blind, or his brain was bleeding, or something more serious than a hampered arm.

I haven't entirely dismissed that possibility. This post is the first time you've even rasied it.
But still, it doesn't matter. If Liston sustained the injury with that final jab in the dying seconds of the 6th round, he sure as hell quit prematurely. He didn't even try to see how things could go in the 7th. Or was he attempting to throw jabs in his corner ?

And, really, I don't think you believe the injury happened then, either. To me, it's not important when it happened. What is evident is that Liston didn't even try fighting on.

A pre-existing injury ? and you give Ali full credit for being "the only man who could make Liston quit", and you emphasise that Ali made Liston quit.

All credit to Ali .... ...... but it was a pre-existing injury .... oh, and it could have been a fix.
That's your take. Fine.
To me, that's not satisfactory.

Yes, and sometimes great fighters are NOT great on particular nights.
There's no conspiracy, but I don't have to go along with the revisionist version of the fight.

 

Actually. There was an Idi Amin posting here a while back, I'm sure of it.

 

Does anyone bother with the actual thread anymore?

Would be an interesting experiment to see what can kind of thread you can post about HWs here without it detoriating into speculations about either or both of the Ali-Liston fights.:!::-((

 

So the one thread in the world that SHOULDN'T be about Ali (this is a thread about people other than Ali, it says so in the thread title) turns into a generic thread about Ali and Ali's opposition. This is the best thread idea I think Mendoza has ever had and it's become a long, dreary debate about things that we've discussed a thousand times e.g. the Ali-Liston fights. :-((

Anyway, if we're just talking about title fights, I think there's a question of variety vs. quality. Louis beat a tremendous variety of opponents with different strengths, but apart from Walcott, Conn and Schmeling his opposition is unspectacular individually. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Holyfield never had a long solid string of opponents, but his wins against Tyson, Bowe, Moorer and the still dangerous old men are very impressive, even if one totally discounts his cruiserweight title fights.

Tommy Burns is an example of someone with a decent reign in terms of quantity and variety, but no special defences. Charles is similar, though not to the same extent: I consider Charles a top 3 p4p boxer, but not really because of his heavweight title period.

On the other hand, Jefferies and Marciano cleaned out the division by fighting every significant contender, but in just a few fights.

Frazier has that BIG win over some former champion whose name I've forgotten, as well as good wins vs. Quarry, a prime Mathis, Ellis and Bonavena, but his resume isn't deep enough in my opinion.

I think Lewis might have the best combination of the two: he fought a variety of opponents and adapted accordingly. He used his safety-first approach vs. Tua; his steamroller approach vs Grant and Golota; outworked Holyfield twice; he came back from trouble against Bruno, Briggs and Vitali; ruthlessly dismantled McCall and Tyson; survived a forgotten brawl against Mavrovic; and finally fought a near-perfect fight against Rahman in their rematch. That's the variety side of Lewis's title resume.

At the quality side, it's easy to say that Holyfield and Tyson were past it, and they were, but some very smart people still picked them to beat Lewis because everyone knew they were still dangerous. Tyson, at that point, had only lost to Holyfield and against Douglas when he was totally unfocused. He still had the power and he was still the most dynamic and dangerous puncher in the top 10, aside from Wlad.

Lots of people thought that Holyfield would expose Lewis and Holyfield was seen as the #1 heavyweight in the late 1990s, but he was embarassed in their first fight and I think people tend to overstate how close the second fight was because Holyfield didn't get humiliated like the first time. People only started talking about Holyfield being shot AFTER he fought Lewis and it wasn't legitimate even then.

Lewis's win over Vitali has just become more and more impressive as the years go on. How did a boxer at the end of his career and badly overweight win against a future belt holder who would go on to be still winning title fights seven years later? Imagine if Frazier had come back fat in 1983 and beat Tim Witherspoon. That's how I would regard this fight. You can even make a convincing case that Vitali is better than Tim Witherspoon, though judging Vitali against boxers with different career-paths is difficult.

Did Lewis beat an ATG in his prime? No, but aside from a boxer of a certain Kentuckian provedence, it's hard to think of heavyweight champions that did.

So, taking into account quantity, variety and quality, I consider Lewis's title opposition to be the best. Thanks must go to Mendoza for posing such an interesting question.

 

I agree that it is a good topic. Although the question is probably flawed, because if Joe Louis isnt number one, then he is certainly number 2.


Lennox you would think would be up there. But i am not so sure that his reign was as comprehensive as it seems. Realistically (despite the argument that it started earlier with Briggs), he really became the undisputed champion when he beat Evander Holyfield.

I know Briggs was Lineal, but Old Foreman had stopped fighting main contenders and no one really considered Briggs anything more than a top 10 fighter. It wasnt until Lennox met Evander that he was considered the real world champion. And, since the first fight was officially a draw, no matter which way you look at it, you dont win the title with a draw, so his reign started with a Win over Holyfield.

This leaves us with a 3 fight reign against decent contenders who amounted to nothing in Tua, Grant and Botha. He was then KOd by Hasim Rahman in a huge upset, which really was not much more than a Buster Douglas, Marvin Hart, Jimmy Braddock or Ingemar Johansen level of fighter on his legacy. In fact he probably doesnt rank as highly as those type of guys. This is not really the reign of terror that we remember.

He did come back with a second reign, which does count for something. He beat Rahman in the rematch and followed it with 2 defences over Tyson Klitchsko. In fairness, by the end of the reign Lewis had pretty much cleaned the division with the wins over Holyfield, Tyson and Klitchsko. The only 2 names from this period that were really missing are Byrd and Ruiz. He did beat Ruiz' conqueror in Tua. And no one really gave Byrd a chance of beating him. I think the one loss to Rahman does hurt the reign. AS a champion, Lennox scored 4 successful defences and 1 loss(in the middle of the reign). Over a 4 year period.


Ezzard Charles is one that i think is very underated. He won the title in 1949 be beating Jersey Joe Walcott. This makes 8 title defences. Although there were a couple of ordinary names there, they did include the likes of Louis, Valentino, Walcott, Oma, Lesnevich and Maxim. It was only a 2 year reign but that is one pretty impressive cleanout in a 2 year period.

Jack Dempsey had 5 wins in a 7 year period. All were top contenders and all were beaten very impressively. Although as we all know, he didnt get to face his major contender which may hurt the reign a little. Still, this is a far better reign, imo, than people give him credit for.

I will look into some of the others when i get the chance.

 

McGrain,
I just spent perhaps 90 minutes (& more) writing an epic reply to your last post, and somehow managed to click it into the ether. I feel kind of sick.
I want you to know I made the effort, and I read every point, but I cannot repeat. In fact, I don't know if I'll ever write a long post again, the way I'm feeling now. I'm sitting this one out, on my stool. :dead

 

MR. UN,,,,,,,,

You must have really hit a nerve in Mcgrain.

His post to look longer for me to read than to watch the Liston-Clay I fight.

One point, only a few days before the fight Robert Nilon (Executive V.P. of
Inter-Continental Promotions) presented Cassius Clay and Bill Faversham with
$50,000 and a contract for a return fight/promotion guarantee.

 

Yeah, the lateness of that contract suggests "something", I don't know what.

 

The original contract signed by Charles Liston and Cassius Clay was signed
in October 1963.
It was presented to the Miami State Boxing Commssion.
Inter-Continental Promotion were the main fight promoters.

The contracts were approved, stamped and filed.
If there was an agreed re-match clause in that contract, there would be no way in hell that that document would have been approved.

A seperate contract was drawn up, and cash funds along with a check
were delivered to Cassius Clay and his team in the Clay teams Hotel office.

This meeting was to have taken place 3-days before the fight, without
any knowledge to the Miami Beach Boxing Commission, who had the
right to view any signed contact involving the fight.

Not even Bill MacDonald the local promoter, knew of any such contract.

Sonny Listons management team Robert Nilon and James Nilon,
made the deal with Bill Faversham, Cassius Clays manager, Cassius Clay and Gordon Davidson, Clays attorney.

 

Briggs's "lineal championship" wasn't even announced in the pre-fight introductions. He was billed as the challenger, from Brooklyn.
No mention of him being a world's heavyweight champion of any description, at all.