American super middleweights of the last 10 years and some questions

Looking over The Ring magazine annual ratings from the year 2000-2009. I thought I would list The Ring magazine top 10 American Super middleweight fighters and ask some questions that lead up to today

Year 2000

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Year 2001

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Year 2002 & 2003

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Year 2004

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Year 2005

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Year 2006

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Year 2007

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Year 2008 & 2009

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Questions
1.) Who do you think was the best personally & why?
2.) Who do you think achieved the most in your opinion?
3.) Who do you think didnt achieve their full potential & thought would have gone further?
4.) Do you feel A Ward is overhyped because it hasnt been a good division for America recently?
5.) Do you feel A Ward is having alot of pressure put on him, because of question 4.?

Lets not make this another thread based around Calzaghe or Ottkes dominance but focus on the fighters in question only?

Lets read your answers

 

Questions

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Possibly B Mitchell, he was willing to travel ie fought Girard in France, Ottke in Germany and Calzaghe in the UK. A fighter not afraid to travel and as a SMW was only stopped once.

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For me its definately between Lacy and Mitchell.
Mitchell was a 2 time WBA champ who beat Siaca twice, drew with 2 weight champ Girard, beat division #1 Liles, beat JC Green former MW champ who held a win over prime Joppy, before Trinidad or Hopkins beat Joppy, and Mitchell fought Ottke to a debateable SD.
Lacy although lost his biggest challenge has a good win resume of Vanderpool, Manfredo, Sheika, Pemberton, Tsypko and Reid
Tough one to call

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I thought there was a good chance that J Taylor might have gone further at SMW, I wondered after a few bad MW performances if he was weight drained and that the move up might have made him better

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Yes. Since Jones left the SMW division, America havent had a fighter other than Mitchell and Lacy that I think, they seemed to feel would really go places and be able to compete at the top level for a long period of time, so I think Ward has been hyped for this reason

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Yes, definately. Now with Dirrell not being in the picture as much, I think Ward may feel under pressure from parts of his country

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He wasnt in the ratings at that time. It was from 2000-2009. He didnt come in till 2010 and the annual ratings for 2010 arent out yet

 

With the S6 it has created a new interest and some interesting match ups. Also the division has some buzz around it at the moment like it did around 2005 when you had 3 undefeated world champs along with Beyer.
Now it has 2 undefeated world champs along with Froch and Steiglitz.
Potential great match ups to be made like before, in that all of the 05 champs faced either one or the other champs. Looks like it is going to happen again

 

Good answers. The reason I gave answer 1 possibly to Mitchell is because I was basing it around their SMW activities. Taylor although with a reasonable resume didnt have the best SMW resume out of the bunch

 

I try not to get too involved with the fictitional P4P ratings, but normally end up having an opinion.
What I would say (and I made a thread about Cunningham deserving respect) is that Cunningham has been willing to go on the road and has fought tough fighters even though they arent too recognised, because they are the fighters to beat.
Wards biggest wins have only come against exposed fighters and his next opponent (not his fault) is over a fighter coming off of 2 defeats.

Ward may go on to become the next big thing but I doubt he will ever take the chances that Cunningham has, throughout his career

 

Cunningham is a fighter that deserves credit and respect, he is fighting tough foreign opposition that isnt recognised but are tougher than he would be getting against recognised names in America like Flores :rofl.

Zsolt Erdei is another who deserves more repsct and credit, hes an undefeated former 2 weight world champ that had a better LHW resume than Dawson who was a recent P4Per. Completely off subject but read below. You may see where I am coming from

Erdei beat

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Ring #2 LHW who had just contraversially beaten Michalczewski

Erdei beat undefeated

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twice who went on to become WBA champ and has a victory over current WBO LHW champ Braehmer

Erdei beat

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who has only lost to undefeated fighters and was scheduled for an int WBO LHW title shot, with the winner to be full champ if Braehmer is forced to vacate. Lakatos had to withdraw

Erdei beat

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the world rated former WBA LHW champ who had only lost once. A very good win.

Erdei beat

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the European LHW champ

Erdei beat

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who has a victory over Ulrich

When

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backed out of fighting Erdei,

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Erdei gave away 17 lbs at the weigh in and went up a division and fought away to win the WBC CW title off of

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Think Dawson hasnt beaten a fighter rated above #2 by the Ring as Hopkins hogged the #1 spot for ages, and Erdei has a win over a fighter that beat Johnson, who nearly beat Dawson and that was Dawsons big win.

All off subject now, but it might have been good reading for you

 

I only did it for the top American SMWs of 2000-2009. There are too many Calzaghe threads, so to balance things, I thought I would do a tribute thread to the American warriors of a division that was overlooked for many years due to the division not having many American stars.
Then just some questions to get a feel of opinions