Any reason a champ with 23 title defenses, 9 yr reign not be considered an ATG?

regarding the Jones\DM who was the man thing.....does it really matter?

Both fought in a so-so period for light-heavies and beat a lot of the same fighters.Neither were really distiniguishing themselves by doing much more than the other in the division.

It's just that Jones had already established himself as a p4p fighter and a possible all-time great by the time he moved up to 175, whereas DM was less visible and his Wbo belt was his first title.

Dariusz needed the fight more than Jones, but it doesn't reflect greatly on either that it didn't happen.

 

In the real world you're totally right.

But in the minds of boxing fans it is difficult rating dm when he was always in Roy's shadow. If he had the beating of Roy and proved it in the ring, his legacy increases 10 fold.

 

Statistics doesn't make a fighter great.

 

DM is very underrated IMHO.

 

I couldn't help but take the bait

 

Worse fighter shave been inducted for sure. Quantity isn't everything though. Quality is what's most important. I'm sure it wasn't 100% at fault for certaing fights not being made during his prime but the fact remains he missed out on fighting the likes of Roy Jones Jr., Hopkins was still at MW, Toney had 3 losses at LHW. Well, who did he beat?

On his way up he didn't beat any name fighters. He won the WBO LHW title by beating Leeonzer Barber (W12) who had won the vacant title after Moorer vacated it to move up to HW. He jumped up to CW and won the WBO title by beating Nestor Giovannini (KO10). At this point the WBO still didn't mean much. To be honest being the WBO champ at LHW and CW wasn't getting him much attention outside of Germany. He did not stay at CW.

After these two fights he defended the WBO LHW title against 6 far from great fighters, he won 4 of these fights by KO. Girard probably being the best of this bunch (W12).

Next up was his first fight vs. Graciano Rocchigiani. Rocchigiani troubled Michalczewski to say the least but lost by DQ in the 7th round. They fought again almost 4 years later and Michalczewski stopped him in the 10th round of another exciting fight. They really should have fought the rematch earlier, many feel that Rocchigiani was ducked for a few years.

He fought Girard again (KO in EIGHT and then outworked a slightly faded Virgil Hill over 12 rounds. He won the WBA and IBF belts from Hill but would only keep the WBO belt. At this point he was considered the "Lineal" LHW World Champ by many.

He beat Nicky Piper (KO7), Drake Thadzi (KO9), and 4 other non-notable fighters leading up to his fight with Montell Griffin. He stopped Griffin in the 4th round. It was very impressive. Next up was his KO win over Rocchigiani.

He followed with 2 more KO wins over non-notable fighters then he stopped Richard Hall in the 11th round, followed with another non-notable KO win, followed by an 11th round KO over Hall in their rematch.

His last win was a 9th round KO over Derrick Harmon.

His last 2 fights were losses... LSD12 to J.C. Gonzalez and a 6 round KO loss to F. Tiozzo.

It would have been great if he would have fought Roy Jones Jr... not totally his fault that it didn't happen though.

So, who else should he have fought?

Eric Harding, Reggie Johnson, Mike McCallum, Michael Nunn, and Lou Del Valle would have been good fights.

Other top fighters from Europe like Henry Maske, Fabrice Tiozzo (a few years earlier), maybe even Joe Calzaghe, Ottke, Benn, Eubank, and others.

If he would have made enough noise he could have been involved some more high profile fights.

In the end he did very well. 46-0 (THIRTY EIGHT KOs) overall and 25-0 in World Title Fights prior to his last 2 pro fights.

 

oops, that is true