Are we witnessing the greatest of all time in any division right now?

Head to head is not the same as being viewed in the rosy glow of nostalgia. 90's fighters didn't put up 200 fights on their resumes like their counterparts in the 40's. For all the victories a Hollman Williams had, he also got beat by the same guys, some more middlin' than great, like Tunero and Jannazzo and Cocoa Kid. That's what happens when you fight every other weekend. Burley was truly exceptional but past that we get a sort of circle jerk with people trading wins and losses. Judging by the film of Lamotta, he didn't have the quicks or power to hang with most of those guys from the 90's. Sorry, I know it hurts to read but it was true.

 

Sorry, you're right. But Johnson was something special. Underrated.

 

Good fighter, yeah.

 

What has that do with what I wrote?

If McCallum and Toney faced each other half a dozen times and more or less split the series, it might make the era more entertaining but it does not make them greater fighters.

 

Thread said greatest. Not H2H. If you wanna argue for the 90's in terms of H2H, be my guest. I probably agree with that too.

 

Unless I misunderstood your point or vise versa, everything. Do you consider 2 fighters going 5-5 with each other in a series of 10 the same as them not fighting at all in terms of resume ? As in, do those wins and losses cancel each other out ?

I consider them going 5-5 with each other as a better mark on a resume than them not fighting at all.

 

The '92 vintage did have fights against each other after all, so a better comparison for this discussion would be if I think going 6-6 against the other top 10 guys is better than going 3-3 or 2-2 and my answer would be that it doesn't make the fighter greater in either era, but, yes, I would rank the era with more fights as more entertaining.

 

So unless I got your point wrong, you're basically saying that you don't put any stock at all in let's say: Kalambay and McCallum's wins over each other at MW, since they went 1-1 ?

 

No, it doesn't make their era ot them greater in terms of quality if they went 2-2 or 3-3.

 

Does that 1-1 series make their individual resumes better ?

 

Than a 2-2 or 3-3? Which is the real comparison here. No. Nor the opposite.

 

Maybe you can make a case for the early 40's as greater, but to get a clear view wins and losses has to be considered.

Saying "we have four guys only in this top 10 with ten wins against ranked opp" sounds a lot better than "we have four guys only in this top 10 with ten wins and ten losses against ranked opp".

 

Why are you pretending that this is even remotely the case here ? Holman Williams is 3-0 against Antonio Fernandez, 4-0 against Jack Chase, 2-0 against Little Tiger Wade, 3-1 against Kid Tunero and 2-1 against Lloyd Marshall. He is 3-3-1 against Jose Basora, but 2 of those losses came in William's last 4 fights when he was entirely shot, while Basora went on to fight for 4 more years. That's like holding Ali's loss to Spinks against him. So he is 3-1-1 against Basora when he was still a world class fighter.

Only Hopkins can reasonably be ranked higher than him at MW, and that's only because of Williams losing the series to Cocoa Kid and his long reign over the division compared to Williams not even getting a title. But his actual resume consists of blown up P4Pers like Oscar and Tito and other far less accomplished MWs than the ones Holman fought like Joppy, Allen, Holmes, Johnson, Echols, Vanderpool and Eastman. Basically the same thing can be said about almost all the rest of the 40's guys I mentioned compared to their 90's counterparts.