Best Southpaw Ever?

He was always easy to hit with right hands. Always.

It worked because most of his opponents were B-C level guys.

He can’t even be in the running for the greatest ever southpaw.

 

Either Whitaker or Pacquiao.

 

He has be be one of the best of all time, not just southpaws
he beat everyone who was in the super middleweight division he has to go down as one of the best of all time in terms of ranking, he did everything to do at 168lbs

 

Calzaghe was the best southpaw at setting up and landing shots.

 

It’s not a great resume.

It’s not enough to proclaim as the greatest southpaw of all time.

 

Rocky Balboa, Ha Ha. I think that it has to be Sweet Pea.

 

He’s not in the running for the greatest southpaw, and he’s nowhere near one of the greatest fighters of all time.

The SMW was dead for most of his reign.

Again, he was a great fighter, but he wasn’t that great. And he has a poor resume. Look who he fought. I watched his entire career. He fought nobody before Eubank. And that’s fair enough, because he was just coming up at that point. But this is who he fought from Eubank to Lacy, over a period of 9 years:

Branko Sobot
Juan Carlos Giminez
Robin Reid
Rick Thornberry
David Starie
Omar Sheika
Richie Woodhall
Mario Veit
Will McIntyre
Charles Brewer
Miguel Jimenez
Tocker Pudwill
Byron Mitchell
Mger Mkrtchyan
Kabary Salem
Mario Veit
Evans Ashira

That was his WBO reign.

It wasn’t great.

He then fought a overhyped Lacy, a very good, but not great fighter in Kessler, a still great Hopkins and a washed up version of Roy Jones.

The biggest win of his entire career was a split decision win over Hopkins who was 43.

That is not greatness.

He had neither the skills, or the resume under traditional criteria, to go down as one of the greatest ever.

He’ll go down as one of the greatest SMW’s of all time, but not on a P4P basis.

 

It's a spectacular resume.

Still, I have him #2 southpaw.

It will never cease to entertain me the way the Limeys dismiss one of their own. OK, he is a Sardo and not Brit. Maybe that's what sticks in their craw. They couldn't breed one as great as he.

 

You’re obviously just being sarcastic.

His prime years were spent defending a lightly regarded WBO belt against mostly lower level opposition.

He fought many title defences against European level opposition.

He doesn’t belong in the company of Manny and Pea.

The fact that he was undefeated isn’t enough.

He didn’t fight the guys that they did.

 

46-0.

Scoreboard.

 

30 odd of those were British and European level fighters.

 

X2.

 

Even though Karl Mildenberger did not appear too threatening to some, he was a troublesome fighter to many contenders at that particular time. He drew with Zora Folley on April 17 1964, and defeated Eddie Machen on Feb 3 1966 on points. He also gave a peak Muhammad Ali quite a contest on Sept 10 1966 in Frankfurt, West Germany. Ali retained his title by TKO 12. His southpaw stance could be troublesome.

 

35 of Marciano's opponents were bums. He's still an ATG

46-0 means he doesn't know how to lose. It's not in his mentality. It's not even a possibility. To cross that frontier would require an apostasy of tectonic scale. That's a fighter who is dangerous into immortality.

Scoreboard.

 

I thought that Rocky Marciano retired at 49-0, 43 KO's in 1956, according tp his record.. Larry Holmes was 48-0 on Sept 21 1985, trying to tie the record on the 30th anniversary of Archie Moore's unsuccessful attempt to beat Marciano.