Better All-Around Fighter: Primo Carnera or Riddick Bowe?

If there is literally nothing else of significant value on their resume then yes.

The main effect of that, would be to devalue Ali in my eyes.

 

The second part is your usual little bit extra lol

 

Context is important he was a LHW Carnera was 240lbs and 6ft5 this LHW has 14 stoppages in a 90 fight win career and was pretty much done.

This ain’t a good win H2H at all. A showcase of his smoke and mirrors BS. He lost to BAER who wouldn’t be ranked today and a journeyman. Don’t try and pretty it up. It tells us things about him that he couldn’t beat a Journeyman at his “peak” and Carneras team saw that.

 

I don't agree with your assessment that he was pretty much done, and I don't think that your other points devalue the win significantly.

The #2 contender is a strong title challenger, even if they are tailor made for you.

I really don't see how losing to Baer, can be a significant mark against a fighter in that era.

Depending on your perspective, Baer was either the best, or the man who beat the best.

 

You didn't limit me to yes or no this time.

 

No to all of this context is important. Compared to Bowes opponents they aren’t better opposition that’s the point of this argument H2H Bowes resume would kick Carneras resumes butt.

 

Only if you assume the superiority of one era over another.

 

I think you forgot to add the usual: ...and the onus is on you to prove that!

 

Absolutely.

The burden of proof is upon the person who is asserting something, and anything that is asserted without evidence, can also be dismissed without evidence.

 

Get over it Bowe>Carnera resume.

 

How would someone prove the superiority of one era over another? What are your criteria, and why?

 

Ultimately you can't, because you can never match the fighters.

You can mount a strong argument that the early 70s were stronger than the mid 30s, based on the resumes of the top fighters relative to the eras, and I would go along with that argument.

If the top fighter of an era is an older fighter, who was not the standout when they were younger, then you could make a strong argument that this was a weaker era.

However if you actually matched the fighters, these argument might all get blown out of the water.

 

Not sure exactly what you're getting at here. How would resumes tell you anything if you have no way of gauging the relative quality of the fighters?

 

You could argue that in general terms, all eras contain journeymen, gatekeeper level fighters, contenders and standouts, an that men find their level for broadly the same reasons.

If the top fighters can only be beaten by other top fighters, then you are probably dealing with a strong era at the top.

If men are getting to the top who are significantly more beatable, then you are probably dealing with a weaker era at the top, but not necessarily a weak era from the ground up.

 

Not necessarily. Sports with weak or small talent pools often have one or two dominant people. It could be that that guys on top just won the genetic lottery in a weak era, and the talent pool is too frail to produce anyone to unseat them. Or maybe the guys at the absolute top of the sport are unusually privileged in being able to train full time, and they won a different sort of lottery by getting better financial support than their peers.

Contenders might regularly lose to gatekeepers because the contenders of an era are terrible, or because even the gatekeepers are awesome in the era due to the era's strength.

I'm sure there are all sorts of potential statistical distributions of talent that would produce a situation where the top fighters rarely get beaten by ostensibly lower ranked fighters.

It's a little troubling if we can't use film at all to evaluate fighters' abilities.