Better resume Ali vs Mayweather

Arguable, they both beat 4 ATG how good they were when they beat them is completely up for interpretation as this thread has shown.

 

That's because some posters are being deliberately obtuse . Most folks know the difference between an inexperienced athlete, a relatively inexperienced athlete, a prime athlete, a past prime athlete, and a completely done, past it, or washed athlete.

 

Some past prime athletes are better then prime athletes. Some inexperienced athletes are better then prime athlete's etc its not always black and white their are levels to these kinds of things.

 

Some past prime athletes can be better than prime athletes because their peaks were so much higher. A past prime Wilt Chamberlain was better than a prime Willis Reed because he started at a much higher place. That's why many of the fantasy fights here have boxers at different stages of their careers. A rookie Shaq was better than 95% of NBA centers, prime or otherwise, because of his physical tools.

 

This is what hurts Floyd.

He actually does have some elite A level names, but "at the time of the fight", they had some asterisks*. Oscar, Mosey, Pac, Cotto, has seen better days. Canelo was pretty inexperienced and has no yet fully developed as a fighter. Floyd's greatness hinges on quantity over quality as he was fighting moderately good to decent competition for over 10 years. He lacks signature elite wins like Ali, Duran, etc.

With Ali, he has both quality and quantity. He cleared out his division across 2 decades and also has several wins over prime world class competition.

 

It's pretty goddamn black and white comparing younger versions of Oscar and Mosley to the ones who fought Floyd. Night and day. Ditto for young Canelo and current Canelo.

Stop the nonsense .

 

They were still great fighters when Floyd beat them or do you think they magically became bums when he fought them?

 

I thought he was saying a post prime athlete could be better than a prime athlete. Yeah, 40 year old LeBron is better than a 29 year old Andrew Wiggins. If he is saying the post prime version of an athlete is better than the prime version of the same athlete that is harder to grasp though I have seen that argument made with Rocky Marciano that the post prime or worse versions of Walcott, Moore, and Charles that he beat were better than their prime versions because they were more experienced.

 

Yeah that's what I was saying.

 

There are some that argue that the post prime version of the same athlete is better than the prime version. I have seen that argument made with respect to Walcott and Moore because of experience versus Marciano. I'm selling hard. We're talking about athletes that are subject to ravage of age and not doctors and lawyers who are subject to the same ravages, albeit decades later.

 

Young Canelo was better than current Canelo.

 

You have to retroactively downgrade them.

Meanwhile, you can go back in time with the search function and find swaths of posters picking guys like Gatti and Marquez to beat Floyd. Some of them are probably participating in this thread.

 

Depends on the fighter some get better technically even as their athleticism declines so they make up for their lost athleticism with better technique i.e Vitali, Hopkins, Toney, Floyd etc so it's hard to say such version is better.

 

Yeah it's interesting how the same Marquez who people say was too small for Floyd later gave Pacquiao a tough fight and then knocked him out at the same weight but Floyd gets no credit for completely shutting him down........ (still think that's one of his most impressive wins)

 

Marquez weighed 150 for the third Pacquiao fight, which is basically the same as most of Floyd’s in ring weights at 147 and 154.