Better resume/greater fighter: Floyd Mayweather or Barney Ross

Cool story.
We’re talking about who proved their boxing greatness in the rin, not who you’d rather have babysit your kid.
Floyd's entire career is on tape, judged under strict rules, random drug testing, global competition, and he never lost.
Greb’s greatness lives in secondhand stories and yellowed newspapers.

And if you think IV rehydration wipes away 50 wins under the most scrutinized system boxing’s ever seen, you’re just coping.

 

This is the mental gymnastics I was referring to. Fighting 50 times in a year, is harder than fighter 2 a year. You can spin it all you want, I'm not here to talk about Greb, but fighting 50 times in a year is harder than twice.

I'm not pretending it isn't a big deal, it makes a difference. What I'm saying is, most of it isn't modern, and the stuff that is, is usually bull****. The biggest breakthrough since boxing's inception was in the 60s and 70s. That's not new, and it was just a breakthrough. It's not like they were clueless piror to that.

Modern fighters track heart rates, yet have worse stamina than old timers. Modern fighters track their glycogen, yet have worse endurance. I don't want to be the guy to tell you Santa isn't real, but modern fighters don't optimise recovery through training, they do it through drugs and taking months off at a time.

You're delusional if you think all old timers did was run a few hills and call it a day.

They did have periodized altitude camps though, they just didn't call it that

They went up to the mountains and trained there for a predetermined time before their fight. That's periodization at altitude, my friend.

"Real recovery science" is only needed for modern strength training. You want to know how simple recovery is when drugs and massive amounts of peaking and weight cutting aren't involved? It's as simple as sleeping, drinking lots of water and eating healthily. The nature of the human body's adaption to stress (which isn't created by boxing anywhere near as much as with strength training) and the repeated bout effect takes care of the rest.

Old timers trained differently, but it was far from stupid. I'm not even sure they trained better than modern fighters, but this notion that they did nothing but ruin themselves with volume and frequency is hilariously wrong.

Sorry, do you think old fighters didn't test their skills? Why do you think they fought so often? The fights were the tests.

Modern fighters are definitely more prepared, no disagreement there. Technique, though? Not a chance, that's impossible to know for 90% of fighters and far too broad a statement. At least pick an era before saying something like that The 1910s? Yeah I'd agree their technique was worse on the whole. By the 40s/50s? Nah, their best are better than today's best.

I mean, you seem to really be banging this drum but I don't care about Greb and Floyd specifically. I'm making the point that old school training was far from stupid and there's lots in there which would improve modern boxing training.

 

You're emotional because you know you can't show it you can only talk about it.
That’s the difference. You can copy-paste old Top 10 lists, scream about Tunney's memories, cry about titles, and even bring up my parents if you want, none of it changes the fact that Greb’s entire greatness depends on people believing secondhand reports.
Floyd’s greatness? It’s seen, Frame-by-frame. Round-by-round, opponent-by-opponent.

You can brag about Greb beating 16 ranked guys in a year but fact of the matter is the standards back then were so loose you could fight twice a month without real camps, no drug testing, no standardized judging, no weigh-in enforcement, and half your opponents were half-injured from the last fight. Quantity without quality means nothing.

Today, the top guys fight twice a year because every fight is a global event, under full VADA/USADA testing, HD cameras, strict commissions, sanctioned belts, worldwide opponents, and a public that tears you apart for slipping even once.

Nobody is denying Greb was tough for his era..But pretending beating newspaper-ranked guys in no-decision fights with no film proof somehow outweighs an undefeated run through a globalized, scientifically prepared era is pure fantasy.

You're not defending Greb anymore. You're defending a ghost because you can't show me a real fight. That’s why you're angry.

 

That's not what I heard.

 

You’re moving the goalposts now. Nobody said old timers were stupid. The point was simple:
Fighting 50 times a year doesn’t mean tougher it means softer prep, shorter recoveries, smaller training camps, no PED testing, no formal scoring, and often no weight checks. Fighting twice a year today means peaking perfectly, making weight precisely, passing drug tests, and being ready for worldwide HD cameras and global opponents.

Modern sports science isn’t Santa Claus.
It’s measured improvements: controlled heart-rate zones, anaerobic threshold testing, monitored glycogen loads, recovery optimization, and surgical film breakdown of tendencies. Old timers "trained tough," but they trained by feel not by precision.

Altitude training existed, sure but "go train in the mountains for a few weeks" isn't the same as modern periodization tuned around blood oxygen saturation, VO2 max, and tapering phases.

Saying modern fighters have "worse stamina" ignores weight cutting, fight length differences, and pacing changes under modern scoring systems. Old-time fighters fought slower, more clinch-heavy, and were allowed to be rougher inside without resets totally different energy systems.

Modern training isn't flawless. Old-school toughness isn’t fake. But pretending the 40s-50s best were "better" technicians than today's best just because we admire their grit is pure nostalgia. You don’t test greatness by counting how many fights you signed up for.
You test it by what you proved on the biggest stages under the hardest lights and that’s a stage the old-timers never had to stand under.

 

Floyd was basically the same size as WW Mickey Walker .. yet can you imagine Floyd fighting top 5 rated LHWs in his era.. Cos that's what Walker did.. against Mctigue & Levinsky.. & incredibly he held future lineal HW champion Jack Sharkey (who had 30lbs on him) to a draw in which most observers thought that he won.. any idea of the equivalent of that today? It's nuts.. Sharkey went on to beat Schmelling & Carnera .. let that sink in.. FMJ doesn't come close to any of these fighters despite people's ignorant dismissal of them.. 2lbs gave floyd the squits... let alone 30...

 

You’re ignoring how different the eras were.
Walker gave up 25–30 pounds fighting 190-pound heavyweights like Sharkey, guys who today would be super middleweights or small light heavies. Floyd gave up 15–18 pounds to Canelo, a modern elite with better speed, strength, and skill than any 1920s heavyweight and Floyd schooled him.

Floyd was a small welterweight constantly beating bigger, stronger men. Walker fought slower, softer athletes with no testing, smaller gloves, and looser officiating. Taking crazy fights back then isn’t the same as dominating elite modern opponents.

 

Walker started out at 147 and Floyd started out at 130 and was less as an am. Floyd maxed at below 154, in ring. Walker fought at 175.

Imagine if you understood that weightclasses aren't heightclasses.

 

You're accidentally proving my point. Alexander, Napoleon, and Caesar were great for their time but if you dropped them onto a modern battlefield with jets, satellites, drones, cyber warfare, and nuclear arsenals, they would be totally lost. Their greatness only exists within the limited conditions of their eras.
Evolution raises standards. Modern generals operate under harder conditions, with far more complexity, bigger consequences, and tighter margins for error. That's exactly why being the best today is harder than being the best 2,000 years ago.

Same with boxing. Greb ruled a time with primitive training, no global scouting, no drug testing, no slow-motion breakdowns, no worldwide amateurs flooding the talent pool.
Floyd ruled an era where every flaw was exposed on HD video, where opponents were bigger, stronger, faster, and backed by decades of sports science.The future is harder than the past and dominating at the peak of evolution is more impressive than dominating during the early stages of it.

You think you're arguing against me yet your analogy actually just proving everything I've been saying.

Robinson, Pep, Armstrong, Moore, and Charles are judged differently because we have official fight records for them, not just newspaper opinions. Their major fights were scored under real commission rules, with official judges, official decisions, and proper sanctioning not "crowd opinions" scribbled into a paper the next day. And beyond the paperwork, we actually have real footage showing what they could do
Even if some footage is missing, there’s enough surviving tape to judge how good they really were. With Greb, we have neither full official results for half his career (due to no-decision fights) nor any meaningful prime footage to confirm what people said about him. Greb's entire legacy is built on secondhand reports, not direct observation. That's why fighters like Robinson and Pep can be ranked with real credibility.

You’re flat-out wrong about globalization.
Since the 1990s, boxing has gotten way more global not less.
The U.S. hasn’t had a male Olympic gold medalist since Andre Ward in 2004.

Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan dominate the amateurs today.

At the 2020 Olympics, Russia (ROC) was third in medals, with Kazakhstan and Ukraine on the podium too.

The 2021 AIBA World Championships were topped by countries like Kazakhstan, Russia, and Uzbekistan not the U.S.

And it’s not just amateurs. In the pros, modern elite champions like Usyk, Lomachenko, Beterbiev, GGG, Bivol all come from Eastern Europe and they’ve dominated world titles over the past 10–15 years.

It’s not “just three Soviet countries” either.
Belarus, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan have all produced major contenders and medalists too. The talent pool is wider, deeper, and tougher than ever before.

Meanwhile, U.S. boxing, while still good, has clearly shrunk compared to its dominance in the 1930s–70s. Crawford is great, but he’s the exception, not the rule and clearly overshadowed by Usyk, Inoue and arguably Bivol as well on most people's P4P rankings

 

Ross objectively has a better record.

Greb? The answer is so easy it's more fun to get behind this conspiracy he didn't exist, or count, or wasn't good, or whatever insanity is being offered.

To paraphrase, Floyd was brilliant, and nowhere near as boring as many say, but Ross is in the echelon above beside his rival Canzoneri. Greb is near - or is - the peak...or he's made up.

 

To add on i think this is the crux of the argument and I'm glad you admitted it.

You’re nostalgic for when the U.S. ran boxing and can’t accept that the best fighters today aren’t all American anymore. That’s why you have to cling to Crawford and pretend he represents the pinnacle of the sport today instead of fighters ahead of him on most people's ranking like Usyk and Inoue.

You can't admit foreign fighters are on par or that some, like Usyk, Inoue, and Bivol, have already passed your old greats, because it kills the dream you’re still trying to protect.

But unfortunately for you no matter how much you try to deny it boxing evolved. It’s global now and modern greatness > old dominance.

 

I assume this is the end of the argument

IMHO Greb's side won, i don't really feel all that convinced on the newspaper decisions arguments, it just really feels like themaster458 is just saying "nuh uh" everytime someone says something that challenges his ideas

Greb's career still happened, and Greb's career is way greater than Floyd's, IMHO again