Eh, I've hashed it out here with the "historians" ad naseum. Basically, he was just a big stiff you could take a punch and happened to fight in an incredibly weak era for middleweights. Hagler, Graziano, Robinson, Hearns, Jones, all would have destroyed Carlos the Robot.
..............So because some of us think he WAS the greatest middleweight ever were all suddenly "historians?" Damn you! :twisted:
Thanks. My computer was busted and it took a month until I got it back Fine...he's having trouble with some crack head in the gym though.
My trainer through him out after he started cursing off at him, the guy keeps coming back though. He's gonna get punched pretty soon. Larry was about to hit him the other day.
That you have to "Take the title" from the Champ. A chalenger in a title fight regardless of style stringths and weekneses must out-slug the champion. I think the No Decision Era where the chlanger had to knock out the champion to become champion plays a big part in this myth. Also Whitaker ran from Chavez. He out boxed him from the outside and out sluged him on the inside. The truth is Whitaker made an extordnary boxer (Chavez) look ordnary.
.............Great post. I fully agree with the "ya gotta REALLY take the title from the champ" stuff. That is crap. Boxing matches are supposed to be judged the same way no matter who is fighting. There is a winner in a round, and a loser. Jusge as you go, and tally it up at the end. Whomever comes out on top comes out on top. Otherwise, it's like a sprinter getting a ten-yard head start. Hollow victory.
You forgot Tony Zale, Gene Fullmer, Carmen Basilio, Joey Giardello, Dick Tiger, Rubin Carter, Holly Mims, not to mention Emile Griffith, Bennie Brisco, Nino Benvenuti, Tony Mundine, Tony Licata, Rodrigo Valdez. Oh, hang on a sec... didn't he beat a couple of those guys? But, heck, Monzon couldn't have been any good. Out of, what, 90 fights he lost 3 in 1963 and '64 and barely squeaked through 87 wins before retiring in 1977. Yeh. Kinda like Carlos Zarate, Danny "Little Red" Lopez, Michael Spinks, Larry Holmes. Those guys all kinda looked like zombies and disjointed robots sometimes. Buncha bums. (Ever notice how Larry Holmes' head would kinda quiver like a bobblehead doll on a car dashboard? Obviously he was a wind-up robot with an overtightened mainspring. - BTW, no disrespect to Larry. He's one of my all-time fave heavyweights and would have been a top notch fighter in any era.)
Yeh, I kinda had my doubts about Evander Holyfield when he squeaked by in his first cruiserweight match against Qawi. I didn't think he really "took" the title away. But when Holyfield KO'd the incredibly tough Qawi in the rematch, that pretty much settled the issue.