Classic Forum Chat: Size isn't the only factor.

I may not have time to get to the rest for a while, but one quick comment. Jeffries and Johnson were near contemporaries. Jeff actually ducked Johnson, they were so close in time. They fought some of the same guys, and ultimately each other.

 

So I might be taking your posts one by one in piecemeal issue by issue fashion, given how much this discussion has expanded.

Holyfield's best win (aside from the circular claim that Bowe was his best win, and Bowe was his) was a non-prime Tyson. And non-prime Ali was good enough to beat Foreman, whom Heavyweight Blog Guy considers the best of the 70s.

Make Norton a champ with three victories vs Ali, and he has a resume that stacks up close to either Holyfield or Bowe.

EDIT: On the chin issue, I think it's my turn to say, "Yes and no."

Yes, there's not a perfect correlation between ranking and chin. That's true. But I disagree with the follow-up assumption that there's only a loose connection. You very rarely reach the top without getting hit hard. Boxing rankings are enough of a meat grinder that the top boxers are unusually durable men.

 

That's a reasonable response to similar claims made by one or two boxers.

But there are like five or six contenders all saying that Shavers was a huge puncher, and/or the hardest they faced. Are Ali, Norton, Cobb, Tillis, Lyle, and Holmes all lying?

There's no through-line among all these guys. Some beat Shavers; some didn't. Some were KD'd; some weren't. Most of the fighters I gave in my list (when they were asked) said that Shavers hit incredibly hard. (Ironically, the only two of a different opinion were the smallest: Ellis and Quarry.) It's unlikely to me that they were all lying. That doesn't leave many other explanations aside from mass delusion.

So two things.

First, I said that he sucked at finishing contenders, period. He did. Show me the sub-215 top guys he finished. According to your earlier post, he only KO'd Ellis on a foul. So that one doesn't count, by your reckoning. Quarry beat Shavers without getting hurt. Holmes beat Shavers without getting hurt the first time, and got up the second time without Shavers finishing him. Young was very green the first time, and avoided getting knocked out the second.

Shavers's performance against 215+ contenders arguably demonstrates more power than his record against sub-215 guys. He hurt or stopped basically all of them except Cobb...who was super durable, and still found Shavers's power to be freakish.

All that aside, I explained why the statistical stuff means very little to me. In summary format, the problems are:

1) Small, non-random sample size.

2) You concede that context matters, and we have none of it for the journeymen.

3) We do have context for the contenders, and Shavers's record against contenders tells a different story.

4) Heavyweight Blog Guy's statistical methods churn out absurd results in other areas of boxing, so they should not be taken seriously. He believes Liston is comparable to Butterbean, and Ali was a B level fighter.

...The rest, I will address if/when I get more time.

 

You're exaggerating. Its well known that Coetzer held an iron beard. In a change of tactics Bowe went to the body and landed a few unintentional low blows in the process. As far fights with low blows go , Bowe - Coetzer pales in comparison to other low blow contests featuring Cotto , Duran , Danny Garcia , Golota etc.

Frank didn't need to fight dirty you say?? Absolute horse radish. . Frank Bruno threw every dirty tactic in the book at Coetzer and it was all intentional.. . He was a disgrace. If anybody should be run over the coals for fouling Costzer its Bruno yet nobody ever does. . So this goes back to the point i made earlier that people will just look for any reason to diminish Riddick Bowe.

Well you should care because its a nonsense argument parroted by people who dksab. . You even had no rebuttal to that counter argument so let me put it to you again.

Do you think Holyfield thought it would be a better strategy to get in close to Bowe or was it a better strategy for him to stay on the outside where he was at the end of Bowe's devastating long shots??
Before you answer remind yourself that Vander approached the Lewis fights in the same way , which was coming forward closing the distance and working from close to mid range. So exactly what advantages did he not use in those fights with Bowe?

 

EDIT: @dinovelvet, after writing the stuff below (which I'm not going to delete because it took too long to type,) it occurred to me that this is a pointless argument unless you're arguing the same points as @White Bomber.

This whole kerfuffle started because of something I saw as a double standard: that Douglas, Rahman, Spinks, and other guys like that were dismissed as one hit wonders, whereas Bowe was not. I then applied the same standards to Bowe's career. That's probably why you think I'm being unfairly nasty to Bowe.

If you're not one of the people who denies full credit to Rahman, Douglas, Spinks, etc., then arguing about Bowe's career in that context with you would be pretty pointless. In other words, if you don't hold those double standards -- if you're not one of the "Mike forgot head movement / Holmes was robbed / Lewis lost focus" crowd -- then most of the argument between me and @WhiteBomber doesn't really apply to the totally different standards you're applying. That's why I urged you to read the last bunch of pages, to get the context and see what the points at issue were.

Duran should have been disqualified, and Golota WAS disqualified. So I don't see how Bowe being less egregious than these two helps his case. He landed hard low blows to Coetzer, which contributed to the stoppage. If anything, it's you who are being very generous to Bowe in considering those accidental. Bowe was not a clean fighter. Not that it matters much, since accidental low blows don't do less damage than intentional ones.

Additionally, I don't really see any response to my previous statement that Coetzer hit Bowe with a lot of punches that would have made the fight go very differently if Coetzer had had power.

I'll concede this point to you. I did add the qualifier "IIRC". It's been a while since I read or saw anything about Coetzer/Bruno, and I haven't watched much of it online because I don't like to step on people's copyright claims.

Bruno and Bowe both beat Coetzer in fights where they fouled him, then. And Old Foreman -- unfairly considered a laughingstock among many boxing historians, unfortunately -- also knocked Coetzer out. Bruno could be the dirtiest fighter on record, and it wouldn't change much about the quality of Bowe's win.

Not "fights". Fight, singular. The first one. Holyfield won the second. Neither guy was exactly at his best in the third -- a fight where Holyfield was allegedly sick with hepatitis and still knocked Bowe down.

And while I happily admit that I DKSAB, I don't think boxing knowledge excuses inconsistencies. Holyfield brawling with Bowe is a bad excuse, but it isn't any worse than "Lewis lost focus" or "Tyson forgot to move his head" or "Louis played golf / dropped the jab."

That was my point, which again, belongs in the larger context of the thread that you're ignoring.

And since it got lost in the shuffle: What do you attribute Evander's fight 2 victory to, if not a change in tactics?

 

Sure. But Williams, Spinks and Seldon are the only ranked opponents Tyson got out of there in under two minutes.

Whose wheels came off in the most dramatic/complete manner is not relevant. Williams neither has the wins nor the achievements of Tate, Thomas and Dokes.

Terrible miscorrelation.

I don't believe he was. Bey was around the Number-8 spot.

A better [rhetorical] question might be, which Champion doesn't get to fight their top-rated contenders over a period of roughly three years, without copping some flak?

I am guessing that you are trying to put some kind of a logical theory together here. However, it reads more like a brief, but random stream of consciousness, which has little to no relevance or bearing to reality.

It is probably better not use words like "precisely", when you appear to be theorizing a vague, 'what if' type of scenario.

And, Spinks still beat Holmes. So, what on Earth do the betting odds matter?

I contended that "several of the top-rated guys in '85 would have been able to achieve what Spinks did." Clearly, who would have been favorite is an irrelevance.

This is the crux of the matter. The whole point is that Holmes was not "beating guys as good as anyone else out there."

You have attempted to simply write off the top half of the Ring Ratings, by suggesting that those holding a Top-5 ranking were either not good enough or that Holmes' alternative opponents were as good as them.

Neither of these positions is tenable.

One could speculate all day, every day, about how Spinks would have bamboozled the other top-rated contenders, but there is not a great deal to support the theories.

As has been alluded to before, Spinks' '85 win over an old and jaded Holmes (which was not all that convincing a win, anyway) is, to my mind, the only kudos Spinks deserves at Heavyweight. He was, to all intents and purposes, gifted the rematch win.

So, it might even be considered a one-off since he never beat another top-rated contender, after that.

Holmes' view might just have easily been a realization and/or acknowledgement of the younger titleholders and contenders, who could do more convincingly, that which he felt he already had done, albeit not sufficiently enough to persuade the judges.

 

who says there isn’t?

it properly needs reassessed after the Joshua v usyk fight.

 

The evidence (or lack thereof).

Not really. I do not see how the Joshua/Usyk bout should influence perspectives on Spinks' run at Heavyweight.

 

You've excelled even yourself on this one.

 

He might beat Ali. Ali isn't a southpaw

 

Neither was Erislandy Savon

 

He's the same size as Evander Holyfield. So what Usyk did isn't necessarily unprecedented.

 

Ring Magazine Rankings at the time of Holmes' defenses:

Holmes #1, Evangelista #6
Holmes #1, Ocasio #5
Holmes #1, Weaver #8
Holmes #1, Shavers #3
Holmes #1, Zanon #7
Holmes #1, Jones #6
(At this point Ring awarded Holmes it's belt as he had already beaten new WBA champ Weaver)
LeDoux #10
Ali #5
Berbick #7
Spinks #3
Snipes #10
Cooney #2
Cobb #9
Rodriguez unranked
Witherspoon #10
Frank unranked
Frazier #10
Smith #9
Bey #3
Williams #12
Spinks - LH Champ

 

What's the source of your Bey Rating?