ESB Official Voting Thread -- Post Rankings Here!

Because Bell was the clear #1 contender to the crown, and Mormeck defeated Bell the second time around despite a clearly inferior stylistic matchup. In other words, he's defeated the best possible opponent he could, and is sitting astride the cruiserweight division. Mormeck, along with Pavlik and one or two others, is also the only holder of a lineal title. He unified all of the belts in the recent past as well, not many eons ago.

Klischko, by contrast, has not faced the cream of his division and come out victorious. He has taken out a string of commendable contenders, but it's not quite the same thing. Even Calzaghe, whom you rate quite highly, has not accomplished what Mormeck has recently. Not until he defeats Kessler will he be in a comparable position. :good

 

The problem is that Bell is certainly not the cream of the crop and Mormeck has the clear styles advantage over Bell, just horrid, horrid stamina to where he's dead tired by round 5.

Bell technically shouldn't have been in line for the title in the first place, he got one of the worst gifts in recent history over Dale Brown, who is an average fighter that Wilson blew out in round 2.

So sure, he and Pavlik are linear title holders, but against what competition exactly is what we have to look at and we also have to consider their overall ability, in which Mormeck is very limited by his stamina and aging status.:think

 

Come to think of it, CHJ actually did a good job of convincing me that Calzaghe wasn't as good as he first appeared. :yep

That, and the fact that he's not accomplished much over the huge stretch of time he's owned a rather useless belt, and his only good win as of late was against Lacy, who is now proving far more limited than many thought. He's on about the same plane as Pavlik, and he may be declining physically. On the other hand, Kessler is on the way up, and Mundine has a bit more on his recent resume. Calzaghe is arguably above Mundine, but I don't think the same of his position vis-a-vis Kessler.

So, given the choice between rating Calzaghe at #2 and #3, both of which are arguable, I chose the lower of the two knowing that it would be counterbalanced by the drastic overrating by everyone else.

 

All right.

However, we really need to talk through this Mormeck thing. Are you familiar with the CW division mate? Because 1-1 with Bell, especially the second win being close and with dirty tricks(cutting rounds short by 35 seconds so Mormeck wouldn't get KD'd) is not a call for P4P discussion.

 

I'd say Bell has a clear stylistic advantage over Mormeck. He may tire early, but he's a far taller fighter with a very big punch. His poor stamina is about as much of a disadvantage as it was for Foreman against Frazier.

And considering the pace of both Mormeck-Bell fights, I'm not surprised their stamina looked a bit off.

 

No, but defeating a string of contenders (Hill, Gurov, Brown, Braithwaite) before losing and winning back the belt against Bell--who had Mormeck's number and was the best contender available at the time--is quite impressive. He's now facing Haye, who's the next "big thing" in the cruiserweight division. In other words, he's not avoiding anybody, thereby further legitimizing his claim on that division.

He looks quite good on film as well, for what it's worth.

 

It's just that you often talk about SMW being weak as all get out, CW in Mormeck's prime was even weaker.

But okay, I'll let that one go, you've explained your reasoning well enough.

:think

 

That's true. But unlike Calzaghe, he fought the best opponents available in his division, thereby compensating for its weakness. Had Calzaghe been willing to do the same throughout his career, he would have rated far higher than Mormeck.

Come now...he doesn't look that bad to you, does he? Bear in mind that he's one level down from the heavyweight division, so we shouldn't expect the same brilliance we would from a middleweight.

 

Not a matter of willing to do it, a matter of getting opponents, difficult when you're one of the best in the world and no money draw.

- Poor defence

- Average head movement

- Average footwork

- Good handspeed

- Average chin

- Horrid stamina

- Average power

He's okay, if he had good stamina, he'd be much more potent, guy always gasses out and can't pace himself.

 

Given his insanely fanatical fanbase, I find his lack of marketability difficult to believe. He's generally pretty exciting, his skills are clear enough, and he doesn't seem to have trouble raking in the cash now that he's actually destroyed a good opponent. He simply took the easier, lower-risk fights for a stable but unexceptional salary rather than risk it all in a big fight he may lose.

Much of what you say is applicable on the outside (though his head movement is better than you indicate, in my opinion). He's an extremely good infighter, though, and he has determination in spades to compensate for any physical shortcomings. Experienced chap, as well...and he also listened to his corner's advice to stay away against Bell the second time around, which is something few boxers do in the middle of a war.

 

Well, the two belt holders, ottke and beyer, ducked him blatantly, this is fact and why he didn't unify prior.

After the Lacy bout, they attempted to get the winner of Wright/Taylor, which ended in a draw and neither wanted this bout, even though the deal was in America. Tried to get Hopkins after Tarver, Hopkins refused the deal(did back in early 2000's also for 2.5 million, 10 times what he was making then) and retired, only to circle jerk with Wright for a nonsense bout.

Tried to even get Tarver, as he was a name, no luck. Johnson and Woods tied up together.

He had to take stay busy bouts obviously and is now fighting Kessler, who did he avoid? Where are you getting your logic from here?

But it goes back to how crap Bell is also, a guy who barely got by Kelvin Davis, a guy who Darnell Wilson smashed in 3, and got a horrible gift over Dale Brown to even get the shot at Mormeck, again, a guy Darnell Wilson smashed in 2.

The only reason Bell won first time around was Mormeck gassed and couldn't keep the pace, because he went all out on Bell looking for the KO, but lacks the substantial KO power to put him away, as evident on why he couldn't put Braithwaite away, in which Guillermo Jones did Braithwaite in 4 and recently Enzo Mac shut Braithwaite out 120-108.

Mormeck is not very impressive lately, if you want to count his old wins from years back, which was a bunch of CW names, but poor opposition and never cementing anything with a truly good fighter at that time in Jirov, then you're going to have to cut Calzaghe some slack even if you don't like his eccentric fanbase, because Calzaghe DOMINATED comparable competition to Mormeck, where as Mormeck was competitive with most.

 

It's not that I dislike Calzaghe's eccentric fanbase--I just find their arguments none-too-convincing (actually, they usually make a good case AGAINST Calzaghe). I rate him based on my impressions of the guy.

Calzaghe was not ducked by everyone. When he has fought a qualified opponent (Lacy, Kessler) he has insisted on doing so on his own ground, and has managed to extract a good deal. He probably carries more "weight" into negotiations than his resume deserves, rather than less, but he wishes to negotiate on the basis of parity (i.e. he and his opponent are on the same level) without breaking into the top P4P "superstars" in the first place. Now that he's FINALLY done so, his negotiating power is actually in tune with his objectives. A bit like Vitali and Wlad during their earlier careers.

A deal falls through (except on rare cases like Lewis-Bowe) because BOTH parties are not willing to budge. Bad luck can be blamed for a few of Calzaghe's missed opportunities, but a streak of substandard fights as long as Joe's indicates to me that his actions are large contributing factors. There's simply no way around this--the alternative is that Joe is the unluckiest boxer in history.

 

Placing Kessler in the P4P list and not Calzaghe might be insightful.