Fighters whose greatness may be overrated

Tyson is never rated as highly as Ali at least not by knowledge historians. Tyson was beaten by Douglas a nobody. Ali was beaten by Frazier and Norton both excellent highly respected fighters.

 

Norton's claim to fame is his trilogy with Ali and his close loss to a one armed Larry Holmes. Other than that he's overrated.

Tyson stuffs Norton's body parts in a suitcase within 45 seconds.

 

There's a fighter for this thread topic - Ken Norton.

I can name a load of other heavies from the 70's that most tend to overrate based on the sole purpose of facing Muhammad Ali. They fought Ali, so they must've been great. Joe Louis faces the same level contender and they're called bums of the month.

 

Whose of Louis contenders that are called "bum of the month" would you say is as good as Norton?

 

My meaning wass, was that liston hit the top of the division when the champion didn't have the strongest of chins or the greatest of self confidence. If liston had come along just a few more years later, the champion would have been Ali. I don't see that result been any different to the actual fight s between them.

 

Did you forget this time first say that you hated Ali, you wanted every opponent that Ali fought to beat him and you prayed before every fight that he ever had that someone would beat him and shut him up? That way, no one can claimed that you are biased in any way imaginable when you lavish all the praise possible on how great he was?

 

Ali is hard to overrate imo. He beat all but four of the fighters that were ranked top 5 by the Ring 1961-1975. (For comparison, the same number is five for Tyson 1986-1989.)

I don't know if any fighter beat as many of the top 5 fighters in his division during a 15 year spell as Ali did. And that is even though he lost his best years to exile.

Add to that the second highest number of wins for the undisputed title of any division. And if you feel that Liston, Frazier and Foreman are around the top 10 HWs, you can add a 5-1 record with 4 KO's to that list of accomplishments.

How the feck do you overrate that, short of calling Ali the best p4p ever? Which not many here do.

 

He had potential to be great had he fought like he did vs. Alexis another few times against other guys like Hearns. Leonard, Benitez. or Duran, but he never fought them..

 

Hearns is greater than Pryor. Pryor fought Cervantes and Arguello at 140.. Hearns fought Cuevas,Leonard (2 times) Benitez, Duran, Hagler, Hill. 5 titles in 5 weights. Longevity and superfights big big edge to Hearns.

 

I can't think of a guy, other than Pryor, who would have come up in weight to trouble Hearns at 147. Pryor is the worst style match up for him. Great chin, huge volume, quick feet and Pryor would most likely carry his power well.

I don't believe Pryor is better than Hearns but he represents a damn good stylistic threat to Hearns based on his attributes.

 

I see "greatness" in the header so will stick with great fighters.

I think Aaron Pryor was quite overrated.
I think Marvin Hagler gets slightly overrated.
I think Larry Holmes gets slightly overrated nowadays after being underrated for a time.

All thre are great fighters without fail tho, with Pryor the much lesser of them.

 

Hearns at 147 would have knocked out Pryor. He had a lot of energy and he would have walked into something of Hearns, who was a real hitter at 147. Duran vs. Pryor? This is tough. Pryor had faster hands, but he would have stood in front of Duran and maybe been caught by him...

 

Pernell Whitaker is underrated as is Thomas Hearns. Duran is overrated. Leonard is just about right or underrated. Hagler? maybe a bit overrated on the Hearns fight when he had a great fight, but never fought well again. Mayweather is overrated but a guy like Shane Mosley was underrated.

 

Duran would have killed Pryor.

 

Whitaker and Hearns are great fighters. I think the vast majority consider whitaker one of the very best fighters ever at his best, especially at 135.

Duran ran a bit hot and cold at higher weights, particularly depending on styles but he was utter devastation at 135 and that's understating it. After his reign of terror at 135 and wins over SRL and Palomino at 147 it's hard to overrate him. I can only assume you are talking about at 160 and the recent threads vs Fullmer, roldan and Sibbo.