Fitzsimmons Middleweight losses

It probably surprises you that I rate Ali the greatest ever. But, this isnt what you are querying. We are talking about whether or not someone elses views might be reasonable. And they clearly are. If you and i both rate Ali no1 and most others also do, is it not credibile that others could view foreman as being better than Ali? Yes, Ali beat Foreman, but Max Schmelling beat Joe Louis, Oliver McCall beat Lennox Lewis and Joe Frazier beat Muhammed Ali. The cold hard facts are that among the four accepted best fighters of the 70s, Ali had close wars that could have gone either way in every single one of them, while Foreman absolutely dominated every single one of them except Ali, a fight where he had ali out on his feet, had all factors working against him, and a fight which was just as close as ali's wars with everybody. And all this is not allowing for his second career. Now you will probably refer to prime Ali (pre exile) and i think you would be right if you do as this lighter Ali was a much much better fighter, but many dont see ithat way and their views may be as valid as yours or mind. So i dont understand why you say that it is unreasonable for someone to think this Please enlighten me. Or alternatively a concession that you jumped the gun might halp also :smooch

........Sometimes maybe....:good

How is it a lack of objectivity to recognise the arguments of others?

In all honesty, there are lots of different arguments on any boxing subject and no one has all the answers and certainly no one is correct all the time. You obviously come from the evolution line of thinking. There is nothing wrong with this, but you need to consider the merits of other thinking, as quite often the commonly accepted theory is not the correct one. And here is the proof. Go on the general forum or even here and ask the question who is the first person to ever retire as undefeated heavyweight champion of the world in the gloved era. I am fairly certain you will find that the most common answer is not the correct answer. And this is to a common black and white question. Now imagine how many wrong answers will apply to a question to which there are no right or wrong answers.

 

I am not sure of your point.

As crosstrainer said, the old training methods relied on getting weights down to a minimum. More than anything, distance running was thought the key and this dropped weights.

Fitz opponents were lighter than current fighters because they trained down in weight. Current fighters train up. If fitz trained with modern weights etc (even his own time) him, and all (or most) his opponents would have ballooned up to above the modern equivalents. If Holyfield trained like Corbett, he would have been much lighter . Likewise, if Lewis trained like Willard, he would ahve been about the same size. I dare say that if Fitz trained and ate like Toney he might be of similar proportions.

Fitz beat the best fighters in the world. That is the definitiion of a heavyweight or heavyweight champion. That is a lot better than any other middleweight has ever done. You can only rate a fighter relative to what they do in their own era. Vlad has never fought anyone bigger than him, but should this effect his own legacy if he fights fighters that are the very best of his time? I dont think it should.

 

Taht is what i was hoping someone would pop up with regarding this or his other loss to Mick Dooley, who seems to have been a heavyweight. I had the feeling that this might have been a loss because Dooley stayed the distance and wasnt kod but i cant really remember. Either way, a newspaper report would have been good. I got the feeling the fight was more of a closed gym than a pub, but that is just a guess. Does the Apollack book cover these two losses in any detail?