Give credit, Marciano left the heavyweight division ALMOST decimated.

You think they would.

It is not a truism, it is speculation on your part.

Then he came back and lost, and retired again.

 

It is a speculation shared by every other major sport in the Western world.

 

I think at a point that gets a bit silly.

If you don't take losses into account, what stops Jack Sharkey being a top 10 heavyweight?

I'm fine with writing off losses that are way outside of prime, and I don't think there's shame in losing if you taking really hard fights, but they have to detract from a fighters ranking at some point or you just end up with nonsense.

You really can't argue that, all else being equal, fighter who is consistently winning, isn't clearly better than one getting mixed results. And there is a flip side, that if you fight enough good opponents, you'll likely eventually get a fluke win, but you can't rank them based off that, if they are consistently losing at that level.

 

It would have been nice to see him round that record off at an even 50-0. But I don’t have a problem with him hanging them up when he did. He had already beaten the standout best fighters of that era.

 

Yes, in a case where all things are equal, the fighter with less losses should be ranked higher than the one with more. However, how often are there two people who are equal in all aspects? IMO, the fighter who has better wins, even with more losses, should be ranked higher. Holyfield has better wins than Marciano, hence why I rank him higher.

In a case where a fighter loses to someone a lot, but pulls out a win in a series (let's take Greb vs Bartfield) I don't think the losses take away from Bartfield's legacy, but they add to Greb's resume as wins, since at some point Bartfield beat Greb. I don't take away from someone for losing, I just don't give them the credit for winning.

I guess I think of it like a tie-breaker. If all else is equal, or near equal, the guy with less losses should be ranked higher.

I'm not sure what you mean from this example. I don't take anything away from Sharkey for losing, and I don't rate him top 20. If it gets a bit silly, then that's just coz our way of viewing fighters is different.

 

If you take this to it's conclusion, it's gets silly quickly. Like I said, especially back in the day, there's tons of guys with the odd good win, or even awesome wins, but when you like into their overall career, it's clear they aren't on that level.

Jackie Sharkey beat Jimmy Wilde
Went 3-2 with Peter Herman (with one of the losses being in a 6 rounder)
Drew with Johnny Coulon
And took one from Memphis Pal Moore

That's a match for plenty of fighters, who were much better by any serious assesment.

If you're rewarding for wins, but not penalizing for losses, you're basically ranking for fighting lots of good opponents in and of itself, rather than ability, and while it's nice to see fighters do that, I think ranking should be more about ability or achievement, than just fighting tons of different guys.

I overall agree with that. People can certainly overemphasize losses, and especially if it's just dropping one in the series. The context matters a lot two, if an aging fighter beats someone in their prime, then loses twice while the latter is aging and they are shot, I think we'd both agree the older one comes out better

Because if you just look at his wins, he has a really good resume. I think you take losses into account more than you say there, but I think that can just end up covering your own bias, if a fighter you like for whatever reason, you can just not take the loss into account. I'm certainly guilty of being selective like that too, as is probably everyone, but I think it's something to look out for.

In terms of Jack Sharkey (not to be confused with Jackie Sharkey), he beat
George Godfrey
Harry Wills
Mike McTigue
Jack Delaney
Young Stribling
Primo Carnera
Tommy Loughran
3-1 with Jim Maloney
1-1 with Max Schmeling
And you could make the argument he should have beaten Dempsey. The losses to Loughran and Carnera could be ignored as post prime. Carnera's ranking would also get enhanced by ignoring losses to Louis and Baer, Stribling gets enhanced by ignoring losses to Berlenbach, Schmeling etc.