Great fighter who consistently cared more about his legacy than money

To say that Frazier only defended against 1 #1 contender by using the Ring ratings is deceptive. The Ring artificially kept Ali as champion even when he was unable to fight in order to prove a point. In reality, even by their former and current standards, Ali would have been dropped from the ratings after a year of inactivity. Due to this Frazier was kept in the #1 spot for several years when he was the champion. A more realistic example would be to use a combination of the WBA, and WBC ratings for that instance, although even these are skewed because the WBA dropped Frazier when he refused to enter their tournament and the WBC declared their title vacant for an extended period while Ali was out of the picture leaving Frazier stuck at #1. Due to these skewed ratings a lot of guys like Quarry, Ellis, and Bonavena were rated #2 (behind Frazier) at the time Frazier fought them, so essentially he was defending against his #1.

Louis' missing Lem Franklin is a bit deceptive as well. Franklin wasnt rated #1 until after he stopped Simon Louis only had two more bouts (both for charity) before hanging up the gloves for the duration. The window in which he could have fought Franklin was extremely small. By the time Franklin was ranked #1 both Louis and Franklin had scheduled fights. With those fights out of the way that gives a rather unrealistic window of between late January and early February (when Franklin was knocked out of the rankings literally and figuratively) when they could have fought. After that point Franklin was essentially finished as a viable contender.

 

Hell of a type o, will you ever forgive me?

 

-You consider him Champion after Mathis or something? Frazier can only be recognized after beating Ellis, which RING also rightfully recognized. He defended against Ali, Foster (LHW Champion), Daniels, Stander, and Foreman. Foreman was his #2 behind Ali, which I have to agree with.

-The same can be said for some of the others I mentioned, it wasn't a criticism, just simply pointing out a #1 they didn't get to face.

 

Marciano...

 

I will give you a less obvious example, of fighters taking a stand on principle.

Antonio Tarver and Geln Johnson

They both pushed aside their ridiculous mandatories, and sacrificed their belts, to establish themselves as the best in the division!

 

No 'sane' fighter should be fighting for legacy over money. And I cannot think of one 'great' who did so. If money is not your main motive for being involved in pro boxing, you really should not be involved in the sport.

 

I dunno what he earned....but I am going to guess ezzard charles....maybe someone could correct me

 

I was under the impression he was #1 heading into the Pastor fight, but that doesn't look to be the case according to this article. Seems he never overtook Conn in the ratings. Odd.

[url]http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=_i5PAAAAIBAJ&sjid=aU0DAAAAIBAJ&pg=4578,4762659&dq=pastor+franklin&hl=en[/url]


Ray was certainly #1 before losing to Walcott, I'll revise this.

 

I absolutely consider him champion. Frazier was the #1 contender and his opportunity to fight for the title was now being shelved by a promotional tool. I dont blame him at all for what he did. After he defeated Mathis and Ellis won the elimination Ellis tried to duck him like you wouldnt believe. Just watch Ellis and Dundee being interviewed after Ellis got that gift against Patterson (who didnt deserve a title shot at that point, he hadnt won a fight in a year and a half and hadnt beaten a rated contender in 2 years). Even after getting a gift decision in what they thought would be a gimme they acted like they were going to shelve Frazier. They tried. First they used Ellis' broken nose as an excuse and then tried to tie up negotiations when it became apparent that the public wouldnt accept another option. Finally the fight was made and we got to see who was the real champion. The Ring was simply trying to take a moral stance in this which was somewhat silly IMO. It accomplished nothing and continued to confuse the situation (paper). Keep Ali champion, or the championship vacant, and everyone else basically stucking in ratings limbo was ridiculous. It was akin to the people who didnt consider Jack Johnson champion until defeated Jim Jeffries, regardless of the fact that Jeffries had been in mothballs for 5 years. The Frazier situation was made more ridiculous by the fact that the "unification" was given some sort of symbolic "legitimization" by Ali writing into the ring and formally "relinquishing" his championship. It was utter nonsense and as stated before violated their own policy, it was one of Nat Fleischer's special situations that show that magazines, networks, etc. or no better at governing the sport than the ABC bodies. They all play their own games for their own reasons and this one such instance.

 

Special shout out to Bob Foster for his Sisyphusian attempts at heavyweight.

 

Marciano retired more due to problems with his manager, Al Weill, than anything else. Plus fans and boxing writers felt he had shown he would beat top contenders. Marciano wanted to retire badly after Don ****ell fight, but Archie Moore kept saying Maricano feared him, and goaded him into that last fight. I don't think Mariciano was thinking legacy at all, he was just making right move.

 

I would have to say Ali. He fought everyone.

 

If we're talking mandatories, then Hagler is one who consistenly took them on so he could keep all his belts: Obel, Hamsho, Sibbo, etc, because he was so proud to be undisputed middleweight champion. It was only really when the Leonard fight was on that he pursued the biggest reward but who can blame him after all he'd done. He'd more than paid his dues.