Greatest Fighter Ever ?

Utter rubbish, without thought...OUR ancestors walked like us, talked like us, and boxing was no different those days except for what camera work
left to us by hand cranked posed and jumpey film we see today...
Boxing is an individual skill according to weight classes and the best of the old timers as George Dixon, Terry McGovern, Joe Gans, Jim Driscoll, Bob Fitz,Tommy Ryan etc would most likely dominate the fighters today, with the big pillow gloves, mouthpieces, sabbaticals between each bout etc...
If everything in boxing is better today ?
Is there any great tenor today like Caruso, John McCormack ?
Are there any popular songs with melody written today in America that
compares to an Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Rodgers and Hart ? Hell no...
Are there any Winston Churchills or Abraham Lincolns floating around in politics today ? Hell no...
Where is today's Charley Chaplin or Buster Keaton performing comedy in the movies today. ?
Where is today's toughies like Harry Greb ,Mickey Walkers, Sam Langfords
fighting almost every other week or more ,without A/C traveling from town to town,against any fighters regardless of size ? Where is the next Sugar Ray Robinson or Henry Armstrong fighting 20-30 times a year ?
My point is this...Todays fighters who fight 3 or 4 times a year, being babied and coddled are not as tough nor hardened as the oldtimers who fought with smaller gloves, no mouthpieces, and had to fight to eat or starve....My dad saw them, saw the oldtimers and the fighters up to 1983
and for the most part chose the oldtimers who fought 20 or more times a year...And I for example saw ,growing up the 1940s era, and I will pick those old geezers over today's part time fighters, with some exceptions..
P.S. I have always felt that the era that had the most licensed pro fighters
fighting OFTEN against the fighters the public demanded, produces the very best fighters in history...

 

No. Benny Leonard was the greatest pfp. Arcel said that Leonard taught Tunney how to go under to the body and beat Greb. Gotta go w/ LEONARD Burt. My family and mpst I talked to growing up said he was best and that's good for me

 

How would your dad rank his P4P IMO from all the guys he saw?

 

Did Leonard also teach Tunney to fight Greb until Greb got old enough to be defeated. Because age, not body punching, was what finally got Greb against Tunney.

 

sam langford is my choice for best ever. everything from him begin the smaller man in most fights, to defeating great opponents, to how he looks on film makes me feel confident in this choice. robinson is more aesthetically pleasing and probably more skilled overall but langford fought bigger and possibly better opponents in his career. greb could be close to #1 but the lack of footage stops me from putting him there. i have ezzard charles extremely high as well.

burt makes some good points in his last post, but anytime anyone mentions jones in any way, shape or form on these boards, most get their panties in a bunch. sorry everybody but jones was a great fighter. he was named fighter of the decade in the 90s, was at or near the top of the lb for lb rankings for over a decade and (at his best) was arguably the most athletic fighter of all-time. he'd have been hell for anyone that's ever fought at or near his weight class. i guess this is why we have so many jones vs heavyweight threads on these boards.

 

BULLSPIT! That is assinine. Look at when they fought after the first one. Just a COMPLETELY ludicrous and uninformed statement. Even Burt would tell you that..

 

One of the few consistencies in Boxing is that Ray Robinson is generally considered the finest pound for pound fighter. And that is not just amongst the generally consensus of the hardcore fancy, but the casual fan too.

 

That makes a prety good fab five.

 

i'll disagree with you here. most causal fans would say ali is the greatest and a lot of casual fans know little about robinson.

 

Fair point. I would thus say those casual fans of a 'certain' age, who saw both.

 

i see fitz's name being thrown around here and while he's one of the greats of the sport without question, i think it's criminal to say he's #1. he's very unimpressive on film. in h2h matchups, i would pick him over very few atgs. the middle, light heavy, and heavyweight title claims are overrated imo. it's important to remember those were all "white" titles at the time.

ok, enough with the bashing from me. fitz was still a great fighter in his day and will always be held in high regard but no way is he the greatest fighter ever.

 

fair point in return. today's younger casual fan would have no clue about robinson.

 

To say Ali is the greatest P4P fighter is absurd...If you took for example in "modern " times, A Ray Robinson, a Ray Leonard, a Roberto Duran, and outsized them to be a heavyweight, they would whip any version of a Clay/ Ali edition...All the above could box
and were terrific hitters, not having to resort to the "rope-a-dope" to stave off guys Ali
did not hit hard enough to hold off...Saying this to be fair no heavyweight should be included in the best P4P equation...Nature doesn't permit it...

 

I feel like a teenager sitting in History class in school. This is great! I just wish I could've seen some of the old time greats in action that Burt describes like Armstrong, Robinson etc..and he's right regarding thier greatness and abilities aginst "modern" boxing. Those guys would clean house today against the 2 fight a year dynamos we have today. Great posts!

 

If Muhammad still had his earlier powers of speech, he would not ever allow those casual fans to remain uninformed about Robby. During his 1979 televised retirement special upon resigning as champion after Leon Spinks II, he introduced a still well Robinson to a screaming live audience as the P4P greatest of all time, over himself. In retirement, Ali remained a friend to boxing as long as his speech allowed, and LaMotta has always insisted that SRR was indeed the GOAT.