Or it could be just that they had to show their guts and reslience more because they lacked the talent and skills of the great fighters.
Although Ward and Gatti may not have been the best boxers around, they epitomized the word "warrior". For this, they have a deep place in our psyche. I think most would agree that they would rather be Arturo Gatti than Pretty Boy Floyd, no matter how good Mayweather is. I'd rather be Duran or Hagler than Sugar Ray or Roy Jones.
sure there are great fighters who could bite down like these two but more often than not when a great fighter is tested and there skills arent enough, they buckle under pressure. dont take away from them what they offered to this sport, thats an injustice they dont deserve
Which Sugar Ray? Robinson was a warrior that took punishment, and is regarded as having one of the best chins ever.
That's exactly what I was thinking. Zale is clearly better than Graziano, yet he lost to him. Same with Gatti and Ward. Gatti was clearly the better fighter, yet he lost to Ward. I think that people looking back on these fights 30 years from now will remember them exactly the way the Zale-Graziano fights have come to be remembered.
True. Gatti gets bashed a lot for his poor defense and being a "bum" or "clubfighter", but he was a world titlist and one of the top 130 lb. fighters at the time he was there. At 140, when it was a deep division, sure he wasn't the true champ there, but he beat some good lower top 10 contenders/fringe contenders there, and when you compare his resume @ 140 to some of the other contenders at that time, Gatti belonged among the contenders at 140 at the time. He was still a pretty good fighter. Ward was below the level of Gatti. Gatti won about 80% of the rounds in their trilogy, but even if you look past that (Gatti was closer to his prime than Ward), Gatti has the better quality of victories...and less defeats as well.
Sugar Ray had a ton of heart. Floyd can be too conservative at times, he hasn't been tested really in terms of a gut check (maybe the first Castillo fight), but it's not like he's shown a lack of heart like Roy in the third Tarver fight. :? Give me these instances of how more often than not, great fighters buckle under pressure. Plenty of great fighters dig down when needed. The guys that don't are often unfairly labelled "not a real great" because of this, regardless of what else they achieved.
good call, but i guess i should have edited my own writing..... i didnt mean great as in all time great, more like great talents.....that is why there are so few considered all time greats
That's one way to look at it. I prefer to think that they did the best they could with the talent they had and that's more than a lot of fighters do. Many fighters including greats, don't push their talents to the limits to the point where they have to gut out fights and fight through severe pain in a due or die battle. That to me is far more impressive than just having mere talent. One must also remember that while the talent aspect is important, ultimately sports in the entertainment field and these were both entertaining fighters. And I'll gladly watch a gatti-ward fight than say a Roy Jones blow out of Woods for example. To each his own I guess, but I for one with remember them both fondly and I wish more fighters fought with the guts and resilence that they both demonstrated.
They had a lot of other exciting fights, though. Well of course, they worked hard and showed a lot of guts in their fights. It's when you hear some people, some writers, downgrade the top fighters' hearts' and then say "they don't fight with the heart of so and so". Plenty of the elite fighters have the intestinal fortitude, they just don't need to show it as much because they have better skills. For example, that piece of **** Ron Borges talking about how Trinidad and De La Hoya showed little heart and then bringing up the Ward-Green fight. Tito-De La Hoya was a poor fight, but everyone has off-nights. Micky Ward hardly showed much heart running around the ring against Sanchez. Tito showed numerous times what he was made out of.
wow, harsh and rare......idk about overrated fights and these arent the only fights that made these guys special, gatti has been in fight of the year without ward