How would Pernell Whitaker do in the late 40's-early 50's?

There's footage from fighters from this era that look terrible. Wilder for example is hideous.

 

Agreed.

But nobody in their right mind calling him an ATG/One of the best ever. But people do that with the old fighters.

 

Lol true. The old greats are judged mostly on their records because of lack of and or poor footage. Harry Greb has a phenomenal record. Even if he does look a bit weird on the training clips we have of him there is no doubt he had an extremely effective style proven against a vast array of different styles and bigger men. This thread was on 40's and 50's. That was a golden era of talent. It takes a big steaming turd on this watered down era. And I believe Pea would be great in any era. The guy was special.

 

I hear you. But for the fighters that are worshipped yet there's no footage, how do you come to the conclusion that they're some of the best ever when you haven't even watched them fight?

Just a lot of bias/it's cool to be a historian going on. Whereas we can clearly tell that Duran/SRL etc are some of the greatest Boxers of all time. There's tons of footage for that.

 

You can come to the conclusion by studying their record. Harry Greb beat more greats than any other fighter and some of the guys he beat are on film. There is no doubt he was one of the best ever going by who he beat. Well, unless you believe his record was fabricated. Fantasy match ups with Greb are hard to do because we only have newspaper reports of his style. I really don't know if he would beat Hagler, Monzon, RJJ, etc because I haven't seen his style with my own eyes. There is no doubt in my mind he was a phenomenal fighter of his time though, and a top 3 ATG because his record is so ridiculously good. He has to be one of the best boxers ever, you don't achieve such feats unless you're a special fighter.

 

I hear you, and agree with you to a large extent. But how many of these wins are against world class opposition?

 

Great post. Pernell was also strong as he'll. Very underrated strength

 

Was supposed to be hell. Damn spell check

 

It's hard to say how well Whitaker would do in that era.
In his career 1984 to 2001 he only had 46 fights.
The 1940s - 50s era would put far greater demands on a lightweight fighter.
Just one example: Ike Williams had 154 fights in his career 1940 to 1955.

 

You would have to ask someone more schooled on Greb's resume. I do know he's considered by many to have the toughest resume of all time. There will be a lot of average guys in there that's for sure though.

 

Well this is half my point.

Tons of footage of modern greats against other greats, yet there's no footage of some fighters and half their resume is filled with nobodies, yet they get more love because it's from a bygone era.

Not knocking Greb in particular, but I'm just sick of "oh in *insert fighters day* you had to fight 147 times" "He was so great but there's no footage, so I'm just going on hearsay".

Not that I'm saying someone like Floyd is the GOAT, but we have footage of titans like SRL and Duran. Yet for some weird reason they could never be viewed as the GOAT, yet someone with no footage and an inflated record can? Madness.

 

Duran and Leonard are both top 10 ATG's. The only boxers rated greater than those two imo are SRR, Armstrong, Greb and Pep. Maybe Benny Leonard. The thing is guys like Greb might have a lot of bums on his record but he also has a lot of world class guys on his record and beat more greats than the likes of Duran and SRL so that's why he's considered greater by historians.

 

But surely if you fight 160 times in an era which is more loaded, you'll claim more scalps?

How many guys in the top 10 of most historians lists is there actually footage of?