If he never went to prison, would Rubin "Hurricane" Carter have become an ATG?

"Here comes the story of The Hurricane. The man the authorities came to blame"

Hard to tell. It is possible that he would have become world champion as his power was second to none. He could be outboxed though and,as has been mentioned,he was already past prime when he went to prison.

 

I’m not a fan of Carter and think there’s a lot of mythologising over him particularly because of Dylan’s crap song and the even crapper Denzel Washington movie.

But his power was legitimate for sure. The Fernandez and Griffith blow outs were chilling. No one came close to emulating what he did to the Uber durable Griffith.

And he fought mean. Not great but very, very dangerous.

 

I actually thought the song was one of Dylan's better ones.

 

Yeah dangerous sums him up well.
I'm a big fan of Joey Giardello who out boxed Carter quite comfortably.
The short right hand he drilled through Fernandes was chilling and the ox couldn't recover

 

Giardello was an excellent boxer.

 

I love me some Bob but I never warmed to that one. Over long, lecturing and the tune was ordinary.

Listen to it next to Positively 4th Street, Tangled Up in Blue, Subterranean Homesick Blues or Like A Rolling Stone. It doesn’t come close to measuring up imo.

 

Agreed. Blood on the Tracks is essentially a perfect album.

 

You could say this about an infinite number of fighters but i truly believe that under ideal circumstances Carter could have been an ATG, without a doubt.

Again, i fully accept there are countless fighters who we could say the same about and some we would not even know. But you give a guy like Carter that spartan like demented dedication of a guy like Hopkins and Carter would have been something. Take away the booze, the crime, the stunted and uncertain direction and what a fighter we would have.

Carter had a lot of tools and raw ability.

 

Carter was already on the way down by the time his career ended .. with his power and raw talent anything was possible it would have been based on match ups , timing and a bit of career shift ..

 

As an aside, I thought the BBC series "the hurricane tapes" did a good job unpacking the very complicated legal case of Carter and John artis

 

Does everyone in this thread realise that Joey Giardello sued over how he/the fight was "depicted" in the movie The Hurricane? It was settled of of court i.e. he won. The DVD now has Director commentary that liberties were taken in the fight scenes.

 

and LaMotta, though a great fighter, has wrongly been catipulted into such areana's owing to the success of the excellent film about his life.

there are dozens of middles far more worthy than Jake and hundreds throughout all of the weights worthy of higher praise too.

Just as a few on here have already stated about Carter being one of many, or there were loads of them, great contenders.