Having read a few threads I was interested to know if being an ATG is just about who you beat or whether other factors are involved? There is a camp who say it is all about who you beat and how long your reign as champ lasts while another camp looks at social significance and charisma. For instance Virgil Hill was a very good champion but when he fought ATGs in Hearns and Jones he came up short. Then you have guys like Beau Jack, he only won two title fights but was a huge crowd favourite and sold out the Garden a record number of times. Barry McGuigan gets a lot of stick but at the time in Ireland he was a hugely significant sportsman and a colourful character, he beat a great champion in Pedroza and was undermined by management problems which probably stopped him holding the title longer. Is this the difference between ATG and hall of famer? ATG is about your record while HOF is about your impact on the sport as an entertainer?
It's all about whom you fight, really. When you have enough sack to take on the real tough guys, one has to expect the odd blemish on records, or a number of them. I dare say a lot of the precious zeros today's crop brag about would be nonexistent in an era where you had to actually risk a thing or two occasionally.
It's the most subjective term in boxing. I try to take it literally in that an atg is someone who's greatness transcends time. I think it has to be more than just resume. It has to be more than just achievement. It has to be about skillset and x-factor as well. It's not a set number of boxers within a division, it's a select group who meet whatever criteria you are comfortable with. The summary I was most comfortable with (not in names but in theory) was mcgrain's hw thread from a while back. He had 14 hw's he was comfortable calling great. He had wlad as his 15th and was debating whether or not the group should be extended to include him. That's how I see it. Some divisions might have none, some might have twenty.
I'd say who you beat is the most important single factor. Lots of fighters look skilled and seem highly capable, but none of that is certain unless tested against other greats of proven dominance and ability.
People say "it's who you beat" but then you still have to make subjective judgments on how good that opposition was. You basically have to make a call on whether beating A, B and C is better than beating X, Y and Z ..... and that's not easy.
Depends on how detailed d record is . boxrec with their small letters and biographies is a good even if not perfect so far 4 knowing d true record . 1 should also know d truth behind d record , which sometimes a few letters below d record might not b easy 2 describe in exactness . D records r misleading more often than not : Ali , Hopkins , Leonard , RJJ , WSJ , Langford , Greb , Louis , Benn and Eubanks benefit vastly from going by their "record" . Oppositely , there r many fighters whose records mislead 2d other direction : Juan LaPorte , Jorge Lujan , Sanderline Williams , Tony Thornton . Who is considered great by most is decided by that fighter's promoter and that promoter's amount of interest in that fighter . some ppl get mislead more than others , those some r unfortunately d majority and then they go spreading d legend of lie .
Good answers all round. I agree it is difficult, especially with fighters from the era when 200 fights over a career was a norm. How to compare Sugar Ray Robinson with 190 wins to Roy Jones with 56 wins? On paper it is a no contest and SSR seems vastly more experienced with far higher level of opponent, but then you see the sublime skills and conditioning of RJ on video and you start to think well maybe he had a chance!
What I tend to do is go back to the first great in each division (i.e. Genuinely achieved greatness there) and that's kinda my cutoff as an atg so anyone in that tier or above i'd call atg.
