is david haye the 2nd best cruiserweight ever

I'm not in these "best ever" discussions too much...

But if beating Mormeck and Macca puts you in the "best ever" for anything....we have a problem.

 

Faye is not even top 10.

 

Carl Thompson was better and so was J Nelson. Beating M&M don't make you great. The Heavweight fights have been even worse.... even Roy Jones beat Ruiz...

 

I wouldn't even have him close to best ever based on what he achieved. It is easy to rate people on talent as judged afterwards, but I think the only way to rate boxers within divisions is on what they did. As others have said, Haye barely had any world title fights, against limited opposition. While Mormeck and Big Mac were seen as challenges at the time, and rightly so, you could not have said at any point that they were all that stood between Haye and all-time greatness within the division. Had he stayed at Cruiser, defended the belts, fought the best in the division over the next few years, made his mandatories etc. then we might have gone on to consider him an ATG Cruiserweight. If Huck and Cunningham met next week we would not consider the winner to be the second-greatest Cruiserweight of all time, yet the winner of that would arguably have better Cruiserweight credentials than Haye. As it is, he was weightdrained and moved up to Heavy too soon for that. In years to come Haye will be a Cruiserweight footnote.

 

I don't think so...

1 Evander Holyfield
2 Carlos DeLeon
3 Dwight Muhammed Qawi
4 Johnny Nelson
5 Juan Carlos Gomez
6 David Haye
7 Anaclet Wamba
8 Guillermo Jones
9 O'Neil Bell
10 Vassiliy Jirov

 

I always repeat it. You cannot judge fighter based on his skills. It must be the resume. If you beat good fighters you clearly have the skills too. If you look great against average opposition, your skills arent confirmed against top opposition.

 

:think I can certainly see where you are coming from, resume makes up a large part of my decision when ranking fighters. However H2H (essentially skills compared to other greats) must also make up a part of it in my opinion. It wouldn't be fair after all to be graced with a brilliant fighter who has mediocre competition and to only take resume into account.

Thats one of the dilemmas I had with Pernell Whitaker which I raised in a thread about him and Leonard.

With reference to the thread, no David Haye isn't second, he will probably be hanging around the number 5 spot, perhaps a little bit lower.

 

In terms of resume I think Tomasz Adamek was a better cruiserweight than Haye. Haye's best win was over Mormeck, but he had looked like a fighter on the slide in his two fights with O'Neil Bell. I think Adamek's wins over Bell, Cunningham and Banks were more impressive.

 

Yeah for beating Maccaroni and Mormeck. :nut

 

Thats fair. I mean resume is the most important and it proves your skills and talent. Your fighting style is rather the addition to the resume. Its good when you compare certain fighters.

For instance: Ali, Tyson, Vitali.

You should rank them within few seconds in that order:

1. Ali
2. Tyson
3. Vitali

But take a note that:
-Tyson should beat Ali
-Vitali should beat Tyson
-Ali should beat Vitali

 

Not enough title fights at cruiser. To be great passing through a division you need to beat a great who dominated for years. Slagging Haye's record off is unfair

Going on to be heavyweight champion you only have Toney and Holyfield.

The undisputed heavyweight champion you only have Holyfield. So on a par with Toney at present.

Toney can always be outworked by an exceptional fighter. DeLeon, Jirov if he paces himself I feel beat Toney, not sure about Qawi.

Sultan was actually a cruiser fighting at heavy as is Eddie Chambers, both these guys would be 50/50 with Toney.

Haye deserves a top 5 due to the lack of years of the cruiserweight title. Apart from Holyfield I can not decide if Haye is 7th to 2nd. I would throw Adamek in the mix as well, but I am less sure about Adamek deserving a top 10 slot let alone a top 5.

If Adamek beats Wladimir he would be number 2 at cruiser just on the basis of beating the dominaten heavyweight champion.

 

:deal

Actually haye could have Been Truely Great Cruiser had he stayed there..

That being said Haye is good Cruiser as he will be remembered.:good

 

He may be the second best at the time he was active ... right behind Cunningham.

 

2 title fights. Did this thread even need to be made?

There is only one thing that Haye is going down in the history books for. The worst ducker in history. Now officially worse than Bowe.