It's disgusting how the old fighters get extremely overrated!!!

Discussion in 'World Boxing Forum' started by Osiris2k, Jun 30, 2008.


  1. the cobra

    the cobra Awesomeizationism! Full Member

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    Jun 30, 2008
    It goes both ways. It's a very difficult topic to really base an opinion on. I do believe a big part of the reason older fighters win most of the debates between them and current fighters is that most of the debates compare the best of today to the best of all-time. For instance, Roy Jones probably would have beaten Billy Conn or Jimmy Bivins or several other greats at his weight, but if you compare RJJ to a guy like Ezzard Charles, who you can tell just by watching him fight that he is a vastly superior technical boxer than anyone Jones has faced, a harder puncher than anyone Jones has faced, and has enough speed to land and with his skill level land quite frequently on Jones, it's hard to see RJJ going 15 rounds, or even 12 with a guy as complete a fighter as Charles. To say the fighters of the 40's were primitive compared to the modern boxer is ridiculous. Watch Willie Pep fight and tell me PBF is more technically skilled than him. Modern boxing greats can beat a lot of past greats, but most of the mythical match-ups are the current greats against the absolute best of all-time. To use PBF again, I'd favor him over Antonio Cervantes but not Aaron Pryor. Speaking on how older fighters are rated on ATG lists, you have to go more by what they were for their era than how they compare to the best fighters in the world 40 or 50 or 60 years later. That's a more just and fair way of measuring a fighter's greatness.