Legacy of Muhammad Ali and Roy Jones

yeah the 78 award was rubbish. And i like Ali, he was an amazing fighter but no way he deserved to win in 78.

 

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The bottom line is you'll never ever get to see any other fighters like these two again. Ali was as much as a legend outside the ring as he was inside the ring. Ali done things at heavyweight that heavyweights weren't supposed to do, beat alot of great boxers and was probably the smartest boxer to ever live. just stayed around to long.

Jones Jr. is probably the most physically gifted Boxer you will ever see. First boxer in over 100 years to win a heavyweight title starting his career as a middleweight. Jones went a decade and absolutely without question dominated probably losing 50 or so rounds in around 40 fights While Jones don;t have the Huge names on his list as Ali he does have 2 ATG's and few other HOF's. Jones resume is not nearly as bad as others say. For personal curiousity I done some statistics of Jones and outa of Jones, Hearns, Hagler, and ray Leonard. At the time of the fight Jones opponents had the highest winning percentage.

 

Agreed.

 

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When we are discussing significance and type of historical sources, we should use historical standards and terminology. It has prevalence over general sources.

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The principles of how art (fashion, antiquities) is judged are very much different than in sporting. Bad analogy.

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First, you have answered to a different point than what I said. "Considered strong to varying degrees" is different from an epoch being called the golden age of heavyweights, which I was talking about in the passage you quoted. Second, you have answered in very broad and fuzzy terms here that can mean anything, from "strong tomato can" to "strong ATG".

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I was consistent from the very beginning, that Ali himself, and Liston, Frazier and Foreman were special fighters, compared to the rest. I never conceded anything on this point, because there was no need to. I admitted the obvious from the very beginning and has kept it that way for the whole time.

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Again, fuzzy terms "for the most part" and "deserving contenders". You are avoiding any specifics here, not offering any actual points on the matter.

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Link, please? I'm usually not noting the names of persons I debated to, and this debate you talking about, probably happened a while ago?

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Where did I say that and flatly? I've looked at all of my posts in this thread, and didn't find anything like that.

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I'm not ducking anything, I'm preserving the relevancy of discussion. Argument about Jones will move us away from discussion of Ali's opposition. Sticking to relevant points is the proper way of argumentation in debate.

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Beating a fighter with great potential (even with not so many significant achievements) clearly implies formidable opponent.
Tha Frazier quote refered to the 3rd fight between them, not to Frazier in general. For the 3rd fight Frazier was shot, not just my view, but the view of many contemporary writers from that time.
I see no discrepancy between my statements and my denial of having argued with the statement I quoted in that post.

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Ten years ago is a long time after Norton finished his career, for historical revisionism to do its work. Quote more contemporary sources instead.

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Which hall of fame are you talking about here? Quarry is not in IBHOF, thankfully. Being a ranked contender doesn't mean much. Journeymen often become ranked contenders, the guys who are good at their profession, but who almost always fall short against the best fighters of their time.

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That's what he was known for, for grabbing everyone's attention. Take that away and his all-time status would fade somewhat.

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And I already explained, that compared to some fighters from lower weights Ali is not that special, same as his opponents. As an example of specialness of heavyweights, one just has to look at how few world heavyweight champions are not in IBHOF, compared to other weight divisions.
We disagree on our views at specialness of heavyweight division, ok then. It's a subjective thing.

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Compared to most other fights of the year these fights lacked some exciting action or drama.

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As I said, you'll be hard pressed to find many more examples when a fighter gets his facial bone broken by a punch. That's why I consider it absolutely proper to call it an accident, something that happens only once in tens of thousands of fights.

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1 a : an unforeseen and unplanned event or circumstance
2 b : an unexpected and medically important bodily event especially when injurious

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That's an award you receive for an achievement in that year, it's not an evaluation of strength of that fighter. As an example, I can quote you several "fighter of the month" awards from the Ring magazine, where those fighters are not even heard anymore, because they weren't anything special all-time-wise.

 

continued from post #99

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This is getting really tiresome and time consuming with such long posts. So I'll skip some points.
1) From a historian's point of view primary source is what I said. The sources that were written at the time of the event are usually more factual and error-proof, later sources are more subjective.
2) There's a contradiction when you say "time usually provides perspective" and "sudden change of opinion happened only in your mind". I ask again, quote me some contemporary sources from that time that claimed that epoch to be special, or, especially, "Golden Age of heavyweights".
3) Theory of argumentation teaches the proper and honest way to debate things is to address the points expressed by your opponent, not the opponent himself.
4) "Most of the time" and "quality opponents were past their prime" in the same statement are connected. If you misunderstood that, I'm sorry for not wording it properly the first time, I clarified what I meant in my consequent posts.
5) Frazier was considered a shot fighter prior to his rubber with Ali, by contemporary writers. Do you dispute this?
6) A fighter of the year (or month) award is not an award that evaluates the placement of a fighter in history, or even his career as a whole. Thus it should not be used as a proof that a fighter was overall considered something special, high quality fighter/opponent.
7) I cannot quote you opinions dated 1992 when Norton was inducted into IBHOF, so that I can only quote a tendency that has been noticed by a lot of people in the recent years, about IBHOF turning into literally what it says - 'hall of fame', not 'hall of quality fighters'. The standards applied now hardly have changed, as can be seen from some of the earlier inductees from that time: Gene Fullmer (1991), Rocky Graziano (1991), Billy Graham (1992), Carmen Basilio (1990), Beau Jack (1991), Max Schemling (1992), Tony Zale (1991), Fritzie Zivic (1993).
8) Ring's magazine being an authoritative source has nothing to do with a tendency (that goes back to bareknuckles epoch) to pay more attention to charismatic persons in general and to heavyweights in particular (if you look at that statement which you quoted, I intentionally capitalized word 'AND' there).
9) I'd like to see some ratings of writers or fans who have the aforementioned three fights in Top 35 (considering there are 67 fights of the year in total so far) for excitement and drama of the action in the ring.
10) It's a terminology thing with Terrell's fight, and the definitions I quoted from a dictionary are not humorous. But I'll leave it at that.
11) Boxing writers of America is not a magazine. But in any case, a fighter of the year award is not a sign of strong all-time fighter, it's merely a tribute to something a fighter has done in that year.

 

You don't say. :roll:


5) Frazier was considered a shot fighter prior to his rubber with Ali, by contemporary writers. Do you dispute this?[/quote]


I do. So much in fact that Boxing News predicted a Frazier points win. :good

 

One doesn't exclude the other, you don't think, when both fighters are considered shot?

 

I don't think Ali was generally considered 'shot' before Manila, no.

 

So what does Boxing News tell about both of them then, what stage of their careers both are at?

 

I strongly disagree with this.

The advantage that historians have over contemporary critics of a given time period is that of hindsite. An athlete, artist, politician, musician or what have you, can't be fairly judged or evaluated until after his or her entire career has been completed, and enough time has passed for experts to effectively compare his/her accomplishments to those of their predecessors and successors. In order to determine the level of significance of a fighter's career, we have to look at every performance he's ever had along with every accomplishment and statistic. We also have to evaluate the circumstances of his career and the barriers or challenges that he had to overcome. This is not easily done while a person's career is still in progress. Then we compare this data to members of other eras. Effective comparrisons can't be made by looking at a biased critic's article that was written the day after a fighter had a flat performance. This simply is way too inconclusive.

Lastly Senya,

You often make reference to what you call " contemporary sources", which I guess means the critics of the day. You point out the negative attitudes that sports writers of that particular time said about say Ali or Frazier. You don't however, address the fact that there were also a lot of people back then who thought very highly of those fighters. What's more, you don't acknowledge the simple historical fact that every champion in history had critics who belittled his accomplishments. Louis, Dempsey, Marciano, Tyson, Holyfield and yes even Lennox Lewis ( your #1 guy ) all had contemporary critics.

 

You start out by saying you will skip some points.

Among those you skipped were those on the intellectual dishonesty of flip-flopping between an emphasis on contemporary and current sources, your retreat from some wild assertions on earlier threads, and your ever-evolving position on what you first said.

Combining all of what you subsequently stated , even in this thread, don't you think that your first post on this thread conveyed a disparaging view of Ali and his resume that was simply not warranted?

And that without your changes of position (or clarification, if you prefer), you left an unfair impression of Ali with the thread starter?