Do what you got to do. You've been on my ignore list before, it can happen again. You haven't responded to anything of substance from what I've actually said. Same defensive pattern for the last 3 pages.
I don't either. I think me and you don't get what P4P is, or we just take it too "literally." When Dempsey ranks him 3rd, he probably isn't factoring H2H though. So it's not too crazy I guess.
Gotcha... I'd be curious to know. Maybe make a thread on it again like you did (I heard things were revamped since then).
Floyd won the heavyweight championship at 21 , was about 27 when he fought Liston and had been boxing professionally for 10 years. Floyd could have been intimidated by Liston,but I don't think you can pull the youth card here. As for Floyd personally wanting to fight Liston,I dunno. There's a story isn't there that Patterson insist on fighting Liston after meeting President Kennedy . One of Kennedy's questions to Floyd was "When are you going to fight Sonny Liston?" Kennedy had just been reading from the cue cards his advisers had given him,but Floyd interpreted the question as a demand from the President for him to fight the number 1 contender. After he flew back from the White House ,he insisted against Cus' objections that the fight be made. There could be something to that theory. To aid the promotion and stir up interest,who picked Floyd to win in the return fight?
I have always felt that acomplishments have to be given higher weight than head to head when ranking fighters, because the former are facts while the latter are hypothetical. If you rank fighters based on who would beat who thgen you might just be ranking Mike Tyson on the basis that he would beat James Douglas 10 times out of 10. Lets face it, if our head to head predictions were any good we wouldn't have to work for a living.
I've heard a similar story too. Patterson went to the white house after winning his fight, and Liston just came off a win of someone too. And Kennedy said something like, "I think those two should fight now, that would be great." Referring to Patterson/Liston after both came off a victory. Patterson took this as almost an obligation. He insisted he had to fight him and Cus although fought him about it - eventually caved in and agreed. Patterson thought on it was "The president wants me to fight him."
I have seen some fighter gain a maturity later on in there Career and i do not think Patterson was past it physically, as a matter of fact, despite a bad back gave Ali a decent go and beat Bonevena in the garden before he retired. i think Floyd learned how to relax in the ring later on. I think Patterson froze when hurt much like Vlad did against Sanders, they both got up but did not know how to survive George Foreman also learned how to relax later in his career and this helped his stamina. Jerry Quarry when Young was a strong heavyweight but IMO was mis managed by his Dad, later on when he had the right training and connections his body was starting to feel the effects I think there are many area's of maturity with fighters and some are late bloomers and hit a point in life where they put it all together or overcome a weakness and a lot of that is mental and experience of being in it. I read a book that Patterson wrote years ago and he was from my neihborhood, I think but he decribed a lot about himself. Later on I became good friends with his brother-in -law and spoke with Floyd many times. Floyd and his brother-law felt he could beat Ali if it had not been for his back. I did not agree but I was temped to place a bet. Floyd was a class act and had to overcome the pressure of being Champ so young, it took him a while but he was well liked I heard that story you mentioned about Kennedy, not sure where but very interesting. I remember then building Liston up as a ex-con but in reality he only did a few years but back then it was a big thing.
Prince: I advise you to put me back on your ignore list . This will be fun. What I don't understand about so many who have Rocky so high at heavyweight is why the same group does not rate him higher pound for pound. I personally rate him higher pound for pound than I do straight up at heavy. I would not bet on any fighter his own size over him excluding Langford.
A fair question. Personaly, my pound for pound rankings are skewed towards fighters in the lower weight classes. I think that if Jimmy Wilde weighed 200 lbs and did not suffer any penalty due to the laws of physics, his punches might literaly decapitate his opponents. For any heavyweight to make my pound 4 pound list he is going to have to prove a lot.
Agreed. I factor it in to a much lesser extent. You can't ask fighter a to best fighter b when circumstances never allowed. Likewise, you can't penalize fighter a because you may think fighter b had a chance to win.
I put head to head little, if any consider, Its all guess work, we both can huff and puff until the cows come home if Holmes can beat Marciano or vice vesa, but the thing is we will NEVER know. We can guess, we can fight, but until we have some time machine, we never know. Head to head is all guess work imo. I rank Marciano over Holmes because the Rock clean out his era, and fought the best, than Holmes with his strings of ten-0 or 15-0 fighters. Sure Rock may have only defended 6 times to Holmes 20, but the Rock beat a better field of fighters imo. And when Marciano did retire, there was relly no one out there at the time of April 27 1956. As said before head to head is guess work, I dont ever put that as a factor. Rules, gloves, have all change in the last 50 plus years since the Rock. Mayweather can outpoint Bat Nelson in 12 rounds, but put it in 45 rounds, and Nelson wins it. If I used head to head to rank fighters, than I would be rich and never would go to work like Jant said. I get fights wrong. So a fighter from 50 years ago vs todays fighters are ifs ands or butts. Its mostly what they did in there own time, than head to head.
I don't understand how you can judge a fighter just on their records without making an assessment of their head to head abilities. That sort of approach is not particuarly interesting to me. Incidentally,I rate Walcott highly because of the skills he showed,even though people can dismiss him because of the(often inept)losses he suffered throughout his career. Interesting,you'd think Floyd a shorter fighter whose strong suit was lightening quick combinations would noticeably decline as a fighter as he went into his thirties.These types of fighters generally don't have long primes.Maybe his boxing ability as a top-class amateur helped him tighten up his defence as his speed decreased and increase his longevity.Of his later fights,I've only seen the second Ali one.I might check them out..
