*Monzon - True or false, if he was American he'd be top 5 P4P all time?*

Robinson lost to Basilio, Fullmer, Turpin, Pender, LaMotta.

Monzon would have never lost to any of them!!

Robinson is revered because he is a black american by liberal, dumb americans.

Monzon would have owned him, Hagler, Hopkins (wait until Calzaghe ends his ridiculous claims about being great), etc. and any other middleweight in history.

 

Nope. I'm confident that Valdez was a better middleweight than anyone Hagler ever fought.

 

Maybe someone said this already, but maybe Monzon isn't as known or popular in the states because he had a more european way of fighting. If the KO came it came, but he was just out to win while exposing himself just as much as he had to. Americans don't like that, so maybe that's it. They want a killer. That attitude has spread now to other countries too, it's not just America, but the line used to be there more.

 

The very fact you mention Briscoe proves to me you don't know a whole lot about the era/s.

 

Briscoe was a genuinely dangerous opponent when Monzon & Valdez beat him. Against Hagler, he was finished.

And no, your first paragraph doesn't still stand. Hearns never proved his mettle & prowess as a middleweight, or at least not to the level Valdez did. Neither did Leonard.

 

If monzon beat a light heavyweight like conteh for example, yes his p4p ranking would have increased. I still rank him above a guy like archie moore. I mean the greatest fighter moore beat was harold johnson, every other atg beat moore, if this gets held against guys like de la hoya, it has to be held against moore too.

 

I give Basilio, Fullmer, and perhaps Pendler(Highly underated) some great shots in beating Monzon. I think if the ref lets it all goes, Fullmer has the best shot.

 

I didn't mention accomplishments. I said Hearns & Leonard never proved their abilities fully as middleweights - meaning their head-to-head standings suffer.

 

Hearns has a decent middleweight resume, outside of bennie briscoe who else did valdez beat?

 

Well Pendler also beat Carman, in a great fight though. Pretty action pack.
Robinson was still pretty good, it would not be long after loseing to Pendler, he would hold the great Gene Fullmer up to a draw. So it was not like Robinson was a corpse.

 

Several contenders. And he went tooth and nail with a dominant champion who happened to be more capable than an '87 Hagler. He looked better than Hearns, too - perhaps not as obviously speedy and skilled, but you didn't worry about him running out of stamina or getting caught with a big shot either.

One may construct a decent argument in favour of Leonard beating Valdez, since he wasn't that good with boxers (even when inspired [i.e., not in the Corro fights]), however, Valdez would beat more middleweights than Leonard would. Leonard only just scraped past a badly faded Hagler, he wasn't that good.

 

Nobody is saying that anyone other Sugar Ray Robinson was the greatest p4p, in considering all he was capable of doing as a fighter, but if they ever met, Carlos Monzon would have beaten him over 15 rounds for a decision. Monzon was the better middleweight champion. Robinson's style would have been solved by Carlos. As for the qualities of Hagler's title opponents as opposed to Monzon's, well who did Marvin fight that can be compared to Benvenuti, Napoles, Briscoe and Valdez? Emile was a better fighter all around than Thomas Hearns, Napoles was on top of his world class game in 1974, and was a more formidable challenge than was Roberto Duran when he fought Hagler, and how can any of Hagler's challengers compare to Bennie Briscoe and last but not least, Rodrigo Valdez? People who were not around in the seventies, who took up interest in boxing in the eighties or nineties seem to forget, like the boxing media forgets, how great those fighters were back in the seventies. All you read about is "Leonard/Hearns/Duran, Leonard/Hearns/Duran, Leonard/Hearns/Duran"....by these myopic boxing writers and commentators who were probably either not around in the 70's, or are senile and don't remember. Briscoe was still a monster back in '72, and would have been crowned champion that night had he fought just about anyone else. Rodrigo Valdez was even better, and crushed Briscoe in '74. Valdez had speed, power and a clever, catlike defense/offence almost like a middleweight version of 122 lb. era Wilfredo Gomez. Monzon beat them all, and proved he was the best, even with, after 1973, with a bullet lodged in his shoulder. Marvin Hagler was a legitemitely great fighter and champion, but he would have lost a 15 round decision, and one that was not disputed like his 12 round "loss" to Leonard to the "Phenom" Carlos Monzon.