More rubbish from The Ring...

Everything is into place brilliantly for Burns. Just prior to him moving up I asked Billy Nelson (of all people) who he thought Burns could beat out of:

Marquez
Rios
Guerrero
Katsidis
Mitchell

How lucky is it that the top 3 in the division all move up within what, 6 months of each other.

He should look to unify as soon as possible!

 

Arthur ****ing Abraham

 

This is the delectable Ms Natalie Dormer. Not as fetching as my previous avatars of Danielle Harris or Cat Power but I felt in need of a change.

 

In all fairness, the first 6 names are spot on (B Hop obviously too high)

But Sturm and Abe? Do me a favour. Darcy is a 'what coulda happened' senario. But I can't rate him highly on 'potential' alone.

 

Lee Groves response to the fans:

"I certainly understand the angst regarding the inclusion of Sturm and Abraham on this list. Here's my explanation: The title of the article is 10 greatest middleweight CHAMPIONS, not 10 greatest middleweights. I did that to narrow the scope for inclusion, for trying to include non-champions or those who made pit stops in the division would have greatly complicated the process and muddied the criterion further.

For example, Sam Langford is an all-time pound-for-pounder who had fights at middleweight. But he also fought light heavyweights, heavyweights and welterweights. The entirety of his career is more than worthy, but how complex would it be to break down his worth at middleweight, especially when he wasn't given the opportunity to win a title? Therefore, I had to narrow the scope to just those who held belts. Then, I had to examine the worth of their respective title reigns....who held the title the longest, who made the most defenses and what were the quality of opponents. I put great stock on longevity and as I was going through the roster, Sturm and Abraham ended up rising up the ranks.

There have been great fighters who have used the middleweight division as a legacy enhancer but didn't really make their bones at 160. Say what you want about Abraham and Sturm, their length of reign and number of title defenses stack up well in comparison to other middleweight champions. I said in the introduction that truly great fighters like Mickey Walker, Tony Zale and Tiger Flowers weren't included because their reigns were relatively brief in comparison to others. Unfortunately, that removed some greater pound-for-pound fighters out of the equation.

Of course, this is only one writer's opinion, and we all have opinions. Thanks for sharing yours."

 

They still wouldn't be one of 160s 30 greatest 'champions' (which neither of them have ever been BTW) and Langford? Oh, he only fought Stanley Ketchel at the weight atsch Your interpretation on how Langford handled that fight (carried Ketchel? Beaten by the better man? Had an off night? Probably deserved the win anyway?) will go towards how well you rank Langford at the weight.

Anyway, greatest middleweight champions is a great idea! Unfortunately, he also had B-Hop over Monzon, Hagler and Robinson, so needs shooting nonetheless. Also, where the **** was Kalambay? What an absolute ****.

 

Complete bollocks!

Can someone explain to me how the **** Abe has longevity when he won a vacant title and defended it for 4 years against **** poor opposition (Miranda aside)?

And these are suppose to be better middleweights 'champions' than Tiger, Walker, Middleweight Jack Dempsey and Fitzsimmons who actually were THE champs in the division?

Complete horse ****, not just in my opinion, but in almost everyone's.

 

Les Darcy wasn't even Champion and neither were Abe or Sturm according (correctly) to the Ring.

Lee Groves gets paid for this ****.

 

Yeah, no Tiger atsch Unfor-****ing-giveable!

 

As soon as Abraham fought opponents that were his own size and actually quite good, he was thrashed three times.

That ought to mean that he's discounted from being considered a great champion. Especially considering he never was the real champion anyway.

 

Zale was Champ from July 1940 until July 1947, and then had a further three month reign.

Abraham was champ for less than four years.

Strum has had a reign of four months and five and a half years.

Also unlike both Arthur and Felix, Zale was the generally recognized Middleweight World Champion for all but four months of his reign...

 

Oh, **** Darcy's in there, forgot :rofl Een his explanation is null and void. What a mong.

 

Yep, and if he was going for that then Marcel Cerdan and Nino Benvenuti would've been far better choices than those two :yep

 

This is embarrassing. I thought it was a joke when it was posted in the General. Maybe The Ring had just given some kid his own blog on their site? But no, Groves is "RingTV's resident historian". Didn't anyone check his list before it was posted ? His explanation only made things worse.

Like Dempsey with Eubank's oral sex comments, The Ring should have quickly disassociated themselves with Lee Groves' list.