My Top 25 Fighters of the Last 25 Years- what do you think?

Yeah, its hard.

Just to answer a few things.... hagler may be a little high on my list but look what he did to prime Hearns, he also beat a rejuvenated Duran & the unbeaten power punching John Mugabi. Looking back, I have placed Hagler too high but he deserves a mention for those 3 wins alone.

I debated with myself about Hatton & Eubank but I truly feel that Naseem was a special talent that should have been better but still did enough to warrant a place albeit placed under what SHOULD have been his main mini-fab 5 rivals... EM, MAB, Pac & JMM.

Now for Morales I knew I was gonna get stick for placing EM above Jones, it was almost the other way around but the main reason is that Erik`s divisions were always in the top 1-3 as far as being the toughest, especially at 122 & 126. Jones IMO would still have dominated a tougher 175 lb class but not as easily.
Morales always fought the best & on most occassions he even beat other great fighters by not even fighting to his strengths (long range boxing) instead giving us, the fans some of the greatest moments in boxing history by showing his versatility & slugging.

Ive always felt Morales whole skillset was overlooked because of the wars, most assume he is more of a slugger with a lot of heart when he is sooooo much more.
I thought he bested MAB thru 3 fights + beat slightly better fighters outside their trilogy anyway & as much as I genuinely do like Pacquiao, I truly feel that Morales was NOWHERE NEAR his peak even in beating Pacman the 1st time. Admittedly, Pac was still approaching his own peak but I know which fighter Id rather be going into the fight.
LWT came too late & far too many wars later for EM & I still thought he beat Diaz with absolutely no legs whatsoever.

Morales, to me, was possibly the best ever at 122, phenomenal in every department, really fast, strong, incredible balance & foot movement, a chin of iron, unbreakable will & a tremendous finisher.

I better stop here but I truly believe that Erik Morales is one of the most underrated fighters of the last 30 or so yrs.

:thumbsup

 

1) Sure it was a farce but it was just a demonstration of the size difference. Most would say BHop & Roy are equal sized men...if Tito was too small for Roy, then so was he for BHop. Tito was nothing great at MW, his resume at MW is no better than the likes of Jesus Chavez at SFW...sure he was a name but lets examine the wins clearly shall we. Oh, I'll address it now, how much of a favourite Tito was over BHop is irrelevant. Must we forget Lacy was also a favourite over Calzaghe? Hardly one of the greatest wins in boxing history.

2) It was a combination of being a good fighter equal in size. Johnson was equal in size but not much more than a journeyman during that time(working 2 jobs), Eastman is a journeyman etc. Mercado again was nothing great. I predicted Taylor to beat Hopkins, whilst I predicted Hopkins just the fight before to beat Eastman and Hopkins still lost 4 rounds to Eastman. They were not separated by size but by skill. My point is, BHop either beats up simmilar sized journeyman fighters, or smaller elites(see DLH, Tito, Winky). Whenever he faces someone who is a combination of both equal in size and skilled(see Taylor, Joe & RJJ), he LOOSES!!!

3) Ive already stated that Pac proved his worth in the FW & SFW and even became LW champ. Pac is a full on bonafide FW and Morales deserves all the credit in the world. Other than beating Joppy what did Tito do at MW? Other than loosing to BHop what did Winky do at LHW?

4) The pace wasnt the issue with the taylor fight. Look at their punchstats, Hopkins as usual did what he did, he bored the crap out of his fans by slowing the pace down to his own pace, still he was outboxed, outlanded each round. Winky took Taylor to a draw, suddenly he baloons up to LHW, very clearly looking overweight and BHop dismantles him. Explain that one to me son.


Hopkins is perhaps one of the most overrated modern day fighters. He was very lucky to have to very small ATG's come up to him in weight to boost his name...had they not he would still have 20 defenses but you guys would completely change your tune.

 

What a difference one fight makes - some people on here would hang you for rating Floyd above Bernard now.

 

25 will take far too long so here is 5.....

Chavez
Jones
Whitaker
Mayweather
Morales

 

No argument :huh

You do know that these lists are p4p & Lewis was the much bigger guy than Holyfield & was closer to his prime when they fought & still struggled the 2nd time they fought right ?

Lewis wouldnt come near my top 10, you should actually be thanking Pacman84 for having him on the list in the 1st place, look at the size of the big ****, he should have steamrolled Holy, ****ing hell.

atsch

 

If you DONT think Morales controlled that fight then you are almost as thick as Harold Lederman... you fail to mention that Zaragoza had never been stopped, 39 or not, & EM was only a 21 yr old kid that was stepping up to that level for the very 1st time, Zaragoza tried everything he could to make his experience tell but the well schooled Morales took his time like a veteran & slowly took the old dog apart.
From rd 5 onwards it was all Morales, good performance for a fighter so young IMO.

 

what about jeff fenech, look at some of the fighters he beat

Daniel zaragoza,steven McCory,carlos zarate,Victor Callejas,Azumah nelson, greg richardson,marcos Villasana,samart payakaroon, one was olympic gold medalist and other all world champions and he was a 3 times world champ at 118,122,126, not a bad fighter and should be in the top 25.

 

What would you say about Whitaker and Chavez's career from 1990 onwards?

 

Holyfield deserves to be ranked over Lewis. Holy was at least equal to lewis at heavyweight and was the unifef cruiserweight champ.

Toney is not overrated at all. Jones is overrated, he sould not be number 2 IMO.

 

I really disagree with you that McCallum beat Toney in those fights as I have actually seen both fights countless times.

McCallum put 2 very good performances.

He was very competitive but there was no doubt IMO, especially with the 12 th round that Toney deserved it. Toney's overhand right hand was the dominating blow and McCAllum was out on his feet in the last round. Sean Ogrady had it 7-3-2 for toney. I had it a little closer.


The second fight: McCAllum much busier and landed more shots but Toney landed the only hard shots. McCallum's shots did not carry a lot of power. Lederman had it 115-112 Toney. I agree with this score.