OVERRATED ATGS? Hot take it!

yet I’d favor him in a h2h matchup

 

All of them. Butterbean is the only boxer that remotely impresses me. The rest, Louis, Ali, SRR, Armstrong, it looks like something anyone could do with a little training.

 

As you say you don't like lists and your BW history is a blind spot, I've gotta say, your list is excellent imo. I almost completely agree with 1-9, but I feel Inoue is a bit out of place.

How would you compare his achievements at 118 with guys like, Rafael Herrera, Lupe Pintor and Chucho Castillo?

 

I think in terms of achievements at bantam there aren't many achievements better than becoming the undisputed champion by blasting out all your fellow champs and contenders. McDonnell (huge for the weight and undefeated in a decade who was ranked 2nd at 118 and had beaten a number of good contenders only to get bulldozed in 1 by the Monster), Manny Rodriguez (ranked 3rd by the Ring coming off wins over Moloney and Butler), Juan Carlos Payano (ranked 5th by TBRB and 3rd by The Ring prior to his controversial loss to Rau'Shee Warren in the rematch), Jason Moloney (a capable fighter who beat the best of the rest at the weight and later held the WBO title, ranked 6th by TBRB and The Ring at the time, later ranked top 3), Paul Butler (so-so fighter but still top 10 at the time and a title-holder), and of course Inoue boasts two wins over Nonito Donaire during a late-career renaissance (number 1 ranked contender coming off of wins over Oubaali, Young, Burnett, and Gaballo). The Dasmarinas and Dipaen wins don't really count for much admittedly, though the former was ranked 10th by TBRB for whatever it's worth. Of these fighters, Donaire, McDonnell, and Rodriguez were all ranked as the best contender at bantamweight at one point, while the above plus Payano and Moloney were all top 5 at the weight. Donaire, McDonnell, Butler, Rodriguez, and Moloney were all title-holders. That's a very solid resume for the amount of time Inoue spent at the weight. I think in terms of accolades, resume, and dominance, Inoue more than holds his own among the best of the bantams.
His wins may not be as flashy as Herrera's over Olivares, Castillo, Martinez, Octavio Gomez, or Borkhorsor; or Pintor's over Zarate (controversial though it is, I haven't seen it so I can't commentate on the legitimacy of the decision), Owens (may he rest in peace), Davila, Rengifo, or Uziga; or even Castillo's over Olivares, Herrera, Medel, and Rose. However, Inoue's record and his dominance I think lend a very credible spot in the top 10 and he beat everyone at the weight you could really ask of him (apart from Casimero who ran from Inoue every time he was offered the fight, but imo Inoue not fighting Casimero is less meaningful than Pintor not fighting Chandler or rematching Zarate for example). Again, bantamweight isn't my speciality so I assume I have left out a number of solid wins in the above resume summaries for the trio of Mexican bantam champs.

 

One of those things would be a completely different career, he's arguably not even top 5 at 140. He had only two notable wins over a past prime featherweight and over an ancient Cervantes. Never unified and fought in a poor era for 140. I like the guy and he was of course an immensely exciting fighter but he simply isn't close at all to being top 5.

 

When Cliff Rold did an analysis for The Ring to determine which fighters had the best records against Ring-rated opponents, Willie Pep was ranked 7th. It wasn't a perfect survey, but it was a strong indicator of how active and effective he was. He fought his first top-10 rated opponent in 1942 and his last in 1959, which is no small feat, given he was 230 fights in and over 7 years removed from the last Saddler defeat. He was even ahead on two scorecards against Hogan Bassey, who was then the Featherweight Champion of the World, before being stopped in the 9th round in 1958.

 

28% KO ratio vs a padded as hell record. I don't see how he would earn the respect of Durán, for example, he would just tunnel a hole through Pep's stomach. Same with any other atg fighters I can think of.

Sandler won 3 out of 4, all the 3 of them before the final round (arguably Pep quit in 2 of them).

As I said, I don't see Pep winning vs atg guys. I just don't buy it. I never bought it, I never will.

As a matter of fact, when the people defending him need to say "he was ahead on the scorecards when he was knocked the **** out", well.... something is not working there.

I am perfectly aware that I'm the only one on earth thinking like that, so it doesn't make much sense to defend my point here in the forum to be executed by a ton of posts. The OP asked a question about our personal opinion, and I just answered it.

 

Maybe, which ALTG wins did your top 5 get?

 

I was speaking about the way he fought, he was an amazing fighter.

 

I am also not an expert in bantamweight history but Rose at 3 seems too high to me. Would you mind going into more detail about that placement?