Pound per Pound, who was the best boxer of 1982?

Do you consider Teddy Atlas a great trainer?

 

Not particularly.

I think Teddy is a little too full of his own bull. Probably believes it too.

I think Atlas is more versatile than Rooney but both of them obviously, probably for different reasons, seem to have had trouble working with boxers for the long term. I think (and this may be because they both came up under Cus or it may be because of their personalities or some mix of both) they both try to impose themselves on fighters rather than work to try to understand the fighter and find what makes them tick and work within that.

I’m sure in some cases both can make a fighter better — probably Teddy more so than Rooney, in that he’s not locked into one system.

I think Tyson would have been a greater fighter if they had brought in, say, Eddie Futch or Emanuel Steward to work with him when he turned pro but Mike was Cus’ own Frankenstein monster so it was always going to be one of Cus’ guys. Cus had a lot going for him but he was one paranoid son of a gun and he’d fear some outsider influencing one of his fighters. Had to be a hand-picked D’Amato guy.

 

Open poll

 

What a great year and all the 80s were in boxing.. So exciting. I remember thinking even at 154 in the mid 80s you had tough guys like Buster Drayton.

 

I'm still surprised my man Qawi is not getting more love here 3 world title wins over Muhammad, Martin, Davis, not a bad 1982 for Qawi.

 

Not tainted the way it was. Hearns over Benitez for me.

 

You are probably a Hearns fan, nothing wrong with your opinion.

 

Hard fighter not to like, but not a fan as such. Had Pryor won without the black bottle his win over Arguello would trump Hearns's over Benitez, but he didn't so it doesn't.

 

We can assume but we will never know for sure, assumptions just like in the JFK assassination.

 

Well, if JFK had died of poisoning after someone had asked for "the black bottle" and then reached it to JFK who drank from it, and if that someone later also was convicted of similar things, yes, then we'd be making pretty similar assumptions.