I see this in the general forum a lot, and it is quite irritating. If fighter A beats fighter B but loses to fighter C, A will favour B come BvC. When it comes to general attributes of a fighter (especially power), you can bet your bottom dollar that the fighter will say that the hardest hitting opponent he fought was a guy he beat. Hardly ever somebody he lost to, especially when given the choice. Yet people still rely on what fighters say, with them obviously have a huge agenda, in order to gauge power punching? Surely the good people on the classic forum have noticed this. Discuss. Ps. We are not automatically disregarding what any fighter says, but examining this irritating pattern.
It's true, though. Foreman is a good example - didn't he say that Ali was the hardest puncher he ever faced? People's opinions are skewed, both involuntarily and voluntarily. Voluntarily because they don't want to admit being beaten by anyone but a monster puncher, and involuntarily because of differing circumstances between fights/fighters. Getting caught cold by a weaker puncher will feel like a much harder punch than deflecting/rolling shots from a superior puncher. Fatigue also comes into play - punches have more effect when the receiver is tired - think Ali/Foreman in Zaire. You've also got to consider the sheer dumb luck. Look at Lennox Lewis - is it really believable that Oliver McCall and Hasim Rahman were the hardest punchers he ever faced? :good They were the only ones to ever knock him out, and they only needed one clean punch to do it...Just cause a punch/puncher knocked you out (or hurt/stunned you), DOESN'T mean that punch/combo was any harder than another. The final circumstance is that it's flat-out difficult to tell how hard a punch hits you, most of the time. Anyone ever been in a street fight? Punches ALL hurt...for the most part, and it's hard to tell which hurt the most. Anyone being tagged by hundreds of punches from dozens of different boxers (as a professional pugilist is) is probably not going to be able to name the hardest punch they were ever hit with with any reliability.
Another great example is ,Hagler edges Duran,Hearns crushes Duran,Hagler Destroys Hearns (great fight though):happy . Styles make fights.
Fighters are just people. Just like us, the great ones have their faults and jaded opinions and their pride. Pride stands in the way of their being able to admit that a loss to someone was really a loss. Instead, it was just an off night, no fault of their own. They also think they might gain credibility for themselves in saying that a guy they beat was an out of this world talent too. Not all fighters are like this of course, there are some standup guys, but lots of them can't bring themselves to admit they are anything less than unbeatable with the right conditions. I guess if they thought any other way, they wouldn't have done what they did in the first place.
The one I have highlighted is the one that should stick out at everyone. Yet people still constantly cite what one fighter has said as absolute proof of a certain fighter's punching power.
