Reverse a loss from any fighter that would have the biggest impact on thier legacy

I suppose Sullivan losing to Corbett, Jeffries losing to Johnson, Louis losing to Charels/Marciano, and Ali losing to Leon Spinks, if reversed with the older champion retiring after the fight would really help their legacy.

I am for leaving the action ot the fights alone, and focusing on bad decsions of the judges that robbed the better man of victroy.

Norton vs Ali III....Norton should win, and if he does he is 2-1 vs Ali, and perhaps passes Frazier on an all time list. In fact this is a good idea for a thread.

Holmes vs Spinks II....Holmes should win. Winning back a title at Holmes age is a rare feat. It would up his standing a tad. If Holmes had beaten Spinks, he probably stays active. As it was Holmes retired, took too much time off, then made a mistake of comming back vs a prime Mike Tyson.

Lewis vs Holyfeild I....Lewis won it. The draw was bogus. I hate it when mega fights are soiled by bad decsions.

Chavez vs Withaker....Whitaker won it. The draw was bogus. I hate it when mega fights are solied by bad decsions.

 

Arturo Gatti - Gatti vs Mayweather
Floyd Patterson - Patterson vs Liston I
Felix Trinidad - Trinidad vs Hopkins
Ken Norton - Norton vs Foreman
Roy Jones - Jones vs Tarver II
Joe Frazier - Frazier vs Foreman II
Naseem Hamed - Hamed vs Barrera
Jim Jeffries - Jeffries vs Johnson
Mike Tyson - Tyson vs Holyfield II
Muhammad Ali - Ali vs Holmes
Roberto Duran - Duran vs Hagler
George Foreman - Foreman vs Ali
Alexis Arguello - Arguello vs Pryor II
Sonny Liston - Liston vs Ali II
Archie Moore - Moore vs Marciano
James Douglas - Douglas vs Holyfield

 

Tunney v Dempsey II, Dempsey becomes the first HW to regain the title, can't get a much bigger legacy impact than that

 

Armstrongs draw with Garcia, though not a loss, had it been a win would have given Hank the Middleweight title as well

 

Patterson vs Liston 2 nobody gave Patterson a chance due to the first fight and if he had won he would have become the first three time world champion. Henry Armstrong vs Ray Robinson had a past prime Armstrong beaten a prime Robinson there would be little doubt he was greater both head to head and pound 4 pound.

 

Prince Naseem Hamed's loss

 

I cant think of a bigger effect on a legacy than on Michael Spinks loss to tyson. If Spinks wins this, he is a legitimate top 10 heavyweight, who is undefeated. In fact, if you use a bit of imagination, it is possible that Spinks would gon to a couple of easy title defenses, for arguments sake, he could easily beat say a large modern heavy like Bruno, followed by old George Foreman and maybe even Evander Holyfield. That would Leave him as undefeated World champion with a a 5-0 record against hall of famers. Arguably, it could leave him as the greatest of all time!


The second biggest effect of a loss would have to be Jeffries. If he is able to reverse his loss to Johnson, he becomes an automatic top 3 -5 and it difficult to argue against him being considered the greatest of all time. Plus, there would be some winning film to consider. Especially if we assume Johnson still maintains his long standing dominance.

the third bigget effect is probably John L Sullivan. If he beats Corbett, he is not considered an LPR fighter, but simply retires as theunbeaten champion of the world.

Fourth biggest reversal would be Schmelling. If he were able to assert dominance over Joe Louis, there would be many people putting his name forth as the greatest of all time.

Fifth biggest reversal would have to be Vitali Klitchsko. If he reverses his loss to Lennox Lewis, he proves to be the undisputed champion and with his size, power and the victory over Lewis, he has a solid reign as undisputed champion before retiring, leaving a legacy of a top 10-20 fighter for sure and arguably higher. With the loss though, he is just an unproven difficult to rate fighter who may fit somewhere in the top 100 depending on personal preference.

 

Actually, Just one more worth mentioning was Tommy Burns. His loss to Johnson really wrecked his legacy as it set him up as a small middleweight with no power to hurt real heavyweights in the eyes of most. This is probably a little unfair. In fact he had a large number of title defences and was the first fighter ever (and arguably the only heavyweight champion right up to Ezzard Charles or Walcotts era) to defend against allcomers including blacks. If he had beaten Charles, hed have probably fought Langford and size wise that was a close matchup. There is every chance that Burns could have been considered as one of the all time greats if he had beat Johnson. Interestingly, if Burns had beaten Johnson, he would have (assuming he fought the same opponents that he really fought) retired in 1920 after losing his 20th (give or take a round or two for my bad maths) title defence and holding the title for 14 years. Through the course of his career he would have defeated solid fighters like Marvin hart, Johnson, O'Brien, Pelkey, Moran etc. In fact according to boxrec, shortly before his last fight he would have actualy fought 4 fighters in the one night and beat them all before having to retire with the Spanish Influenza. In these circumstances, you would lso expect his legend to grow, since it is clear that James Jeffries retired before he actually faced Tommy Burns (ducking?). Would all of this make him the no 1 of all time. In reality, it is quite possible.

 

I know it doesn't. Larry, in my mind, if he retired undefeated, 50-0, I would rank him at 2. I currently have him at 4. But also, if he retired 50-0, he would have 23 defences, and I think he would have went for the 26 just to pass Louis's record, and if he did that, then I would rank him #1.

 

I rank him as if he did all that anyways. (But it took me a long time to come around to that conclusion.)

 

Why?:huh

 

That raises another thought in my mind. What would have eventually transpired if Griffith had not beaten the count when Paret floored him in their third meeting? Benny would have still eventually met his demise as he did, but Griffith might not have been as adversely effected as he was. What if Griffith had taken care of business in his title defense against Paret? Benny might have retired and lived, Gene Fullmer might have posted a few more wins (instead of Paret being his final career victory), and again, Griffith might not have been as adversely affected as he was. (Sometimes, the more humane behaviour in a boxing ring is to dispatch an opponent you care about as quickly as possible, the way Louis did with John Henry Johnson, or as Dempsey did with his pal Miske.)

 

Holmes had only one match in 1984 (Bonecrusher Smith), and he was thwarted from defending the title against Larry Frazier while being forced to wait for Cooney. I felt he should have already had the records of both Marciano and Louis in hand, by the time of his title defense against Mike Spinks.

He did surpass Louis and Marciano in a few dramatic ways. On page 90 of the 1957 Ring Record Book, there is a listing of: MEN WHO WERE UNDEFEATED WHEN THEY WON WORLD TITLES. Only Jack McAuliffe, John L. Sullivan, Willie Pep, Vic Toweel, Jimmy Carruthers and Rocky Marciano had not been held to a draw at the time of winning their titles. In 1985, against Carl Williams, Larry Holmes became the first of the subsequent names on that list to reach 20 successful title defenses, a staggering achievement for an undefeated boxer to realize. Furthermore, he successfully defended his title in eight consecutive calendar years, where as Joe Louis set the time span record for all divisions with the aid of a hiatus of over three years during WW II. Perhaps Ali would have trashed all these records, if his draft status had never been reclassified from 4-F to 1-A, and he is one of my three co number ones. (Dempsey is the third.)

Marciano may have gotten to 49-0, but could he have gotten to 20 title defenses in eight calendar years as Holmes did?

Where Larry really blew the doors off of everybody else in my view, was by recovering from his devastating loss to Tyson, by shrewdly dominating undefeated Olympic Gold Medalist Mercer over 12 rounds, at age 42. Marciano, Louis and Ali could not have done that, and Foreman knocked out Moorer with a single punch. (Moorer was also a former light heavyweight who had been floored by a severely hampered Holyfield in winning the title. Mercer was a big boy from the get go, who unlike Moorer, was apparently impervious. For Larry to win, he had to prevail over the 12 round distance.) Moorer may have been the lineal champion, but I think Holmes/Mercer was a more impressive performance than Foreman/Moorer. Finally, a real case can be made that Tyson and Holyfield were Larry's only two legitimate defeats.

Holmes and Foreman were competing at the top at an age when Marciano was boxing Ali in a staged performance. Can you imagine Marciano making a successful comeback against Ellis or Frazier in 1969? Ridiculous! Yet Holmes and Foreman did it. Between the two of them, Larry obviously had the greater championship career. I also think Holmes would have had the best chance at defeating all of history's other champions.

I rate Dempsey as a co-number one because of his performance capacity against Willard. Yes, Jess was ready to be taken, but Dempsey would have been a menace against anybody on that occasion.

 

Nice post and all, but I think your a little :nut

 

Mcguigan/cruz