Ring magazine is officially lost it

Notice how selective you have to be. Tyson, Bowe, etc are unquestionably modern.

I'll go the extra mile for you, though. Who are the Australian heavyweight beltholders in the last 50 years, even?

 

Rightly so.

The biggest statistical outlier, is part of the evidence.

 

It isn't the norm, though.

Two can play at this statistical outlier game, is what I'm saying.

Maybe every current day top 100 fighter is as talented as Greb, and you just can't tell because they're competing against equally superhuman opponents.

The odds that all the statistically anomalous fighters were born in the 1990s is no more absurd than assuming there's a Fitzsimmons under every bush circa 1890.

 

American fighters dominated the sport from Sullivan through to Holyfield.

After that, America more or less dropped off the radar, despite being the largest economy in the world.

What does that tell you?

I can understand why the former Soviet Union started to take over, but when the UK is taking over, the sport is probably not in a good place!

 

America has receded in relative importance as the sport globalized, yes. But I'm puzzled how exactly this is supposed to help your argument.

Cribb's Britain (basically just London, frankly, but I'll be generous) isn't being compared to the former Soviet Union or the United States in the size of its talent pool. It's being compared to the whole shebang. The entire modern global talent pool. The US, the UK, Russia, etc.

I am telling you that at some level, it *doesn't even matter* if you manage to prove that Cribb's third world agrarian nation is equivalent to modern Australia in its boxing infrastructure. (Leaving aside the fact that Australia is a poor example anyway because it's 2.5x larger than Cribb's Britain...)

Because at the end of the day, modern Australia's talent pool is still tiny compared to the entire global talent pool of boxing as a whole. Australia's heavyweight division is not a significant fraction of the world's total heavyweight talent. Even the a-historical, first world, science fiction version of Cribb's England that has emerged from this thread is still not likely to produce a champion capable of competing against the rest of the world in 2021.

Cribb's era was weak in the boring, objective sense of who beats whom. I feel bad having to argue this, and it's annoying to do so, because Cribb's era was awesome and I always loved the romance of that period. But it's true. Or at least that's where the evidence overwhelmingly points.

And that's also leaving aside the fact that there has been no evidence presented, whatsoever, that Cribb's England was some sort of boxing powerhouse. At least there's a fig-leaf of respectability for arguing that Fitzsimmons was an anomaly. Where is the evidence that Cribb's England was some Anglo-Saxon bareknuckle heavyweight version of modern Thailand? I'm asking genuinely. Is there any? At all?

 

I assume there’s plenty of fedora wearing, cigar chomping, rose tinted glass wearing octogenarians on that voting panel. In 150 years of HW boxing, with all due respect, it’s just ridiculous to have guys like Johnson and Dempsey included in a serious top 10.

 

Ok watch Jack then watch Hagler and see just as big of a gulf you’re welcome.

 

Yes the Hopkins of the world remained at the highest level but they weren’t at there bests which was point. No man at 39 is better then he is 24 In the sense of athletic potential.

Losing to a much smaller man is an issue- the bigger more powerful, durable ect man shouldn’t by all logic lose but of course skilled operators like Byrd exist and I imagine in his era Fitz was one such stand out. It is still a knock however to lose to much smaller frailer opponents If In theory Hagler beat up Foreman how does RIJ look then?

Ruiz was not applying that weight, was a passive soft hitting fighter and the skill gap between he and Jones was ridiculous. Spinks was no small LHW was one of the best to lace them up at his weight and happened to be one of the most sound fighters of his era against an old champion who like Ruiz wasn’t the type to apply his size advantage in the way a Frazier or a Liston would If that makes sense.

I do concede on Fitz weight. I’ve read and had Cross reference he was 164lbs at one point? I’m not an expert on the man.

But what must be considered is that a lot of Jeff’s wins were against past it smaller fighters. It wouldn’t be a knock against him if he dominated them and was left unchallenged but he struggled badly at times and it’s well documented. He simply wasn’t a huge H2H threat in any era but he did as Janitor say have a “dominant” reign before Louis and he deserves props for being a real pro and a champion but he doesn’t deserve to be mentioned alongside anyone but in his own era IMO.

He didn’t have a chance to prove himself with the available fighters ATG- he also didn’t by struggling against what otherwise should have been dominant wins.

 

"Mickey Walker" "not considered a murderous puncher at heavyweight as his predecessor Fitzsimmons. Probably because the heavyweights he faced were better."

Was Walker considered Fitz's equal as a puncher at middleweight? I don't think so at all. And certainly neither was Greb. I think this take is just a bad argument.

Langford was, but Langford, while short, wasn't that light, and has listed weights over 190.

 

My point was more that tiny nominal heavyweights considered in the same league as the biggest heavyweight sluggers were rare after Fitzsimmons.

There's Satterfield. But Satterfield only achieves that kind of punching power by swinging for the fences.

Walker and Conn did it by simply being exceptional boxers. Same as RJJ. Even Moore wasn't considered a monstrous heavyweight puncher like Fitzsimmons was.

 

"dominant reign"

This and a strong pre-championship run is what I judge on. h2h is not my bag.

"he also didn't by struggling against what otherwise should have been dominant wins"

So twice defeating a man clearly and decisively whom no one else bested legitimately in 14 years is not good enough? Quite a standard. Ali's win over Foreman doesn't even match being the only man to beat this opponent over 14 years.

 

I mean, I guess it's conceivable that with good enough film, we'd notice Fitzsimmons swinging away like a wild man, just like Satterfield. That, plus assuming the guy was actually 180 pounds, would make his heavyweight run a bit less anomalous. (And make Jeffries look a bit better, actually.)

 

At the end of Joe Louis's reign JJW almost pulled it off (He did IMO) and no one is gonna say he could beat the best of the Bomber.
If Hagler a MW went up and beat up Foreman RIJ would look a lot less impressive was my point.

Anyways- I think you should consider H2H? As it's how good a fighter actually is.

 

I have a slight suspicion that that's actually what Fitz was doing with his raised front foot. He's lighter on his front foot (unlike every other boxer in history that I know of) to allow him to step out and slide into a deeper stance to power-hit.

I can't really prove this, but the manual seems to show it, and it would make some sense.

 

Because they had very lacking abilities IMO. If RJJ had been around through means of a time machine we would have people arguing he is the P4P hardest puncher not Fitz.