Does the swarmer tend to get, I don't want to say, overlooked, but do they tend to suffer the most from head to head rankings and hindsight ATG ratings? Considering that: They tend to be smaller than the bigger, more one punch powerful heavyweights. (these are frequently the guys who are refered to as "too small") They are often the most popular heavyweights at the time, because of their style and excitement levels, because of their popularity after they are done they tend to get labeled as being over rated. and most, importantly, Because of the huge amount of conditioning that they require, along with energy and punch volume that they need, plus the tendency for some of them to leave pieces of themselves behind, they tend to have shorter shelf lives than your boxers and big punchers? Look at four of the best swarmers of all time. Dempsey, Marciano, Frazier, Tyson. They seem to all have peaks for about four-five years. Boxers can rely on defensive knowledge and being smarter to give them longer careers. Punchers never really lose their punch. You are not going to see a swarmer have a twelve year title reign like Louis. You are not going to see a swarmer come back and score big wins in their 40's like Foreman. The age of Lewis went on for about twelve years. Because of their shorter "eras" the volume of great fighters who come along during their reign is bound to be less. They simply don't have the longevity to clean out the old, defeat the same age fighters, and also slap the new prospects around the way that many other types of fighters can. But does this make people tend to underrate their peak chances and how good they were at that peak?
Its a very good observation, one that I also tend to agree with although Marciano seems to be the only fighter who gets the benefit of the doubt based on his properly timed exit at the top. I tend to judge fighters on what they did when they were on top, when they were relevant in merit and not just name value. In terms of ranking those fighters above 1. Marciano 2. Tyson 3. Frazier 4. Dempsey
I think these are two different issues. One is their fighting ability and how good they are at their peaks, and the other is their legacy. On a h2h basis they tend to do better than they do on a legacy basis, mostly because of their short time frame. Tyson's a perfect example. I would assume almost everyone would rate Tyson higher on a H2H basis than a legacy basis. But I don't think one impacts on the other. For example on a H2H basis Tyson could be top 5, on a career accomplishment list he might be closer to mid teens. So he's hard to rank as a fighter, if both criteria are mixed into the equation, close to inside or outside the top 10 seems like a common rating. So essentially you have three ratings for each fighter: A h2h rating, a career and longivity rating and a blend of the two to get where a fighter is on the ATG list.
Mike Tyson beat more ranked fighters than all 3 of those guys, i dont see why his legacy gets underrated. Perhaps the legacy of frazier and dempsey are overrated. I mean carpentier is one of dempsey's top wins, lets be realistic, bruno, ruddock and tucker would all smash him up. I mean i honestly dont see how anyone can rank dempsey higher. Beating an old holmes is much better than beating an old willard. Spinks is by far greater than carpentier. Dempsey only defended his belt like 6 times and didn't fight the top black guys. I hope someone can help me out and confirm that tyson beat more ranked fighters than all 3 of these guys.
Frazier beat arguably the greatest fighter of all time in as close as damn to his prime but is never rated that highly its a hard one to figure. A prime Frazier H2H defeats everyone but Foreman, Liston and maybe Lewis.
