Teddy Atlas: "Without longevity you can't be great."

Im sorry, cant handle your madness anymore, you talk MADNESS

 

He really does, hasn't got a clue.

 

In what way? If you have a style that's going to shorten your prime, then that has to be seen as a flaw in the style and hence in the fighter fighting with that style.

Don't get me wrong, I think both Armstrong and Frazier were great, but they would have been even greater had their primes lasted longer. And if this is because their physical stature forced them to adopt a style that results in a short prime, then their physical stature is the short-coming that prevented them from being even greater.

 

so where do you rank hopkins at middleweight and all time as he showed great longlevity but you could argue his resume not tip top in terms of names in his weight class

 

Your original post i repiled to implied that Henry Armstrong fell somewhat short of greatness because he never boxed on into his later years and achieved some success in longevity. If you read sweet scientist's post (which i quoted and agreed with), you will see why that is totally wrong.

What the man did at 147 allone is enough to make him an elite practicioner at in that division's history. What he did overall is remarkable

 

:good :good :good

 

Bingo.

 

Well, daredevil, I don't really know so much about him (my boxing knowledge is lacking in many respects compared to other posters on this forum), but the really great legacies combine longevity with impressive wins. SRR:s being the perfect example. If you're lacking somewhat in one aspect it make wour legacy a bit less great, but it can be a great legacy nonetheless. I rate Armstrong as great even though he lacked longevity, because his prime might well have been the best of anyone's. But, like most, I rate SRR even higher, because of the reasons mentioned above.

But tell me a little more about Hopkins. How great was he in your opinion?

 

I agree (see post above). I just think he would have been even greater had he had longevity. Then he would probably be my nr. 1 p4p, but as it is he falls just somewhat short of that honour.

 

That is very rude.

 

Greatness is a relative term and I sure as hell won't be taking it from the likes of Teddy Atlas's thought process. Marciano wasn't Great?, Sanchez?, Tyson?. In my eyes these were all great fighters.

 

Not sure if this is a reply to me Bokaj, but i'll gladly give my opinion on B-Hop.

I do think that 160, as a historical weight division has the tightest top 5 or 6 to rank in order, so difficult to stick with a top 4 that you're happy with. And i always had Ketchel at 5, but now Hopkins is pushing for that imo, infact , i have a toss-up between the 2 right now.

Hopkins is a true great imo, one of the very cleverest in-ring tacticians of the sport's history, a great chin, rough, and could brutalise men while never exposing himself unnecessarily. He wound up with great wins aswell, the ones against the smaller guys are criticised too much, look at what he did to them - Trinidad was a valid win at the weight, he beat one of the top MWs in the world more than convincingly, and look what happened to him against B-Hop. Oscar was never a great win at MW, but B-Hop dealed with that 1 the way any of the greats would. Against Winky, he got the tactics spot-on, he knew you dont attack Winky, so he did something many couldnt, he made Winky lead, and countered him. The Tarver win was great. And I thought he beat Taylor (an immensely talented fighter, that just wound up lacking hart) the first time. His wins over Eastman, Joppy, Echols , Johnson and the likes may be overrated aswell, i hope not, some of these were the foremost contenders to his crown at the time, what more do you want from the champ?

Hope this helps Bokaj

 

Tyson beat more ranked contenders than Foreman, had more title defenses, and was far more dominant than George Foreman.

Foreman's biggest accolade is winning the title 20 years after he lost it which we should agree is quite a feat, but in terms of ranking arguments can easily be made favoring Tyson in both accomplishments and head to head over Foreman.

What is actually criminal is the way Tyson had been undermined. Tyson is like Jack Dempsey in the 80s except he actually defended his titles.

In any event, greatness is a relative term but should be judge using objective criteria;

1. Tenure as champion
2. Quality of opposition
3. Ability as a fighter

 

i think he was a great fighter and displayed some of the best ring savvy ive ever seen on a fighter and adapted his style to suit his advancing years was still able to compete with and beat some of the best fighters in the world and you could argue he won his fights with taylor and calzaghe. If those decisions go for him his career gets looked at even better. I always looked at his time at middleweight as kind of opportunistic as he lost to roy jones and was able to become champion and dominate once roy jones and guys like toney left the division as he had veyr little competition. Some of his best wins (i.e trinidad and de la hoya) you could argue were virtue of the natural weight difference (even thought the endings and the way he was able to defeat them both was very impressive

 

teddy atlas is annoying.

oh, and he hates mike tyson.