The heavyweights really are crap, aren't they?

Ross Purrity would not crack the top 20 in marcianos era, and guess what purrity knocked wladimir out! marciano beat the **** out of cockell every round.

just like he put the fat old blob corrie sanders to the canvas right?


also i would like to add if a dehydrated wlad cant make it past the 5th round vs an unrated journeyman lamon brewster(who was shutout by ettiene and shufford), I think its safe to say a sick wlad would not go through a tough englishmen like cockell in 1 round.

 

Rocky only fought cockell as a tuneup for a bigger fight with valdez in miami in fall of 1955 or a mega fight with archie moore.

 

yawn.

circular arguments and blowhards.

great board.

 

No Purrity wouldn´t crack the Top20 in Marcianos era as he didn´t now. Why aren´t you answering my posts?

 

I'd favour Don Cockell to beat Danny Williams and Matt Skelton, which is actually enough to crack today's top 20, so I just dont agree with the idea that he wouldn't.

And I think he'd beat the James Toney of the Danny Batchelder fight, when Toney was still rated top 20. In fact. Toney looked about totally shot in the second Peter fight, which he entered as top 3 or top 5 in the world !

There's a huge question mark over how much Byrd had left when Povetkin beat him, which was enough to propel Povetkin to near the top of the ratings.

Don Cockell got rated highly at the time by beating has-beens Matthews and LaStarza, neither of whom were monsters (Matthews was really a light-heavy). Cockell wasn't much at all, but he was a decent points-scoring boxer, quite busy. He lucked out, beat some not-so-dangerous washed-up fighters and that equates to OK credentials ON PAPER.

You only have to beat two or three fat lethargic has-been oafs, or a weak-punching has-been plumped-up light-heavy or two to get a top 20 rating, or a top 10 rating ! Same today as it ever was.

"Cockell wouldn't even crack the top 20 today" isn't simply true just because someone says so.

 

The Heavyweights, with a couple of exceptions (late 60s/70s and the 90s) have always sucked. It is just you normally have a iconic champion at the top even when things are not so good.

But because boxing is not as popular in its traditional homelands of Britain and the USA, and no one country dominates anymore, less people know the Heavyweights and thus the best fighters are less well known and not worldwide icons.

 

Well, Toney never was a Top5 guy before the 2nd Peter bout. No way! What had he done to be rated so highly?

 

I dont know and I dont really care. A lot of people had Toney in the top 5, a lot of people had him winning the first Peter fight. You could ask "... but what had Peter done ?", and it goes on and on.
I remember Brewster got rated highly for beating Wladimir, but what had Wlad done since being destroyed by Sanders to make that win worth much ?
And then what did Wlad do to get rated highly after losing to Brewster ? He beat Williamson and novice Sam Peter and suddenly everyone was rating him number 1 or 2 !
See, it's not exactly difficult to get rated highly.
It's all relative. A fighter can do very little, but if all the others are doing even less he rises to the top !
That's how it works.

 

Excellent post!

 

Name 20 heavyweights of today who would beat Cockell.

 

Well, you can´t write he was Top5 and than write you don´t know and you don´t care. That takes a bit of your credibility imo.
You´re right so it isn´t that hard to get ranked nowadays - at least not with the right promoters. Toney wasn´t Top5 then and he isn´t now, if he ever steps into the ring with Wlad he would get killed. Don´t know how Wlad would have done in the 50s or how some 50s fighters would do in today´s era. Boxing changed and i don´t think you can compare them without letting your preferances get in your way.

 

There's some truth to that.
I thought the 90s were almost as crap though, I dont understand why that era would ever get highlighted as a heavyweight golden age.
Yes, I enjoyed the Bowe-Holyfield trilogy, but that's hardly a reason to imagine there were loads of quality heavyweights in the 90s. In fact, there were more quality heavyweight boxers in the 80s than in the 90s.

The 90s had flabby old men Holmes and Foreman beating some of the young rated fighters. Plodders like McCall and Bruno contesting the titles. "Heart condition" Holyfield hanging in there. Lennox Lewis progressing painfully slowly, and getting iced by McCall, Bowe ducking him then turning to crap. Ray Mercer. Michael "Don't wannna fight" Moorer.
The 90s heavyweight scene was usually awful.

 

Ok, I seem to remember Toney WAS rated highly going in to the Sam Peter fight. I'm not too bothered about HOW he was rated highly. Who did you rate as the top 5 as of end of 2006 ?

Ratings are subjective, I guess.
Maybe I'm totally wrong about this. I'd be interested to know where the magazines had them rate as of end of 2006.

 

Ring Magazine Top Ten for 2006

C - (vacant)
1 Wladimir Klitschko
2 Oleg Maskaev
3 Samuel Peter
4 James Toney
5 Shannon Briggs
6 Serguei Lyakhovich
7 Lamon Brewster
8 Nikolay Valuev
9 Ruslan Chagaev
10 John Ruiz

 

Thanks. :good
As I thought, Toney features in the top 5.