If you get a chance,read the threads in the General Forum about him from the past few weeks,and you might change your mind about the "TODAY" part of your statement.
Yes,that's true.You said it yourself.I don't like Hamed at all,but I'll admit to his-like you said-being very good.He had impressive power and a pretty decent resume.Although,I don't find him to be an "accomplished boxer".Effective,yes,accomplished,no.But he happens to be a massively polarizing figure.Even though his detractors(like myself) hammer him,his fans on the General claim him to be this atg featherweight and make numerous excuses for his loss to MAB.They use his performances against pretty good,but nothing special,fighters like Steve Robinson,Augie Sanchez or past it Kevin Kelly,as proof of how "prime" Hamed would have beaten MAB(or even Morales,Pac,Sanchez,the list goes on and on),which of course,is ****ing ridiculous.There are obviously more negative responses to Hamed than positive ones,but the positive ones are ridiculously hyperbolic and make him out to be "invincible" when he was "prime".
Oscar De La Hoya Won titles at lower weight classes by just oversizing smaller men and lost in every big fight barring Vargas he had. How he made so much money and had the amount of popularity he did baffles me when in the biggest fight of his career he chose to get on his bicycle for the second half of the fight. A good fighter who was potrayed and made into a superstar.
You're making it sound like Bowe lost the trilogy when in fact it could be argued that he beat Evander Holyfield 3 times. He was a great fighter, he was definitely above Buster Douglas and Greg Page and frankly his resume is weak because certain fights didn't materialize when they should have. Lewis fight would have actually went down but Lewis lost to McCall. I used to have a link but Im too lazy to find it right now. It was supposed to in 1994 after Bowe lost the title Holyfield he had no more leverage to use against Lewis and Neuman decided that it's best to make this big money fight. It was also supposed to happen in 1996, Bowe camp hadn't really followed through on the Tyson offer and decided to fight Lewis instead (by that time I think he would have lost). Then came Golota who basically ended Bowe's run as an elite fighter. It's the reason Golota fought Lewis in 1997 instead of Bowe fighting Lewis. So it's not out of the question that Bowe can get overrated but using that reasoning is a little flawed I suppose. Well, that and the fact that Bowe typically gets rated appropriately on ESB. Thing is Foreman winning the title was for history and it was to some extent a novelty. There are double standards involved and they are frankly, acceptable double standards. I coudln't hold his second career against him but his first career is not worthy of a top 10 ranking his second career combined gives him the boost to get there. Was he overrated? If he's in your top 5 definitely.
You're correct and I'm in total agreement. Foreman regaining the title 20 years later is unbelievable. Ali and Tyson were able to do it 10 years later, which is an awesome feat in itself. But I prefer dominant reigns where title defenses reach double digits. Maybe not the most overrated fighter of all time but having Foreman in the top 5 is overrating him. I personally have him at #8 based off his championship win over Moorer.
#8 is fair and when you look at his resume it's hard to rate him higher. he has impressive wins over a frazier and norton, and of course the big comeback over moorer. solid wins over chuvalo and lyle round out the 70s. however, he also has losses to ali, young, morrison, holyfield, briggs or schultz (he lost one of them). he also looked like **** against stewart and moorer. more than any fighter in the top 10 except frazier, he relies really on one or two opponents and one win (1st frazier imo) to make his claim. take that away, even with the moorer victory, i don't know how high he places.