The Most Overrated Fighters - By Weightclass

Well you can put that down to him being very unorthodox compared to Hagler who was quite conventional and probably the most well balanced fighter of the modern era.

Most of the time that style worked for him but occasionally when it didnt come off he did look a little silly and off balance. But it was fairly rare and he had excellent athletic ability to get away with it usually.

 

Exactly.

I think people think just because MAB came up from super bantem after Hamed that he must have been the smaller man.
He had a fairly strong trunk and legs which certainly added to his size and weight but he was short and was a full grown 22 year old when he had his first fight at feather.

 

In the most simplistic terms Chavez was not as good at 140 as many people make him out to be. I'm not hating on the man he may be the best ever at 130 although there are others to be consedered as well, and his preformance against Edwin Rosario may be the best at 135. His career at 140 starts off in the right driction. He beat Roger Mayweather in 10 for the WBC tittle and added the IBF tittle by beating Meldrick Taylor. After the Taylor fight which was in 1990 his level of comption drops off. His best opoents were Hector Camacho who was also past his best would have been a great fight at 130 or 135. Great chin but not the old Macho Man, and Greg Haugen also a very good boxer but also past his best. Chavez held a 140 tittle from May of 1989 to January of 1994. During that time he did not face the WBA tittle holder(s): Juan Martin Coggi , Loreto Garza, Edwin Rosario, Akinobu Hiranaka, Juan Martin Coggi (again). Great at 130 and 135 but not at 140.

 

HW James Toney (excludes lower weight classes.)

Busted for 'roids twice, and his fans (myself included) ride his win over Holyfield all over Toneytown.

I overrate him. I'm guilty of it.

 

Kelley had him hurt.

 

overrated klitchgo brothers
underated dempsey,jeffries
overrated mayweather

 

Strawweight: Ricardo Lopez - Not really overrated per se, but you hear more about him than anyone under bantamweight, when there were fighters a lot more accomplished than him south of bantamweight.

Flyweight: Michael Carbajal and Humberto Gonzales - There's about fifteen better flyweights not inducted into the HOF than these two.

Bantamweight: Lot of underrated fighters here, can't really think of an overrated one. If forced to pick I'd say Jeff Chandler, but I don't think he is overrated. Simply others get underrated.

Featherweight: Henry Armstrong - Probably got better at 130 and up but still gets major props in this division. His record as a featherweight doesn't really back up the praise he gets, though he was just hitting prime when he kicked the division to the curb.

Lightweight: Floyd Mayweather - Not impressive at this weight.

Junior Welterweight: Kostya Tszyu - Excellent, maybe even great fighter, but his fandom far outweighs his merits imo.

Welterweight: Donald Curry - Was never great at any stage imo, though he did look very good for a while. Even at his best, I would confdently pick 20 welterweights to beat him.

Junior Middleweight: Terry Norris - Feasted on a lot of small or shelled-out fighters and his chin is liable to get him sparked by many at the weight.

Middleweight: Bernard Hopkins - Resume has a lot of fodder at the weight, even though ability wise he is up there with many of the best.

Light heavyweight: Antonio Tarver - Enjoys a massively overrated reputation based on his performances against past their prime fighters like Griffin, Johnson and of course Jones. People write off his recent losses for being past it or weight drained or whatever, which has some merit, but that should not lull people into thinking that his prime featured a much better fighter. Average is as average was.

Heavyweight - The whole entire division :good

 

Sure:

Jung Koo Chang
Hiroyuki Ebihara
Horacio Accavallo
Betulio Gonzalez
Masao Ohba
Santos Laciar
Salvatore Burruni
Effren Torres
Hilario Zapata
Pone Kingpetch
Shoji Oguma

And then there's guys that don't have the resumes, but probably more talent, like:
Yuri Arbachakov
Too Sharp Johnson
Yoko Gushiken
Chan Hee Park

:good

 

Heavyweight - Harry Wills - Made his name by beating old/shopworn black contenders like Sam Langford. His ranking is based more on his reputation rather than what he actually accomplished. Was exposed badly by a young Jack Sharkey while he was still considered the top heavyweight contender.

Runners Up:
Nino Valdez - Basically the same as Wills, was rated more on who didn't fight him rather than what he did in the ring. Was exposed badly by Bob Satterfield, and then quickly faded away.

Tyson - Gets free passes for the kinds of losses that no other fighter in history gets free passes for. For example, just look at all the "Exposed!" threads in the General Forum about Pavlik after he got embarrassed by Hopkins. Yet when Tyson loses in the exact same way (even worse, in fact), there are people that still insist it has no bearing at all on his limitations as a fighter.


Light-heavyweight - Roy Jones - His reputation as a LHW was mostly a carry-over of the reputation he had earned down at 168. He did not dominate a particularly distinguished division (to say the least), he was generally not as impressive/explosive during his reign as he was at the lower weights (with a few exceptions), and he turned down legitimate opportunities to fight Maske, Dariusz, and Jirov. No other top fighter has ever been flattened the way he was by Tarver, nor so utterly impotent against Glen Johnson. I know a lot of people feel Roy should be excused for those fights, but the fact remains he was still the top P4P rated fighter just prior to them.


Super-middleweight - Ottke - I don't think I've ever seen him win a decision that wasn't questionable at the very least. IMO, he should probably have about 5 or 6 losses on his record.


Middleweight - Cerdan - He shows great form in the ring, and has great numbers, but he simply didn't win enough big fights to support the acclaim he gets. Maybe he really was as good as people speculate, but it's still only speculation.

Runners-up:
Rocky Graziano
Rodrigo Valdez
Bennie Briscoe

(Sorry, but I'm too lazy to go into any more details, so you'll just have to take what I can give! )

Welterweight - Don Curry
Runner up: Jose Napoles

Jr. Welterweight - Tszyu

Lightweight - ??? (Like Sarah Palin, I'll get back to you on this one )

Featherweight - Hamed

Jr. Featherweight - Barrera and Morales

Bantamweight - Jeff Chandler
Runner up: Ruben Olivares

Flyweight - Benny Lynch

 

5"3 in height.

and Barrera was taller and actually a naturally bigger man genetically.

 

Nope, I don´t think so. Kelly stopped him in is tracks and stunned him a little but he was not hurt.

When Wills started beating those guys they weren´t far from their prime. Remember he did beat them from 1914 on. And losing to Sharkey while beeing at the top for over 10 years is not as bad as you make it out to be. Yes, that loss should hurt his legacy but not much.

Well, people who do so are mostly fans. Most people on here judge him about right. He was an animal during his prime but he was beatable.

Agreed. He was still very good at lhw but he stopped fighting the best opposition available. Very very sad imo and it should hurt him.

Sorry but this is BS. Ottke won his first title in his 13th fight, defended it 21 times and unified two titles. He fought 4 times a year and fought the best men available at smw with the exception of Calzaghe - who was still a nobody then - and his stable mate Beyer - their promoter said this fight won´t ever happen.
Yes he should have lost the Reid fight. Yes he was in a lot of close decisions. But all those fights you say he should have lost were very close and went to the hometown fighter and champion. They were not robberies - or only if you think every close fight is a robbery. Is that bad? Maybe but keep in mind that this is how boxing works in most countries, if it´s a close fight the hometown fighter or champ get´s the nod - Ottke was both most of the time.
What imo is worse is that his corner knew the scores of the fight after every round. So, when they knew Ottke won they did not take any risk and his trainer told Ottke to run and even to "just do as if you were punching". That´s a bad ting but hardly the fault of Ottke but of his corrupt management.
Also what most Americans don´t get, in Europe we award agression not as much as in the US or Latin America but defence, ring generalship and clear punching get´s rated higher. A jb over here is worth as much as a power punch most of the time. It´s more similar to the scoring in amateur boxing when it comes to the effectiveness of punches than it´s in the US. A fighter like Ottke profits from that.
What imo is a bit unfair is the praise other fighters get for their judge of distance, footwork, stamina, accuracy and tactical skills while with Ottke all what was good about him is ignored just due to the Brewer I fight. That was a close fight but the whining of the Brewer camp created the Ottke myth. After this fight, every close fight he was in was a robbery and due to his management he had loads of them.
Don´t get me wrong, I dislike him as a person, he was a boring fighter and he had one of the most corrupt managements ever but overrated? No way, most people think half of his defences were robberies and that he was a fraud who couldn´t even lick a decent journeyman. To me he is the second greatest smw until now with a decent legacy. Not an atg but his resume and accomplishments should make him a HoF-fighter.

Well, up to the 70s/80s Europeans fought Europeans and Americans fought Americans, both sides rarely went to the other side of the Atlantic ocean. While Americans who only fought Americans get praised for their opposition, Europeans who only fought Europeans get not but are mostly disregarded as overhyped fighters who fought only some "Euro bums". Also remember that the world championship was for a large part of the history of gloved boxing not a real world title but the North America title. Meaning the European title was worth as much imo. I think that´s an unfair point of view and fighters like Carpentier, Schmeling, Cerdan, Turpin, Rocchigiani, Calzaghe and many more prove that the superiority of American fighter is another myth. Sadly, most Europeans never got the chance to prove their worth in the states.

I agree with Graziano and Briscoe but Valdez? He only fell short of atgness because of Monzon.

Napoles was a very small WW but he proved his worth there. Curry looked like an atg for a while but fell short.

Look at what I wrote to Tyson. It´s the same here.

Really? He hardly get´s any praise anymore. When you make a fantasy match-up of him against a decent boxer-type, most people will pick the boxer "because Barrera exposed him". That´s not overrated.

Those are two of the greats of our time, it´s just natural to either under- or overrate them. When they are finished and the dust settled a bit they will find their right place in history.

I´m not interested in the weights under lw with some exceptions so I won´t comment on this.

 

HW Tyson
LHW Roy Jones
MW Trinidad
WW Curry
JrWW Pryor