Well said! Both guys were honorable champions and fought the top guys in their era. It's a shame they just missed each other by a few years and never fought. Both guys always found a way to win and should have all of our respect. They both have mine without question.
not necessarily. As I said before. It comes down to some fighters confidence. Look at D Curry, how he was p4p #1, then suffered a defeat and wasn't the same after. I could go on with examples but as said it is not like that for every fighter but I do think losing the undefeated confidence does often have an impact Frochs best win after his 2nd loss was against a very faded largely inactive fighter who had been away with injuries, in what was a tough fight for him, so couldn't really say. After that he was going life and death with a British champ
Do you think it carries much weight with holyfield being a cw great when having tough fights with former lhws? That is just a question because I do think of holyfield as a cw great
The rankings have to be based on ability as well as achievements. Otherwise you're just left comparing stats. Nobody who has any understanding of the sport is going to rate a guy like Sven Ottke as the GOAT at SMW. Andre Ward can be ranked as high as 3. There's no logical reason why he can't be. We've been debating this subject for years and years now. And each time we debate it, you want to debate on stats whilst showing your bias towards the British greats. You cannot under any circumstances, note that Kessler was faded and injured against Froch, without also noting that Eubank was also faded and injured against Joe, and that Benn was also faded against Collins. It's frankly ridiculous how you rate Collins so highly. It's ridiculous how you hype his wins, which are primarily based upon name value.
Ra's Al-Ghul, I don't want to disrespect any fighters. They're all warriors. But you're reasoning here is absolutely ridiculous. Who did Seillier beat? Several top wins? Against who? The biggest wins of his entire career were against Galvano and Nardiello. Nardiello lost to: Woodhall, Benn, Reid, Wharton, Close and Cordorba. You are talking nonsense. You can't say that you don't rate Joe's win over the likes of Richie Woodhall, on the grounds that he lost to Beyer, when Seillier had lost at MW to Kalambay, and at SMW to Francis and Liles. Rating Collins so highly at the weight is ridiculous. I can accept that Kessler was faded. I can also accept that Froch wasn't great. But he was better than Seillier and a faded Benn. He was dirty against Kessler. I also don't rate the win over Dawson. True. Most of his 44 wins were against low level competition. But he still ranks ahead of guys like Collins. I rate Eubank's SMW resume highly too. It was very good. Much deeper than Ward's and Roy's etc. But they were just better fighters than what he was.
I agree with you regarding Lennox and Louis. If you don't think that Louis was better than Lennox, or that he'd have beaten him, then you have to rate Lennox higher. Guys should be ranked on their ability as well as their resumes. Roy was a better fighter at the weight than what Joe was.
bailey, We already know the answer, genius. It's just a lame tool for you to use against him, so you can try and rate your favourite fighters higher. Yes, he didn't beat any top, undefeated fighters. But it doesn't mean that he wouldn't have beaten those same guys had they have been unbeaten, nor does it mean that he didn't have good wins or that he's not one of the best ever fighters to have fought at the weight. You're the one with the insecurity. There you go. You've just said it yourself. It was circumstances. It looks better on paper than what it is in reality. I give him a lot of credit for the Eubank win. Eubank has a very good SMW resume. It's very impressive. But we both know that he was never the same after the Watson fight, and that he was very lucky not to have lost 2-3 times before he faced Collins. We've debated this many times. He admits himself that he lost to Benn and Schommer. And there's the fights with Close. But again, beating Eubank was a very good win. But they had a very close fight which warranted a rematch. He then beat him again in a rematch. He then beat a faded Benn who'd come out of retirement for one last hurrah. Benn himself admits that he was kind of gone, and that he had to bet money on himself to give him a lift. And you know that if he hadn't have twisted his ankle, we'd never have seen a rematch. We only saw it because there wasn't a conclusive finish. So whilst he may have officially beaten Benn in their first fight, celebrating the fact that he had 2 wins over him is silly. You want to rate the wins highly due to the name value. Beating Seillier wasn't significant. So he has 2 very good wins over Eubank, 1 over an injured Benn, and 1 over a faded Benn. There's nothing great about that. That's not a great resume.
No. You're just obsessed by stats. Sven Ottke has the some of the best stats at the weight. But nobody believes he was better than guys like Ward, Roy and Toney etc. Of course Joe's stats are stronger than Ward's. He spent 14 years at the weight. It doesn't mean he was the better fighter though. If you're not also going to rate guys on their ability, on a H2H basis, then you're being totally ignorant.
I agree with you entirely. But Roy proved to us all over 15 years just how great he was. He dominated fighters without barely losing rounds in the process. He didn't do a lot at SMW, but enough to show us how great he was. And then he moved up to LHW, where he beat guys that were either as good as, or better than, the opponents of the guys who people have listed as their top 10. And that means that you can most certainly rank him at the top on a H2H basis. That is completely logical. It's not like he retired after he left the SMW division and then left us all with lots of unanswered questions. After beating Toney, Malinga and Lucas with absolute ease, he then crushed Griffin, Hill and Hall, he toyed with Woods and Reggie, before then easily beating Ruiz at HW, before dropping back and beating Tarver. And he did it all by using the exact same skills that he used at SMW. Yes, you can say they were at different weights. But that's more impressive than beating the guys who Ottke, Joe, Froch, Ward and Eubank etc beat at SMW. Which again, means that you can rate him on a H2H basis, in terms of ability. It's not like we have to ask ourselves: "Could he have beaten Collins, Reid, Froch and Eubank etc in his prime?" We have our answers. We have the evidence available. Nobody that's been mentioned on this thread would have been favoured over a prime version of Roy, because nobody was better than a prime version of Roy. The only thing the other guys have over Roy is numbers. Those numbers are irrelevant to me. I'm not going to rate guys like Ottke and Joe higher based on stats. Stats that were derived from beating lots of low level opponents.
Roy wasn't just past his best. He was completely finished as a top level fighter. Joe would never have fought a prime version of Roy, let alone have beaten him.
If you think that Kessler wasn't in great condition, then his best wins had to have been over Bute and Groves. It's absolutely laughable how you try and discredit Froch's wins, whilst at the same time, you're hyping Collins' wins over guys like Benn and Seillier. What a joker you are.
