Top 10 greatest middleweights of all time

I think you overate Marshall a little, but I like seeing him that high, do you know what i mean? It pleases me.

Burley probably got the better of Williams in the details but I think he has the better wins at 160. Still, 12 is a nice slot for him.

How do you think his win resume stacks up against Tiger's? I doubt there will be many fighters who have matched as many champions as Tiger did full stop.

 

Everything i've read about Marshall indicates you are quite right. I've read that Marshall went to England in order to escape these cuffs. The gym rats in England raved about him like he was the best they'd ever seen. He was adored there. I might try and dig out some quotes when I get home.

I think Cocoa Kid was the one who really had to wear the cuffs though. His dive against Oakland Billy Smith was one of the most notorious of all times. It was ruled a NC I think. His domination - domination - of Holman Williams sometimes makes me wonder how good he really was and if Sugar Ray ducking of him - might be a strong word that - wasn't with very good reason. I wonder how good Kid really was?

 

Yeah, you're a sucker for a box-puncher! Me too.

I think Tiger edges it. I reckon they would be #1 and #2 though.

Yeah, they could be the boys at the weight in terms of who they beat.

 

I think that you've misunderstood me - i'm saying Cocoa Kid may be even better than we think. Rating him is an utter nightmare.

Did you hear the story of Robinson refusing to match Cocoa Kid at a charity event? I think Robinson was probably quite right not to fight that night, but he probably should have gone back and tidied that mess up.

 

:good

No. I don't have him with the absolute elite head to head at the weight, frankly. I don't know exactly how many it was, but he did something like 20 fights at 160. Two thirds of these, he was grossly undermatched. You learn as you fight at the highest level, obviously.

Match him with the Carlos Monzon that destroyed Griffith the first time? What was he ****ing 75-3 or something? Undisputed champion, sixth defence, I don't know exactly, but that's a man that has mastered his craft...take the 168 Roy and shrink him down and he gives any MW trouble, but take the 24-0 version (15 or so bums - and i hardly ever use that word) and he'd get dragged into the oceon and drowned at the highest level - in my honest opinion.

I'm a big Roy fan. The Roy Jones express, 20 plus pages, was a thread that was started by me in general ahead of his bieng matched by Joe C, but he's not all that at 160, i'm satisfied by that.

The Hopkins win IS impressive, but it was years before Hopkins became primed - he was a Moore type, a type that became an absolute master of his craft with experience.


EDIT: His slow start wasn't his fault. His father was jealous of him and under-matched him consistantly. With a different manager he would have done differently I think. Shame Roy got taught matchmaking by Roy senior. He could have done great things.

 

In a way, Cocoa made his own luck. If you have a reputation for diving the old school toughs won't respect you anything like as much as men like Burley who fought straight despite trouble. But he was grossly disadvantaged from the start, perhaps. He arrived in the US (i think) with Kid Chocolate and stayed there and changed his name when Chocolate was deported. So he went from being watched 24/7 to being out on his own. People took advatage.

At 147 he may be the ultimate deluxe counter-puncher but we'll never know now. Burley beat him probably straight, but it sounds like he out-sped the Kid.