Top 3 most overrated boxers of all time

Sven Ottke--great amauter, definitely not undefeated as a pro.
Antonio Margaretto-- lost all respect for him.
Ken Norton--very good heavyweight that had Ali's number. Just think he is slightly overrated.

 

Oh, Calzaghe is up there, too.

His opposition was shocking.

 

Who made him out to be an ATG?

 

Jack Dempsey--is all by himself to me as for decades from the 1940's into the 1960's he was the name that popped up as as the one fighter mentioned in his sport who was beyond greatness, as another player recently said about Tom Brady in American football. This is a pedestal on which stand or stood players like Babe Ruth in baseball, Michael Jordan in basketball, and Brady in football, in the popular American sports. It is a status beyond question status. Dempsey was viewed that way for boxing. Look at the 1950 poll for the greatest fighter. For the others I have mentioned the reason for this status is clear. There was an old movie that had the line," when the legend become fact, print the legend." For Ruth & Brady & Jordon the facts support the legend and largely overwhelm criticism. For Dempsey the legend floated around w/o facts to back it up. There might be some level of greatness, but nothing to separate him from, or even equal, other claimants to greatness. There is a lot of talk about potential, if he hadn't gone Hollywood, but potential after the fact is not a real thing at all and not worth debating.

Jim Corbett--easy to see why overrated, as a glamorous figure who was a celebrity on the stage in his day. Beating the legendary Sullivan helped. Sullivan might also deserve to be viewed as overrated, but, truthfully, he seems lost in the mists of time, with no film, not really flesh and blood but subsumed into his myth.

Jake LaMotta--I think overrated because of the movie and an interesting spin which equates being able to take a beating with being a superior fighter.

I think what all these fighters share is a catchy nickname. I read an interesting article recently about American football players Red Grange and Gordon Locke from the 1920's. Grange is still famous. Locke forgotten. But this historian says the stats and a close look at their careers support Locke being the better player. But Locke had no nickname. Grange was dubbed by a sportswriter "The Galloping Ghost" and the rest, as they say, is history. History is, or at least often is, as Napoleon said, bunk we believe about the past.

 

Calzaghe is way up there.

 

Hamed is #1. He has to be #1 in something especially according to his fans

 

I think welterweight Billy Bird is overrated.
260 73 20 (138 victories by k.o.)
Billy Bird (1 January 1899 – 6 February 1951) was a British professional boxer who was active from 1920 to 1948 and boxed in the welterweight division. He fought a recorded 356 times in his 28 year-career and was regarded as one of the most active boxers of his time.

Bird has 356 recorded fights, but has been rumored to have even more fights during his career which were not professional matches. Bird currently holds the knockout world record at 138; the second closest is Archie Moore with 132 knockouts.
Career record:
http://boxrec.com/en/boxer/17871
https://bleacherreport.com/articles...ievements-in-boxing-that-will-never-be#slide1

 

Hagler Calslappy and Andre Ward

 

Sonny Liston
Roberto Duran
Lennox Lewis

 

My own view is that he is overrated and a top two all time heavyweight. He got alot of close decisions especially during the 70s. Not saying they were all robberies. He got anything close though.

 

I would agree that it was "good"/"popular" for the sport of boxing for Ali to keep winning with those close decisions. To have that resume and be considered by most the greatest HW while missing 3 years of your Prime is mind blowing to me .. Overrated is not the word I would use

 

Incredible fighter wasn't he. The top end of his resume is insanity.

 

Every fighter have fans that overrate them, but generally I think they're rated right. Maybe Burley and LaMotta would be fighters that I most frequently see ranked higher than I think is warranted. For Burley it probably has a lot to do with have highly rated he was by both Moore and Futch, but at the end of the day I think it is what a fighter did in the ring that matters. LaMotta, for his part, have probably got an aura about him from the The Bronx Bull movie.

 

Adding a third, maybe Quarry or Young. If Quarry was such a super contender he'd not lost to Ellis in his prime and had close fights with an aging Patterson. Young was a pretty slick fighter, but hearing some you'd think he was the HW version of Benitez. That he was not. Wilfredo ducked and slipped combos from a peak Hearns, Young had to get out of the ring to get away from the relatively tepid attack from the easily worst version of Ali to that point.

 

Raging Bull. LaMotta beat Ray Robinson when nobody else could and in their infamous final bout Jake was out jabbing Ray until wilting under a constant body attack, Ray even admitted he was being out jabbed when it was put to him on a TV show featuring both him and LaMotta sitting beside each other.