Top 5 most overrated boxers of All Time

Liston is one of them IMHO.....

 

Good point, but il have to agree to disagree, you think he beats a prime Joe Louis?

 

Not questioning your right to your own opinion just questioning how you can say on the one hand : "the nature of the Liston wins are in question."....

And then say in the very next sentence "he has clear wins over Liston"???

My problem is that I am certain the 2nd fight was fixed - 200% sure
And I am 85% on there havin been something iffy about the first

Would you agree that Billy Fox's greatness should be increased based on the "result" against Jake Lamotta?? And Lamottas greatness reduced??

You also said that he beat Norton "well in the second fight at least" so does tht irradicate the fact that he also LOST to him clearly(and was dominated)??? It's these sort of things that I just don't understand at all when all things being equal you wouldn't give passes to everyone else for their losses?? Again yes he has a win against Joe Frazier - the second fight was a win - the 3rd was as life and death as it gets and the first Frazier won??? So where do you rate Frazier - if he's beating and taking the clear no'1 of all time where does that put him?? And is Frazier really one of the 'elite' heavyweights of all time? Foreman was an amazing performance flat out one of my favourite fights and performances ever by any fighter but again I do see he was always 'this' far from being decapitated in that one the best fighters he fought also ran him close so he wasnt far and away better than the best guys in his own era let alone the VERY BEST of all the other eras

 

fair questions rocky

1)I give ali credit for the liston wins, fishy or not. The results cannot be debated in the sense that they might be draws or wins for liston. If you want to argue no contest sure but for me, if Liston dove in the first fight it was due to getting his ass beat. If he dove in the second, we don't know why but ali had no control over it.

The fox fight is a bit different because that's a confirmed dive. These were never proven.

However I see your point and saying they were "clear" wins is a bit disingenuous considering the nature of those fights. I feel he proved himself superior to the aged sonny liston but the circumstances lessen them somewhat

2)For the norton piece, i foolishly have never watched the 3rd fight. I can only say that ali clearly won the second on my scorecard. I have to say, I don't think he was far and away better than frazier in the 70s. the first fight was the most relevant and he lost that won.

What he did htough was he establish himself better in the frazier series overall and about dead even with norton, no matter the scorecards. He proved himself superior to foreman imo but what may make ali great is that he WASN'T ahead of the pack talent wise in the 70s like in the previous decade.

Ali of the 2nd and 3rd acts was mortal. He COULD be beaten. he just usually found a way to come out on top (if barely) against the best line up of heavies of all time. Part of his legacy is the fact that he was within a handful of rounds to dropping clear decisions to shavers, norton and young. He managed to eek out wins well past his best. ****, that he managed to be ultra competitive against the fighters he went up against is phenomenal in my opinion.

It would be similar to marciano staying around and beating machen, williams, patterson, liston and then going 1/3 in a series with ali

 

Yes see your points definately - and just wanted to say Ali looked amazing in Norton II and Foreman fights - those two are my favourite fights of his career as far as wins are concerned - in Frazier II I just don't think he looked all that great - deff do see what your getting at about hanging with the best of the next decade when really he was coming back which does definately show he proved himself etc but maybe part of the issue for me is that also to some extent I think certainly Norton is HUGELY overrated these days to what he actually was - and I think Frazier is quite overrated based on his connection with Ali - so that leaves for me Liston (who I think in reality was the best of the bunch he fought - but those were fixed anyhow) and Foreman so you know yes he was an amazing fighter definately no question whatsoever - shucks I only rate 3 other guys as even having a shot at beating him on his best night but I just think it is overrating him to say that far and away he is really the only one who can even be considered the best

 

Ali edged a hesitant Shavers but there's no way he "beat Young"..and as much as the Ali worshippers like to spin it, Young made Ali look clumsy and slow.

 

And in his prime would've got absolutely whitewashed

 

In no particular order;

Mike Tyson

Naseem Hamed - I don't buy all this "he lost focus crap" about why he lost to Barrera, he got outboxed that night and could get outboxed by a lot of FWs, his power got him out of trouble so often.

The supposed potential greatness of Tony Ayala gets very over-rated

Floyd Mayweather Jr - talented as hell, no doubt about that but nowhere near as high in the ATG stakes as so many people seem to think.

Oscar De La Hoya - Lost so many of his major fights although he did get robbed against Trinidad but I think he got beat by Pernell.

 

I suppose there's a case for calling Ali a bit overrated, seeing how high he makes it on some p4p lists. It often gets a bit childish, though. As calling his first win over Liston into question and making a big deal out of controversial decision he got at the tail end of his career.

Very few other fighters, at any weight, can have as good a call for having beaten every significant opponent over almost two decades.

 

True. And Ali made Young look like frightened beginner.:hey

 

No way, with all the hype about the skill levels of classic fighters, Floyd is arguably more skilled than all of them. Floyd is underrated if anything, such a complete fighter, technically almost flawless

 

Floyd is not more skilled than all of them

Kalambay>Floyd

Watch George Benton. Floyd is nothing new, nothing special, especially as his apparently infallible skillset hasn't been tested against great opposition or that many contests.

He's massively overrated IMO. Due to the post above, arguably the most overrated fighter ever.

 

Not sure about that, but I sure as hell prefer watching Kalambay.

 

I am. Floyd is faster though, obviousy.

Floyd has never done anything of the quality of McCallum I. Not against a similarly quality opponent anyway. Kalambay also shut out lesser talent as Floyd has. A technical genius IMO, far more impressive than Mayweather.

That's my reasoning anyway.

 

Love Kalambay, too, and Floyd certainly has nothing like his win over McCallum, but nothing like his loss to Nunn either. And he struggled with Kalule, who was good but got well beaten by both McCallum and Leonard.

But had Floyd exposed himself to opponents of that quality he might have had those blemishes too. Really the problem when assesing PBF:s true quality.

Kalambay's win against Mike and perfomance in that fight is absolutely immense, though. No one came even close to treating prime McCallum like that (well, prehaps Curry for as long as it lasted).