Unpopular opinions

I think Fraziers ability to judge distance just was not the same after the Ali fight. Foreman could not have pushed him as much as he did if Frazier could have timed the long range hooks he surprised Ali with in each of the 15 rounds they went. Foreman had to reach out at Fraziers shoulders to shove him at a range Frazier had been able to meet Ali with hooks, yet he could not do it here. It simply was a different Frazier. He had lost a crucial dimension for sure.

 

An in shape Douglas beats any version of Tyson....

 

Trawl through most of my threads ,that should give you enough to go on!

 

Wouldn't you just love to be one of that few.

 

Greco roman wrestling is boring. Plus it is neither greco nor roman.

 

Joe Frazier could beat a "prime" Muhammad Ali
Sugar Ray Leonard's career is overrated
James Toney is overrated
Most of the smaller heavies of the past would lose to the super-heavies of the last few decades

 

Great idea for a thread.

HW ATG's should be rated and compared for in era resume and impact, not H2H. Old timers have at best a 30 yr window (about as long as it ever takes for a tangible world record to be broken) when its conceivable they could beat later ATG's, afterwards, its just not possible.

Old Ali would beat Young Ali, Old Foreman would beat Young Foreman

Vitali Klitschko has a top 10 ATG resume, better than his brother's

 

What's the reasoning for Vitali? I can get putting him above Wlad if weigh Wlad's embarrassing loses heavily, but are you going off stats when you rank him or do you rate his wins highly?

 

This baffles me as well he lost to the only decent fighter he ever fought in Lewis and lived off has-beens and never has-beens from there on in.

 

Ohio Players were a better band than the Eagles.

Edwin Rosario could have beaten Alexis Arguello around 1983.

Howard Davis Jr could have beaten Saoul Mamby in the 82-83 time period, as well.

 

Well, there's no shame in the Lewis fight and h2h he's very legit, definitely top 10 imo or even 5. His resume just isn't that good though unless you love things like ko% and percentage of rounds won.

 

I think that we would be justified in favouring them, in hindsight.

 

Pugilist_Spec was asking for unpopular opinions Sal.

 

Good question. My reasons are below.

People often conflate resume with just number of big wins, ignoring 1. Losses 2. Quality of wins in terms of dominance in the fights 3. Quality of wins in terms of highest non ATG value and highest non top 10 value. 4. Dominance over an era

Specifically, for Vitali, 1. His only two losses were by injury in fights he was winning. No, I'm not someone who will argue they were really "wins" etc, but they clearly don't count the same way a clear decision or ko loss (such as Wlad has had 4 times) should count.
2. He has the 2nd highest ko percentage of any ATG in history and almost certainly has the highest rounds won percentage of any ATG in history, the latter by far
3. His wins over Sam Peter and Corrie Sanders imo were better than any of Wlad's wins (Wlad squeaking by Peter in fight I and beating mentally gone Peter in II aren't at the same level). There's an argument for Byrd or Povetkin, but not enough for my tastes.

In addition, while Wlad beat many more top 10 hw's, Vitali beat a ton of hw's just outside the top 10, solid top 25 HW's. All told, he's beaten 4 HW's who were arguably top 5 at the time of the bout (Ki Johnson, Sanders, Peter, Adamek), another 6 that were arguably top 10(Hide, Donald, Gomez, Arreola, Solis, Chisora) and another 8 who were top 35(Sullivan, Ryan, Hoffman, Norris, Purrity, Bean, Ke Johnson, Sosnowski, Briggs, Charr).

Comparatively speaking, there are very few hw's all time who have beaten that much good competition with only 2 losses.

4. Vitali was a dominant champ for about 5 years, all told. He faced his mandatories and was there for anyone to face if they wanted to. Most chose his brother as the easier mark. Resume isn't/shouldn't ignore this factor entirely, it should factor in. Vitali was the dominant HW of his era.

All told, it adds up to a solid top 10 ATG status.

 

Terrific. He got mine, too.