He defended his title about 25 times and was undefeated and had 10 title defenses on his first light heavyweight reign before losing to Thomas Hearns. Was Virgil Hill a great fighter or only HOF? or not even that?
In South Dakota He was lol. This guy was an ABC wide world of Sports darling who padded his record in his hometown. He was good though, never eilte
He had to be all time great. 25 title defenses? Even if you are fighting bums those were high rated bums. The guy has to rank high. Only the really great ones like Hearns and Jones beat him decisively.
Probably will get in the HOF, but not really a true great. Only stepped up his comp. occassionally, and although he had big wins over Maske and Tiozzo, they were sandwiched between embarrassing losses to Hearns, Dariusz, Jones, etc.
yeah in a way he is easy to rank as great and hof. He definetly was not as good as Hearns or Jones, and Hearns beat him with his jab and won a very comfortable decision. And Jones stopped him. So he is not as good as Hearns and Jones who are ATG but he has a HOF record and beat some good guys like Czyz and Stewart and Tate and Maske etc etc. And he did lose to Hearns and Jones but he did fight two of the best guys ever.
I think Hill is one of the unluckiest fighters of recent years. He obviously froze in the moment against a legend in Hearn's, and was very direct and honest about it in the post fight interview. People forget he did land on Hearn's and had the Hitman's legs jello for a short period of time. He wasn't shutout. People forget he was a amateur middleweight and even fought his first fight at 156 pounds, and yet he grew into a fighter that blew out extremely durable cruiserweights like Tiozzo in one round. Kind of funny how he actually has a far nicer record at 175 then Roy Jones too. :happy
A very good fighter, hardly great. As for Hall of Fame, outside of the Dakotas, Germany and the hardcore, who has heard of him?