What does GOAT mean to you

Most accomplished, which is basically the one with the best resume, that's how I view it at least. Most important factor in resume is level of opposition beaten.

Then it's stuff like amount of title defences, longevity, multi-divisional conquest, world titles won, etc. But they still pale in comparison to opposition.

 

VERY LITTLE...

though there are a Few Fighters (by Comparison), who can rightfull be pinned by the Honour - i.e the SRR's, Greb's, Hank's and so on.

But most other greats are indeed Great Fighters and outside of the Elite few, again by comparison, there are HUNDREDS of them.

 

I agree with you that it's a combination of factors as you listed out. As fsr as outside the ring, unfortunately, a lot of the GOATS in boxing were pretty flawed like the rest of us. Ali for example cheated on all of his wives and let's face it, he wasn't the most humble guy. Roberto Duran was not the best guy in the world either. Both Sugar Ray's had substance abuse/fidelity issues as well.

I think the GOAT title should stay with in ring accomplishments.

 

Overall Career
Era's
Competion/Opponents
Wins & 'proper' showing in a loss, which lessens or nullifies that loss i.e Stepping Out of you're Division
Longeviety

Bussiness - i.e a Fury Investment Based PLACEMENT into top opportunity rather than earning it, would not qualify, unless he met and beat ALL of the True other Top men, 6 - 10 of them, you can't claim or be pinned as the Best IF you Don't Fight them.

 

I concur, however, I do draw a distinction where I discriminate between Greb and SRR.

Both excellent records - SRR has film and I struggle to elevate Greb to the top spot as whilst I know he had a worthy résumé, I believe the honour of top spot should be down to the fine margins.

I can see SRR on film, I can view Greb's excellent opponents but need to imagine what he's like. Unfortunatelt, to defer the GOAT accolade, for me, I need to be able to see the style and substance of what I'm buying.

 

Nothing.

 

I don't know.

I find P4P pretty tricky.

 

longevity is the thing that makes the debate hard.

 

baah

 

I’m not sure because I don’t really believe in a GOAT in boxing. Eras are far too different. When I think about GOAT’s in other sports including boxing, there are two commonalities that I notice.

1. They need to bring something to the table that hasn’t been seen before. SRR, who many consider the GOAT had a style that no one had seen before in his time. He had advanced skills for his time along with speed, power, stamina and chin. Usually when people talk about Robinson, they just don’t mention his accomplishments. They mention how great of a fighter he was from an ability standpoint because no one had seen anything like him before. SRR in a lot of ways reminds me of Wilt Chamberlain. Just a freak of nature for his time. Similar with Muhammad Ali. No one had seen a heavyweight move the way he did, display that level of hand speed, and reflexes. We have seen similar claims made throughout the years with Mike Tyson at his best and RJJ. I think doing something people haven’t seen before definitely plays a role.

2. They need to have a major influence on their sport. They need to inspire not only the fighters in their era but generations of fighters with what they did. SRR did that. You see his influence even to this day. You see Muhammad Ali’s influence even to this day.

I think everything else is secondary to those. Obviously the resume needs to be at a certain level. Obviously you need to have longevity in the sport but if you don’t have the two above, most people will not consider you to be the GOAT. That’s why unless you are talking to hardcore fans/historians, you won’t hear names like Armstrong, Greb, Langford, etc. brought up because they do not fit the criteria above.

 

The best

 

You're effectively asking what our p4p ranking criteria is.

I think mine is too nuanced and subjective to be able to create some kind of formula or even give a succinct definition.

It's more objective than that. Opposition faced is the biggest factor for me too, but not just opposition faced, or even opposition beaten, but who was beaten, when and how, who they lost to, when and how.

Even then, I'm not just ranking purely based on quality and quanity of names beaten, but rather trying to factor in everything to determine who performed, and who was, the best relative to their to size, whilst giving the benefit of the doubt to the more proven fighter.

As an extremely over simplified and unrealistic example, to demonstrate a concept, assuming all other factors (e.g. relative size, title defences, no. 1 contenders beaten, competing in equal eras, etc.), I'd rank a fighter that went 30-1 against ranked contenders during their prime higher than a fighter that went 40-8 against ranked contenders during their prime, even though their win resume wasn't as good, because their greater dominance suggests they were better and 31 fights is a large enough sample size to give me confidence. However, I'd rank a fighter that went 7-0 against ranked contenders lower than both, even though they were more dominant, because the sample size and variety of styles of contenders beaten wasn't sufficient to warrant giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Short answer = it's nuanced, difficult to define and very much distinct to the individual.

 

It has to be singular. You can't say he's a GOAT.

You're either the GOAT or you're a great/all-time great which can be great.

As Ali said 'I am the greatest of all times.' He didn't say 'I am a greatest of all times.'

Middle aged rant over.