What fighters do we hold a revisionist perception of?

What a way to earn a living.

... and now I shall return to my boring desk job.

 

Ray Mercer

 

How so? Back in the day he was considered a skilled but hot and cold fighter based primarily on his dislike of training who also banked on his iron mandible.

 

Yeah, I think his perception has remained exactly the same. When hot, he was pretty good. When cold, he wasn't. And he knew he was really durable and made effective use of it.

And that's all he's considered as now. We use the best version of him for fantasy fights, acknowledging that's what we're doing.

 

There seems to be be a large split about the guy’s chances against post prison Tyson. Losing to Holyfield and Lewis in tough fights where they opted to slug with him isn’t some great feat imo. Other than that? Poor performances against an old Witherspoon, old Holmes, and Ferguson x2 (officially losing twice). His career best win occurred while way down on the cards against a guy with a glass nose and his second best win was against a guy who didn’t have the chin, stamina, or experience to really do a tough 12 rounds. Mercer didn’t actually log an impressive win after Morrison and didn’t log an impressive performance after Lewis.

Also, Tyson actually showed better longevity, putting together solid performances against Golota and Savarese post 2000 whereas Mercer was listless against a vulnerable Wlad and faked a ko loss against Briggs while hoping for a DQ. Tyson at least tired to win against Lewis, right?

Seems like the sort of guy who had the luxury of not taking a brutal or embarrassing L in the 90s at the hands of someone like Tyson, Ruddock, Bowe, Ibeabuchi, or even Vitali.

 

I don't agree with Greb on that list. He certainly was considered a top notch boxer. Holmes definitely in his time was considered an Ali wanna-be. I don't know about Charles but he couldn't have obtained multiple shots at LHW and HW titles if boxing commissions and newspapers didn't consider him a worthy Title opponent.

 

I'm trying to think of a heavyweight who could go up against
Louis twice
Marciano twice
Ezzard Charles 4 times
Elmer Ray twice
Joey Maxim 3 times

and clean house without a loss.

 

I could think of dozens, if not a hundred or more. Especially that version of Louis and that version of Charles.

 

Fair enough, you can make the argument for an Ali or Tyson to make it without as many losses.
Allow me to rephrase the question.
Floyd Patterson was a pro, all of us can agree with this.
Jack Dempsey was a pro.
Larry Holmes was a pro.
Gene Tunney was a pro.
Jimmy Ellis was a pro.

You get the point. Do you see any of these non journey men go through the aforementioned group of heavyweights without at least 5 losses?

Edit: what do you mean that version of Charles by the way? Dude was prime.

 

Holmes barely breaks a sweat.

Ellis has a decent chance.

Patterson could do it, but would probably find a way to take a loss.

Dempsey and Tunney were archaic.

 

Ellis never gets past Louis and Marciano. It is questionable if he would beat Ray.
Patterson doesn't last 5 against Louis.
I've rarely seen someone make Patterson a favorite over Rocky.
Ray is a very risky fight for him.
Holmes beating 1947 Louis, 1949 Charles and 1951 Marciano multiple times without losses is a stretch.
The guy struggled with Shavers and Norton.

 

Should be easy for you to list those then.

Dempsey and Tunney were archaic.....so when did fighters all of a sudden become Modern in your opinion?

 

Well, if there are hundreds, that's quite an undertaking actually.

Let's just say that Sultan Ibragimov makes the cut for me.

May 14, 1973 12:43PM

 

Charles never got a single shot at LHW, it's actually gone down an an historic injustice for many.

 

True; my bad.

Did he WANT a shot at the LWH belt? Most of the time he was campaigning at HW. Not much money in that division as opposed to the HW. He did win a LHW belt in the army, something called the Second Inter-Allied Championship, Pro Division.