What Is The Definition Of A World Class Fighter

You know what I meant and how I was trying to quickly illustrate a point, and you know I have respect for anyone who steps into the ring.

 

What is the definition? Nothing. Your opinion.

 

lets start with today, which many people believe to be weak overall and considerably weaker compared to some past Era's.

OK little, if any dispute there.

lets take the Best division today, what is it, welterweight? I don't know, pick the best division whatever it may be.

lets look at the Champion(s), the Top 10 and then those on the fringe... lets say for the purpose of agreeing that are only 5 among the fringe.

OK that's at least 16 Welterweights, and possibly more with all the different Sanctioning Bodies...

OK, now in the Rest of the WHOLE WIDE WORLD, theres not even another 5 men out there who are REAL???

of course there bloody well is.

Well that's what they did, they Rated the champion, then the top 10 or 15 sometimes and then they 'Rated/classed anywhere from 50 to over a 100 other Top fighters around the world...

That's WORLD Classed.

Seriously Klompton I never knew it any other way, and never dreamed of doubting the legitimacy of these TOP men among ALL the other leading nations.

I mean honestly Klompton, hand on my heart, being straight with you, Why would anyone have reason to doubt this.

MOST of the Best boys were Yanks, sure no trouble here...

but at least a few fighters here and there from ALL the other LEADING Countries were just as real.

 

Talk about a half assed round about argument. You are essentially saying: "Today is weak. There are five major champions in every division and ten top contenders in those divisions. They are all world class so 70 years ago there had to be more than 15 world class fighters in any given division.

Your argument is weak because it supposes that those 55 champions and top ten fighters are all world class. When in reality most (at least in the classic section) would argue that sometimes we dont even know if a champion is world class much less the challengers along the way. They dont have to fight each other so saying that belt A's champion and challengers are the equal of belt B and C and D and E is silly. Nevermind the basic fact that if the bar is lower at the very top, i.e. unskilled/undeserving champions, then it would naturally mean that a wide pool of fighters would be capable of springing an upset on any given day just based on the sheer lack of ability among all of those watered down title.

Your ultimate point that there may have been more world class fighters in the old days might be legitimate but you dont reach that conclusion with the example you put forward above. Neither does it prove that Gilroy was a world class fighter. Which is why you cast this wide net looking for the definition of "world class". Regardless, to draw THAT conclusion, that Gilroy was world class, you have to make a monumental jump between what he actually accomplished and what YOU WANT TO BELIEVE. Its like you want to say "boxing sucks today, Bert would have a real shot." The problem is that boxing being shite today thereby lowering the bar and possibly allowing a lower level fighter like Bert a shot doesnt really enhance Bert any. As someone else noted, its damning him with faint praise. The reality is that Bert didnt fight in this watered down weak era. He fought in his era and couldnt make the grade.

 

I don't cast any net, I just always knew it to be that way!

in short;

World champ
Top 10

and 2 or 3 dozen more from the fringe TOP fighters from the Leading nations.

that's how 'they' did it, the Ring... that's how I always knew it!

 

A fighter who is among the best in the world, and has demonstrated it by consistently defeating other fighters who are also among the best in the world.

 

You're arguing on semantics. It was a quick and easy way to give a broad overview of a fighter that is sub-par (worse than 'below average') that everyone could quickly digest without a second thought as to what I was trying to convey.

 

Categorizing boxers has always been subjective. No one has ever been in total agreement with every rating.

In my opinion, a world-class boxer is simply someone who has the tools or skills to compete with other top fighters around the world. You can win some and you can lose some, but you are "world-class" if you have the tools to compete.

Sometimes it's just as simple as you know a world-class fighter when you see him.

For example, on Saturday, Orlando Salido and Terdsak Kokietgym fought the fight of the year for a vacant WBO Junior Lightweight title. Going in, they weren’t ranked in the top 15 by the WBC, they weren’t ranked in the top 15 by the WBA, they weren’t ranked in the top 15 by the IBF, and they weren’t ranked in the top 10 by Ring.

But, IMO, they proved they are BOTH world-class fighters - even though Kokietgym hasn’t beaten any names ever (he's only lost to them).

Are they both among the 10 best in the entire world at that weight? I have no idea. They both have a lot of miles on them. But, in my eyes, they are both world-class boxers – even though four of the five official ratings bodies said they weren’t.

I believe I read that when the U.S. got involved in WWII, roughly 4,000 licensed boxers in the U.S. went off to war. There were tens of thousands of licensed fighters around the world then. There are certainly more fighters now globally, considering how many countries today have fighters going pro.

If people whose job it is to rank fighters identify, let’s say, 30 or 40 fighters per division (representing one or two percent of all the boxers at that weight) and deem them “world-class,” I don’t think that’s out of bounds.

I’m probably not going to agree on all of them, but there's always room for disagreement.

(For the life of me I have no idea how anyone could honestly rank Andy Ruiz in the top 10, but he's currently considered a top 10 heavyweight by TWO of the sanctioning bodies. I guess the U.S. heavyweights are so bad, it’s no worse than ranking Italy’s Lorenzo Zanon back in the late 70s.)

I do want to say there’s a difference between being a world-class fighter and being a top-10 ranked fighter. Rankings are even more subjective and political than just identifying someone as "World class."

If each fighter hasn’t fought every other fighter in the top 10, how can you honestly rank one above another? People have always rationalized a way to do it, but it’s all based on “educated guesses.”

And even if you are lucky enough to get a top-10 ranking, thru politics, you can lose it without even losing a fight. That doesn’t mean you aren’t a world-class fighter, it just means you got bumped from the top 10.

You could be a world-class boxer, but you’re competing in a loaded division and honestly never be among the 10 best in the whole world.

By the same token, you could receive a ranking based on a freak win and not really be a world-class fighter at all (see someone like Kevin McBride).

You could also receive an undeserved ranking simply based on who your promoter is.

Hell, unranked Axel Shulz "was given" a top 12 ranking by the IBF because Bob Arum paid Bob Lee a bribe. Then Shulz fought Foreman, appeared to win, and lost a bad decision.

I don't think Shulz ever beat a "world-ranked" fighter. That doesn't mean he wasn't world-class. He got a ranking based on a bribe, and bad decisions cost him the title, but he was world-class because he had the skills to compete.

Bottom line, being a world-class boxer is more about skills than wins and losses. Boxing has always been too corrupt just to simply base it on wins and losses or arbitrary ratings.

You know a world-class boxer when you see him.

 

I like this Magoo, and its the yardstick I use for the term world class. An example might be a James broad axe Broad who hit rating boards a few times in the mid twenties range and never was thought of as a world class fighter while Marvis Frazier who beat him might just make it on the fringe. My friends Doug Demmings and Raphael Rodrigues both cracked the Rings top ten but even then were scarcely thought of as being in that elite group because neither posted a win over another rated as high, while Pat O'Conner who also reached the top ten LH"s was because of an undefeated record and decent wins going into the Kendall fight. Hey its subjective but most of us likely would agree on who is and who's not.

 

True,

Willie De'Witt was briefly the best heavyweight in his own country ( Canada ) and quite possibly a top 15-20 contender for a short time. He also medaled in the 1984 olympics. Could it be said that he was world class? By most people's standards probably not. But after thinking it through, I might be apt to placing him there. Being an olympic Bronze medalist, the champion of a whole nation, and ranked top 20 in the world was a hell of a lot better than what thousands of other men in that division were doing at the time.