What Makes a Classic?

Let's all ask ourselves this. All of us. We should. After all, we're on the classic page, and the page is filled with threads, many of which are explicitly labeled as classics. I've even done it. I especially want to focus on fights we call classics that none of us has ever seen, take Graziano-Zale 1 for example. How do we know if it's a classic, since none of us have ever seen it?

Here are the reasons I think most would give:
1) The fight won Ring FOTY honors in 1946.
2) The articles record it as being a fight containing 3 knockdowns. Graziano was down twice and Zale once.
3) Other films of Graziano and Zale seem to corroborate the belief that Fight 1 was a thriller. And since they are savage brawlers in their filmed fights, including their rubber match, we would conclude that their first two fights were wars as well.
4) Don Dunphy's testimony. He said around the mid-70s that Graziano-Zale 1 was the greatest fight he had ever.

Now I'm not trying to discredit Graziano-Zale 1, but I am going to show how each of these reasons are not necessarily good reasons for labeling something a classic, using fights that contradict each of these points:
1) FOTY used to be determined moreso on what was the most significant FOTY, rather than which was the most exciting, even though sometimes the FOTY would be both. I would say pre-1974 this really described how they picked FOTY's. But the FOTY is certainly not a dependable label for action. Now I will be fair in representing fights that have gotten the award and have gotten some hate for it by including fights that I actually think were valid FOTY choices, but here they are: Baer vs. Schmeling (1933), Cerdan vs. Zale (1948), Benvenuti vs. Griffith 1 (1967), Monzon vs. Benvenuti 1 (1970), and Foreman vs. Frazier 1 (1973).
2) Everyone knows I love fights with lots of KD's. And while knockdowns are a significant factor in many classic fights, it doesn't automatically make a fight a classic. For instance, Eddie Mustafa Muhammad vs. Mario Rosa. Never heard of it? Good reason for that. Not really a good fight. But wait, Muhammad was down twice and Rosa once. Still a lousy fight.
3) This is probably the best reason for perceiving an unseen fight as a classic, corroborating fights. But it still isn't full-proof. The history of pugilistics is filled with matches between prime brawlers where no injuries or foul play is involved, and the matches came out terrific snoozers. Great example of this being Mike Tyson vs. Bonecrusher Smith. Should have been a war but wasn't.
4) The famed announcer of 2,000 or more fights over a period of six decades, his word has got to be trusted, right? I say not necessarily. Dunphy was right to call a lot of fights great that were, like Marciano-Charles 1, Fullmer-Paret, and Frazier-Ali 1, but the guy called just about every fight he ever covered a great fight. Two fights including Harold Johnson he announced for that people don't get excited about, and the latter of which was booed at the time were Johnson's 1953 match with Ezzard Charles and his 1962 match with Eddie Machen. My personal feelings about these fights aside, most would say they're terrible I'm sure. But Dunphy used the same words to describe these fights as he did the Fight of the Century and Marciano-Charles 1. Seem a little funny to you?

I'm not trying to pick on Graziano-Zale 1 at all, I believe it was a classic, but I wanted to introduce questions, a process. We should define and think more carefully about things like this.

What do you guys think? What makes a fight a classic? Specifically ones that have never been seen?