Where is Bivol on the greatest LHWs if he beats Benavidez?

Tunney gave up his belt in 1924 and went to HW instead. From 1923 to 1925 the LHW champ Mike McTigue only won 1 of 6 title defenses with 4 losses to Loughran, Stribling, Mickey Walker and Berlenbach. For those who think they are reading that wrong because of KO only rules McTigue kept his belt until the last one when the belt was finally transferred to Berlenbach. Do you get more "situational" than that? Of those 5 guys Tunney had already beaten Loughran and when the dust settled Loughran would eventually emerge as the real champ.

People not recognizing the ABA as a major belt are moving the goalposts IMO. Fighters from the pre and early sanctioning body era were unaware of future developments in terms of what titles would be considered real or not. This is especially true of Tunney because he retired as the greatest. H'ed beaten Greb, Carpentier, Levinsky and most importantly he beat Loughran who was the divisions GOAT when Tunney retired. To the extent Tunney was aware the other belt was the lineal one he was not aware the ABA would stop existing and he'd get no credit.

Theres also the issue of LHW not having any prestige in the beginning and being seen as the original tweener division. This had a substantial impact on many fighters legacys from the 1910s as everyone was trying to fight for MW or HW and probably didn't value the title the way a future generation would. In 2125 is someone on the internet going to judge a Bridgerweight champ for not considering his legacy? LHW didn't exist for much of Tunney and his peers childhood.

Michael Spinks is an odd choice to make your point given he left LHW in his 20s to fight at HW like Tunney and Charles and left a bunch of potential feats on the table. Sure he was lineal champ and those guys weren't but he only had 4 lineal defenses and could have fought Virgil Hill. He made the same choice they did.

I agree with you about Charles(so far as people having him like top 5 anyway) I'm just saying he tried to get those awards and lost. Also after losing to Bivins and Marshall he didn't fight for 18 months before starting his streak at which point the duration title had been discontinued and the lineal title was still frozen. When the lineal title returned Lesnevich would be in the UK to fight Mills and didn't return until 1947. So he had very limited window to fight Lesnevich.

 

You should have just put a period after the word sufficient and kept it moving.

 

I love Bivol, but his resume is quite thin. Smith, Canelo and a split pair with Beterbiev. Not much else. Benavidez only has wins over a well past it Gvozdyk and Morrell who hadn't done much at 175, so he doesn't add terribly much.

Not great at LHW, but is that even enough for top 10 in such a historic division?

 

I don’t know. What he’s done so far is impressive. He’s 13-1 in world title bouts and won his first title with under a dozen pro fights. He’s also engaged in a two fight rivalry with another dominant light heavy who may feel Bivol should have won both times. He beat Alvarez who granted was rising in weight but had captured a belt at light heavy before . Gilberto Ramirez has a good record. We’ll see what he does at cruiser. Not sure how many Hoff members he’ll end up with on his win list. But he’s got a good career going

 

Earlier in this thread, you said this:

Canelo has shown he still has dangerous power up @175, but he's not in top condition @that weight & his form is visibly diminished compared to 160-168. He hasn't proven that he could replicate the extent of success Johnson had @the weight & there's plenty of reason to be skeptical that he would've been capable of doing so even if he could try.

That's what I was saying, but it's still a circular argument either way - you're elevating Beter based on beating Bivol, then using that elevation of Beter to elevate Bivol's win in the rematch. By that logic, Bivol's win over Beter would actually be worth less if he had beaten him the 1st time & not lost to him in the 1st place.

 

Heres a rough list of great LHWs to consider in chronological order. Just so people can get a sense of just how many fighters we're dealing with here. This list has about 75. This list excluded quite a few lineal champions and many champions. Almost everyone on this had a long career.

To get Bivol in the top 10 you've got to knock off over 60 of these guys. If you think I left someone out you've got to knock them off too.



Choynski
Fitzsimmons
Hart
Root
Gardner
O Brien
Schreck
Carpentier
Jack Dillon
Weinart
Frank Mantell
Battling Levinsky
Gibbons
Miske
Kid Norfolk
Clay Turner
Greb
Tunney
Loughran
Stribling
Berlenbach
Slattery
Braddock
Heuser
Lomski
Rosenbloom
Scozza
Knight
Olin
John Henry Lewis
Al Gainer
Shucco
Christophordis
Conn
Bettina
Tiger Jack Fox
Len Harvey
McAvoy
Lesnevich
Bivins
Lloyd Marshall
Charles
Billy Fox
Freddie Mills
Maxim
Moore
Bob Murphy
Harold Johnson
Eddie Cotton
Durrelle
Mina
Scholz
Rinaldi
Pastrano
Jose Torres
Peralta
Saad Muhammad
Foster
Mike Quarry
Marvin Johnson
Qawi
Spinks
Virgil Hill
Maske
Tiozzo
Montell Griffin
RJJ
Hopkins
Michalczewski
Glen Johnson
Clinton Woods
Tarver
Chad Dawson
Stevenson
Beterbiev

 

The Maske inclusion is hilarious to me, lol. He would've lost to Charles Williams had Charles not been inactive for 17 whole months.

 

I do not think a case can be made for Top 10 at all.

 

Honestly, I think Maske and Bivol are probably on the same level. If teh fight takes place in the US, Bivol might edge out a decision because he is more offensive minded.

 

I simply can't agree, Maske is on a much lower level than Bivol. What're Henry's wins/performances that elevate him anywhere near Dmitry? The aforementioned 17 month layoff Charles Williams? Late career versions of Barkley and Roccigiani? Beating Virgil Hill in 2007? Bivol would make Maske look sorry as hell.

 

I see no justification for including Bivol in a top 20 all time list at175lbs.
A close win over a 40 years old Beterbiev doesn't cut it for me and his other wins are underwhelming imo.
I doubt He would have been champ back in the 70's.
Greb
Langford
Charles
Moore
Norfolk
Conteh
H Johnson
Qawi
Conteh
Foster
Spinks
Saad
Delaney
Bivins
Marshall
Lewis
Saad
Mustapha
Conn
Loughran
Tunney
JonesJnr
Rosenbloom
Berlenbach
Fox
Give him stiff arguments for a place,imo

 

Maske was on the same level as Hill. I do not see these two on a lower level than Bivol

 

It seems like we are hella understanding for the dead and dicks to the living. A boxer can't even explain why they lost without being criticized for excuses but the directions of their careers is forgivable for some reason.

Did Tunney ever claim LHW champion?

I would agree with the idea the early men did not care about weight divisions. Hell, I think I just took it a step farther than you intended but let's be real, we all know the early boxers did not care about weight divisions and anyone who could be HW champion damn well wanted to be. That said, I would argue to you this mindset is exactly why Tunney must get his respects in p4p. His resume is p4p not divisional, and his titles are HW though he lacks HW resume. That's a p4p ATG with no real division to be pinned to. By his own design. Because he didn't care about divisions under HW.

That said, if Tunney claimed it, I believe that's plenty enough for the era and would question how historians do not recognize his claim.

Charles is in a very similar but less by his own doing boat. I mean he straight up failed to get LHW then moved on to HW. No shame in improving, no shame in moving on, but to treat him like he won titles he didn't simply because he'd beaten everyone of note in two divisions seems disingenuous to me. He's another who has a very good p4p career. His HW career is much stronger than Tunney's and he has a solid ATG HW resume backed be a solid ATG LHW resume. That's a p4p fighter. x2 champion in one division, 0 times in the other but his resume speaks for itself.




That said, I noticed in both your response and your listing of LHWs, there's no mention of Tommy Burns. Vast majority of his career is sub 175, like Greb a MW with no problem fighting anyone larger, and beat the LHW champion x2. While I am on that subject, imo, it is stuff like this that makes guys like Tunney a bit exaggerated and guys like Burns under appreciated. Rather than acknowledging one man was the best at LHW and HW by beating the HW and LHW champions, we choose to retire the LHW title for a decade. ... ... yeah. Dude has like 12 or 13 title defenses, his resume is top notch in two divisions and he was so highly rated as a MW he was offered the MW title fight when he was offered the HW title fight. On the other hand we have Tunney. A man who didn't bother because it was unimportant in his time elevated like he did get the title anyway.


The point isn't that your right or wrong to exclude Burns. The point is Burns' situational aspects of his career are not forgiven while Charles and Tunney both received placement on the tops of lists despite having very similar journeys.

 

Since both O Brien and Burns were under the Lhvy limit when Burns beat Philadelphia Jack,Burns could justifiably have claimed the Lhvy title. Choynski has a real claim to being the 1st Lhvy champ