Which fighter do you rate MUCH lower than the general consensus?

I've been saying for years Dempsey gets an incomplete ... how can you give him anything else ? He ducked Wills, did not fight Greb, he was ridiculously inactive, he was almost knocked out by Firpo, he defeated a 37 year old Willard who was coming off ridiculous inactivity .. seriously. His best performances were defeating Giibbons showing he could dominate a crafty, serious fighter ( if not a heavyweight ) over 15 rounds and showing exceptional grit in his Tunney and Sharkey bouts, fights that showed what might have been had we seen a prime Dempsey which we never did. He is an amazingly fun story, icon, legend and he had the greatest PR machine in history timed perfectly in the perfect era but that does not add depth to reality. We simply do not know ... putting all the hype aside Dempsey remains an unknown commodity .. he could be top ten pound all time or not even a top twenty heavyweight H2H .. nostalgia aside, it's a coin flip to me based on facts.

 

probably mayweather jr

 

ROBERT..u say Lennox is the "most overrated fighter in history"...please expand on that ? The guy fought every contender of his (long)era ducking nobody.True he missed Tyson at his peak and the Bowe clash never took place but by common concensus neither of these things were his fault.He avenged his 2 loses swiftly and nobody he met could claim that they were better than him.His list of victories mirrors and slightly betters Tysons although clearly not as spectacular..but with Lennox you have the longevity that with Mike you do not. His careful analytical personality led to him being too cautious at times..but most overated fighter ever ???
Thats nonsense....

 

No, I am to believe that the only evidence suggests these were not very good fighters or previously good fighters who were on very bad stretches towards the end of the careers. It would be statistical miracle that they were all skewed to the detriment of the fighters in question.

We know what the surviving evidence contends. We are not talking about one or two fighters but a dozen or more, pretty much everyone of his victims except Fulton. That's a damn good sampling. If your contention had validity, wouldn't we see at least a couple fighters with sterling surviving records, on really hot streaks of victories, due to the same distortion of historical erosion? We don't see this at all.

 

I guess we have to ask the question why was he given five chances in the first place?

It seems more than anything to be because no other strong contender emerged to push him down the ladder!

 

Give me Floyd Patterson for 1000, Alex.

Like him as a man, really as a gentleman, but he spent more time on the canvas than anyone who rates so highly with so many. Fought bravely later in his career and found a bit of stability, but still has few true quality wins and came up short against the better fighters of his era.

 

Hopkins

But only really because the current trend is to rate him through the roof.

• I don't think his run at MW is that impressive when you look at who he fought. Didn't beat any great natural MWs for me.
• I think he gets far too much of a pass for his defeats - No ATG should be dropping 2 decisions to a fighter like J Taylor who was always a good boxer with decent skills but was never a great.
• He lost clear to Calzaghe IMO. No shame in that but his fans like to claim it as a de facto win and make out Hopkins was robbed. I don't see what rounds people are giving to Hopkins to get him a win in that fight.
• I'm not a big fan of the "old pro" tactics he's been adopting in recent years.

That said it's very impressive that he's still mixing it at elite level at Light Heavy at his age. And his schooling of the then undefeated Pavlik was a great performance.

 

Because he was the 1940's/50's Andrew Golota?

That said, the Hopkins call out is a good one.