Who do you rank higher all-time pound-for-pound: NASEEM HAMED or FERNANDO VARGAS?

Name change because I was so tired of the less intelligent members of the General responding to any point I made on anything with some dull and irrelevant insult about Manny Pacquiao. It had became unbearably boring.

I also dislike the overuse of the term "exposed", but in certain instances I think it does apply. I shouldn't have used Hatton-Mayweather as an example, as it has obscured my point by making you think the issue is the quality of opponent, when it isn't IMO.

Before the Margarito fight, Cotto had been in trouble once before, v Torres, but this was widely attributed to him being weight-drained and careless. Cotto was viewed as a boxer with sound fundamentals and good all-round skills. What we saw in the Margarito fight was not him simply being beaten by a better fighter or him being beaten by stylistic Kryptonite IMO, what we saw was a fighter who had progressed through his career without his defence being tested by a powerful and aggressive opponent, and once it was being tested in this way, Cotto was exposed as having an amateurish and weak defence. He did not know when to hold, he did not know how to protect himself from uppercuts, he did not know how to roll and counter inside. None of this had been truly tested before, and now that it was being tested, we found that Miguel was sorely deficient in this aspect of his game. Margarito is not a more skilled fighter (like Mayweather is to Hatton), nor is he stylistic Kryptonite either IMO (like for instance Junior Jones was to Barrera), because I honestly believe that if Cotto could completely revamp his defence (to make it in the mould of Bernard Hopkins's mixture of holding and lateral movement and effective blocking) and improve his stamina, he could beat Margarito in a rematch.

Like Cotto's defence hadn't been properly tested by a specific type of opponent before Margo and was found to be wanting, Hamed's skills hadn't been tested by a quality composite punching opponent. He and many others thought his power and speed would be enough to beat Barrera (as many thought Cotto would beat Margo), but in the fight itself the deficiencies that had always existed in Hamed were exposed by the first elite fighter Hamed ever fought.

For me, both of these are clear examples of the rare times that a boxer is genuinely "exposed". However, I do not say this as some negative slur. As I said, I think Cotto could right his wrongs. And although Hamed was exposed (I do not believe Hamed could have did anything differently to ever beat Barrera) and I do not think Vargas was, it was Vargas's defeat which was by far the more comprehensive and damaging. Exposed does not mean worse, it is simply a different type of defeat - one which can sometimes be rectified, though not always.

 

What do you know of Holyfield's cruiserweight career?

 

Just now I go Holyfield, Trinidad, Mosley, Vargas. But Mosley or Wright is the one I have most trouble with. Mosley's resume will always be a stumbling block for me.