Who in your opinion is the greatest boxer in the history of boxing?

First of all, we’re talking here about the greatest fighters of all time, across every division, throughout the entire history of the sport.

Under traditional ranking criteria, you’re looking at guys who were extremely gifted, who beat great fighters and who had great resumes. Guys who were extraordinary. Guys who accomplished great things.

Yes, Joe was a great fighter in his own right. But he’d literally barely make the Top 100 of all time under traditional ranking criteria.

By all means, on your own personal list you can put him where you want. But under traditional ranking criteria that’s used by boxing historians etc, he could never qualify.

A guy like Mike McCallum who was better than Joe barely makes anyone’s top 50-100.


Let’s look at Joe’s skills:

He didn’t possess great technical skills. He often cuffed with the inside of his glove, he often concentrated more on volume rather than accuracy, and he was always easy to hit with a right hand. He never posed a great defence. His M.O. was to out work guys with great volume and his insane stamina.


Let’s look at his resume:

He has a weak resume. Sure, it looks great to the naked eye, with a resume of 46-0. But out of the 45 opponents that he fought, only 12/13 of them were world class fighters. The others were British and European level guys. For 10 years, he defended a WBO belt against mostly low level guys, when the belt wasn’t even recognised as being a legitimate world title.


The biggest wins of his entire career were against: Eubank, Lacy, Kessler, Hopkins and Jones.

Eubank was faded and at the end of his career, where he took the fight on just 11 days notice. He then retired 2 fights later.

Lacy was massively overhyped and had beaten nobody noteworthy before he fought Joe. He also never beat anybody noteworthy afterwards.

Kessler was a very good but not great fighter, who had also beaten nobody noteworthy beforehand. After losing to Joe, he then lost to Ward and went 1-1 with Froch.

Hopkins was faded at 43, but was still an elite level fighter. On paper, this is Joe’s best win. Especially as Hopkins remained at the top level over the following years.

Roy Jones was completely shot. He was completely finished as a top level fighter 4 years before he fought Joe, with his last top level win coming in November, 2003, which was exactly 5 years to the day before he fought Joe. He’d lost 3 consecutive fights from 2004-2005, which included back to back knockout defeats to Tarver and Johnson. Which is why in 2007, Joe himself said that a fight with Roy was pointless, as Roy was a shot fighter and had been for 4 years. Joe literally wrote that in his 2007 autobiography, yet still fought him in the following year regardless. And the reason he did that, was because it massaged his ego and topped up his pension fund. It was an easy, no risk retirement fight against a faded legend.


If you think that easily beating a shot Roy Jones puts him in contention as being the GOAT, then you are kidding yourself.

You also said that Joe was shot to bits and Roy fought on for another 10 years.

1. Joe clearly wasn’t shot to bits considering he’d just beaten Hopkins. Yes, he was past his best, but he was still a top 10 P4P fighter at the time.

2. It doesn’t matter if Roy fought on for a further 10 years. He was still finished as a top level fighter. Just 12 months after losing to Joe, Roy then lost to Danny Green in just a single round. He then went in to lose to Hopkins and Lebedev which brought another 3 fight losing streak for him. The only fighters who Roy could beat were low level guys and journeyman.


To summarise:

Out of 46 fights, Joe’s best 2 wins were against a very good Kessler, and a 43 year old Hopkins.

A poor showing for any potential GOAT candidate.


Roy will always be ranked higher than Joe, irrespective of what happened in 2008.

Roy was the P4P King of boxing for a decade. He only lost 1 fight by a DQ in his first 50 fights. He won titles from MW-HW, where he easily beat very good-great fighters with ease, and often in spectacular fashion whilst barely losing rounds. He dominated for 15 years. He was declared the fighter of the decade for the 90’s.

That’s why people are putting him forward as the GOAT. Prime for prime, he was on another level to any version of Joe. You can’t just proclaim Joe as the GOAT because he beat a 39 year old version of Roy. Not when Antonio Tarver and Glen Johnson had beaten him years earlier. If you’re not going to apply any context, then we could say that Tarver is the GOAT. But that’s obviously not how it works.


Again, Joe was a great fighter. But he didn’t have the ability, the resume or the accomplishments to be rated alongside the true ATGs of the sport.

 

Too long, didn't read. 46 tried 46 failed. Including Jones, Hopkins, Kessler, Lacy and Eubank

 

What's not true is that that while Calzaghe was coming to the end of his career, Jones did not have 10 good years left. He kept fighting but Jones was almost 40 years old and he was three years older than Calzaghe when they met. His prime had ended with three consecutive losses four years earlier. The fact Jones kept fighting only means he kept going further and further past his prime.

 

It's between Khan and Brook, whoever wins tonight will be crowned the best ever

 

If you’re not trolling, here’s some advice:

Read it before embarrassing yourself further.

46 didn’t try, genius.

He fought 45 opponents.

But I’m sure you knew that, huh?

 

Really ? Do you even realize what's the meaning of "greatest boxer in history pound for pound" that you wrote yourself in the beginning of this topic ?

Of course, his name definitely deserves to be included in this argument.

 

This.

1. Sugar Ray Robinson

2. Sam Langford
3. Harry Greb
4. Muhammad Ali
5. Roberto Duran
6. Hank Armstrong
7. Bob Fitzsimmons
8. Willie Pep
9. Joe Louis
10. Ezzard Charles