Who is higher on your ATG p4p list, Ali or Pep? Why?

Ali.

 

I vote Pep

my top 10 looks like this

1. Robinson
2. Armstrong
3. Greb
4. Pep

Ali is just outside my top 10or just in depends my mood. (i only rate fighters from 1920 onwards)

 

I am BIG fans of both these guys. I met Ali and Pep several times. Here's some Stats on both of them:

Ali – Fought 38 Boxers that were rated in the Top 10 when he fought them out of his 61 bouts ( 33-5 Record )
Pep – Fought 35 Boxers that were rated in the Top 10 when he fought them out of his 241 bouts ( 27-8 Record )

Ali – Fought 38 different boxers 49 times, that were rated in the Top 10 at one time or another out of his 61 bouts ( 44-5 Record )
Pep – Fought 60 different boxers 89 times, that were rated in the Top 10 at one time or another out of his 241 bouts ( 78-10-1 Record )

 

Ali. Stronger resume. Can't see past that at all. Ali is my number 6, I love his resume.

 

Who was the better fighter? Highly debatable. Who had the better resume with more signature wins? Probably Ali.

Now, I don't know if this sets them apart in a clean cut fashion, but it certainly gives us something to work with. Ali's wins over Frazier, Liston, Foreman and Patterson were victories over men who's all time heavyweight standings range clearly anywhere from top 7 to top 15. He also beat most of them when they were at or at least near prime ( Liston and Patterson were probably a bit past it, but still major forces. )

Pep of course, had far more fights and I believe was undefeated in his first 62 bouts or so - a winning streak that has been bested by only a very small select few.

 

I guess I'm not seeing where it's such a given that Ali's resume is stronger, either on an absolute basis or a P4P one. I see it listed like it's fact, but nobody's putting the beef on the table to back it up. Hank put up some great numbers for both Pep and Ali, but they're hardly enough to convince that Ali's resume was stronger as fighting 3 more current top 10 fighters gets outweighed by Pep fighting 22 more fighters who were top 10 at one time or another.

Also, Pep didn't lose to smaller fighters and was phenomenal against guys his own size, along with defeating Hall of Famers/ATG's himself. In the Ring's "80 best fighters of the last 80 years", Saddler ranks 15th and Ortiz ranks 38th. Ortiz was smack in the middle of his prime and Pep was the only fighter to beat him during his run from 1941-1946.

 

In Pep's first 62 bouts, he only fought 4 boxers that were rated in the Top 10 at the time he fought them. Pedro Hernandez, Bobby "Poison" Ivy, Chalky Wright and Allie Stolz.

 

Pep ranks higher than Ali by a clear margin, in my opinion. The only greats I have over Willie are Duran, Langford, Greb, Armstrong, and Robinson.

 

A valid criticisim,

However fighting at the frequency that Pep was making appearances, is still very admirable. In 1941, he fought some 21 times.. No matter if one is facing tomato cans or not, to maintain focus, find time to both train and recover between fights, and stay consistant is extremely difficult. I think a lot of people commonly over look these things when they open up the boxrec page and see a bunch of fighters on a resume who have losing records.. While I am a huge believer in fighting quality over quantity, it isn't the end all be all. There are other things to be considered.

 

this is another great point.

But if you look at it Pep fought say 4 or 5 ranked fighters a year as champ (i dont know exact numbers) and when you think about it thats about the same as Ali maybe more.

The extra fights and non title bouts were there to keep him sharp and focused as Pep wasnt the best trainer by all accounts and these extra fights kept him sharp and made him learn.

I like quality and quantity, thats where fighters are going wrong now IMO

 

Ali!

 

Henry,


Take a look at who Pep fought once he won the title....he literally cleaned out the divisions top 10 RING Magazine

 

Very impressive

 

Both guys did it as good as any ever has, no wrong answer here.

Pep was the greatest FWT & Ali was the greatest HWT, hard to split them TBH.

 

I agree,

Today's fighters could benefit from making more appearances and keeping more active, even if the quality of the opposition isn't that great. Two modern day fighters who I think were throw backs to old school champs were Julio Cesar Chavez and James Toney. At times during their title reigns, they each fought sometimes as many as 5 or 6 times per year, and often took on lesser opponents in between title bouts.