Wilfredo Gomez - Naoya Inoue

How would Inoue do against Morales, Pacquaio and Barrera at 122?

 

Exactly. As good as Inoue is, (he's number 2 P4P on my list btw) he hasn't done enough yet to be considered an ATG in my opinion. Sure he's won titles in several weight classes but his best win is an aging Donaire who gave a great fight in the first encounter.

I get it JOKER is a big fan of Inoue, and that's ok he's a great fighter but he just hasn't done enough yet to where I can say with confidence that he'd beat a Gomez, Morales, Pacquaio, Barerra, even Tapia at 118. Would he give a great fight, you would have to be a real dum dum to say no, but I don't think he wins those fights. There's not enough evidence yet to suggest that imo.

 

I get what JOKER is saying and he makes a couple of valid points. The fighters of today have evolved, with the training regimen, the dieting and so forth but just because you have the better training equipment, the better dieting, the better supplements doesn't mean you can beat the fighters of yesterday, and vice versa. We go off of resume and what a fighter has done in their era to figure out these hypothetical matchups. Its hard for me to look at Inoue today, dissect his resume and think he'd beat any of the best elite fighters in the history of the 122 pound division. Just my thoughts.

 

As much as I love Inoue and as much of a huge fan I am, I just can’t say that he would run through Gomez or other greats yet. He certainly has the potential and no doubt will but as of now, he needs to and will fight better opposition I feel. Just a personal thing and could of course be wrong…

 

We are discussing boxing, I don't understand why you have to keep constantly making the comparison between 2 separate entities. I already made it clear that I have no knowledge of baseball, but what do you expect when discussing in a boxing forum? Yes I acknowledge baseball is a sport that takes a lot of physical and mental strength, just like with every active sport. But again, they are 2 completely different sports that have nothing to do with each other. Why do you keep insisting that they're both physically and mentally the same when the actual game itself is completely different? Are you also going to tell me that long jump and swimming are the same thing as well?

I'll say this again once more: The comparison between the amounts of fights fought and the training methods that they used in different generations is completely irrelevant to this hypothetical match up between Gomez and Inoue. Everything we go off on this fantasy match up is based on resume, skills, abilities, strengths, weakness, and what we have seen on video from both of them.

Let's divert from the discussion of sports science and training methods and just pretend that Gomez is being trained under current sports nutrition with the same kind of training camp as today's fighters while still being the same fighter that we have seen on film.

Don't worry, I will gladly favor Robinson to beat all those guys in 1 night blindfolded with one hand tied behind his back.

You put too much emphasis on nutrition and training camps in a thread that is about a FANTASY match up between a current fighter and an ATG from the past. Based on your logic you are basically saying that EVERY fighter today that has more advanced nutrition, training methods, benefits, can beat any fighter from the past. So just to be clear, you think that:

George Kambosos Jr beats Pernell Whitaker
Vasyl Lomachenko beats Roberto Duran
Errol Spence beats Sugar Ray Leonard
Anthony Joshua beats Muhammad Ali
Andy Ruiz beats Mike Tyson

 

What an ignorant thing to say. I appreciate all boxers from every era but I also acknowledge that the talent level and competition were more stacked in some eras compared to others. Some fighters were just more talented and skilled than others, past and present. Certain fighters can beat others in any given time period due to their styles. I also think that some current fighters can beat fighters of the past. This isn't about older generation being superior to new generation or vice versa.
I don't have a bias towards any era, I keep things fair and honest. But the problem I see here is that you are completely bias towards current fighters. You say that it's largely cemented in nostalgia and a total disregard for advances in science, medicine, sports nutrition, etc.. yet you are the one that is totally disregarding the skills, talents, strengths, and the competition that they fought in that has made these past fighters great in the first place. You simply brush them off as inferior because you have a very close minded view.

I have praised Inoue many times and have even said that he would be competitive in any era. I know he's a special talented fighter. But I'm also not going to pretend that Inoue is this perfect unbeatable specimen that we have never seen before when we haven't seen him fully tested enough and reaching at the very top yet. Does he have a chance to retire unbeaten? Perhaps, but we won't know that until his career is done.

 

Because you said:

"You seem to be underestimating just how hard it is to be fighting often and still trying to maintain weight."

And ignorantly suggested that a baseball player goes through less mental and physical stress than a boxer. I simply showed you that the mental and physical grind over 6 months and 160+ games can be equally or more taxing and stressful on the mind and body.

Of course it's relevant. Your argument is that Gomez fought a higher level of competition and therefore you see no path to victory for Inoue. That's tremendously flawed because you're comparing an era when guys fought far more frequently, often times because they needed to for economic reasons, and as you said, only had days to train. That's possible because the opposition wasn't that great. Subpar opposition means less damage means more fights in a year. What happened to Kovalev when he fought Clenelo so soon after Yarde? Clenelo fought 14X in 2 years during a stretch early in his career. You probably can't name 5 of them because they sucked.

Today's athletes are bigger, faster, and stronger. The general athlete is an all around better conditioned and optimized machine with advanced metrics to back it up. You seem to think that evolution and advances in sports science/medicine skipped over boxing and that modern boxers have actually regressed to the point where they'd be lucky to survive a single round against their counterpart from days past.

Stop overrating the past and stop being so ignorant.

 

So by that token you could also apply basketball, football, and soccer into the mix as well because of the mental and physical grind that's also taxing to the mind and body due to the amounts of games being played. Are you going to tell me that those sports are exactly the same physically and mentally what a boxer goes through as well? You're not making any sense with these comparisons. They're all sports that require an insane amount of mental strength, physical training and conditioning but they're difficult in their own ways. That doesn't make them similar. Boxing is different because of the amount of physical punishment that is done to the body with each fight. Stop dragging another sport into the conversation as a way to pretend you know what you're talking about.

My argument that Gomez fought higher level opponents is valid, ask any true boxing fans and they'll tell you the same thing as well. You just continuously refuse to acknowledge that. When you consider HOF fighters that Gomez has fought like Carlos Zarate, Lupe Pintor, Salvador Sanchez, and Azumah Nelson as being 'inferior' competition that's being truly ignorant.

I like how you deliberately avoided to address these:

George Kambosos Jr beats Pernell Whitaker
Vasyl Lomachenko beats Roberto Duran
Errol Spence beats Sugar Ray Leonard
Anthony Joshua beats Muhammad Ali
Andy Ruiz beats Mike Tyson

Current fighters like Kambosos, Loma, Spence are supposed to be more "advanced" based on your logic. But you truly can't tell me that those guys mentioned could actually beat established ATGs like Whitaker, Duran, SRL. Are you seriously going to tell me that someone like Andy Ruiz or AJ would actually beat someone like prime Mike Tyson or even Muhammad Ali just because they are using a more "advanced" training regime? Your logic is flawed because it takes more than just more modern nutrition and training. Everything is based on styles, skills, and overall H2H abilities.

How about you stop brushing off fighters of the past by saying that they fought inferior competition just because they fought more often? And stop overrating Inoue to such an insane degree until his career is done.

When it comes to these fantasy match up threads we like to speculate how a fight would go based on styles because it's intriguing and exciting talking about it. We don't need to bring up the differences with sports science and training from different periods because it's a mythical match up that will never happen anyways, therefore we just go by their resume, skills, strengths and weaknesses.
If you keep pushing that agenda that modern fighters are superior and will always win against any past fighters because they have up to date medicine / diet / training regime then it just makes it completely pointless to make these hypothetical match up threads. It already means that you have this pre-conceived idea that a more modern fighter will always beat a fighter from the past. So what would be the point of doing these fantasy match ups if you're just going to favor the more modern fighter from the get-go?

Like I said in my last post, this isn't about older generation being better than new generation or vice versa. I'm always fair and honest when it comes to mythical match ups between 2 fighters from different eras.

 

My thoughts exactly.

 

There are more cases of concussion in the NFL than there are in boxing. And that's with guys wearing protective equipment and heavy helmets and they still get concussed because the other guy is also wearing a heavy helmet, is 300 pounds, and hurling himself at his opposition while running at full speed.

They were great in their own time, but that doesn't mean they'd replicate their success in modern times. You keep saying the sport of boxing is so physically violent and taxing, which is true, so how can the guys fight so frequently with so very little time in between fights? Gee, could it be that the competition was just lower quality? Once again, Clenelo fought the old school schedule of the past and grabbed wins over 14 guys in a 2 year span. How good were Clenelo's opponents during this seasoning period?

And once again, Babe Ruth was a monster in his own time, but put him in today's game, his numbers fall off a cliff. Why? Because pitchers today are throwing significantly harder (fastballs reaching 104 mph versus the max speed of 90 back in the day, which are considered lowly today) with a lot more movement, higher spin rates, and they've got a mountain of data on each hitter to glean data and patterns from.

Are you playing dumb or do you seriously lack the mental capacity to see and understand this?

Kambosos doesn't beat Whitaker. Lomachenko can beat Duran. Spence can beat SRL. I don't think Joshua can beat Ali, but I would favor Fury, Lewis, both K-Bros, and Usyk to. And absolutely Ruiz can beat Tyson.

They were able to fight often because the competition was inferior. Read above again. Fighters of old were able to fight frequently against a revolving door of opponents because they weren't taking damage. Gomez was great for his period, but he fought guys who didn't see the value of an 8-10 week training camp or economics just forced him to fight whenever he was given the opportunity.

Depending on when Butler decided to start training camp, he'll have had 2-3 months to prepare for Inoue. That's 2-3 months of training, access to everything he needs to optimize his final fight form, as well as pour through hours of tape on Inoue. That's a more dangerous proposition than fighting a guy in the 20s, 30s, or 50s who took the fight on 3 days notice because he needed the money.

 

More people try out and play football than pro boxing, therefore there's more cases of concussion. Concussion is one thing, death is another. And boxing has had a history of fatalities over the years. On average 7 boxers die each year from injuries sustained in a fight.

Why wouldn't they have success in today's competition? We're talking about ATGs such as Salvador freaking Sanchez that have fought in 15 round fights and having fought other greats. I would favor Zarate, Gomez, Nelson, Sanchez to dominate today's fighters. These guys stood the test of time because they were so good. You say that they were only great in their time but that's like if someone from 20 years from now were to say the same thing about Inoue, how he was only great in his era so he therefore he wouldn't be as successful if he were to fight competition 20 years later.

I sincerely disagree with Lomachenko beating Duran, Spence beating SRL, and Ruiz beating Tyson. Duran would beat the **** out of Lomachenko worse than what Teo and Salido dished out. SRL thrashes Spence like he did Kalule, and don't get me started with Mike Tyson against the Mexican dough boy. I do agree that Fury, Lewis, and Usyk would give Ali major problems. But it all boils down to this: styles always make fights.

There's a reason why they are considered great back then and still great now. Just because they fought more often doesn't make them any less great of a fighter. A longer training period in between fights DOESN'T make you a better fighter.

I'm sorry but you can't seriously tell me that someone like Butler would even be considered a more threatening proposition if we're trying to compare him to the likes of the guys Gomez fought like Zarate, Sanchez, Pintor, or Nelson. Even with that much preparation Butler would just be another highlight reel KO for someone like Gomez.

Like I said, we're not gonna be on the same page when it comes to discussing old fighters. Almost everyone here will disagree with you on this. You clearly have a much more favorable, bias view towards modern fighters so we'll just agree to disagree on this.

 

I love me some Zárate but he doesn't have near the same kind of defensive abilities Inoue does. Just not as dynamic a fighter.

 

Sounds the same as Inoue in terms of skillset.