Witch fighter gets the most overrated on this forum?

Vitali klitschko

 

Really !!! you must have a agenda. Firstly I have not seen that many posts praising him ? secondly he is an ATG prob 2/3 at WW and he beat ( oh yes ) Hagler also an ATG and also in 2/3 of MW p4p, and you think he is overrated . keep well buddy.

 

I didn't have to explain why. You did it for me. Facts are my agenda.
1. He never won the light heavy title. That was open corruption by the Boxing Commission to make Donny Lalonde sweat down to 168 while still putting his crown on the line. It was against the rules yet Leonard's star power overrode the rules. Show me a case of another fighter having this kind of blatant power.

2. The Hagler fight was very controversial. To deny this or downplay the fact that many boxing feel it was a travesty.

3. He lost his Welterweight title in his prime to a 30 year old former lightweight after one or two defenses. Won it back but no rematch until 1989. When his opponent was too old to win.

4. Won a great battle with Hearns. Outstanding win but didn't give Hearns the same chance to redeem himself that he had gotten from Duran. An immediate rematch. Mmm?

5. When he did eventually fight what he thought was a shopworn Hearns he got a draw. Another fight he got dropped 2x and should have lost.q

6. Was he a great fighter? Yes. Does he deserve to be ranked #2 or #3 Welterweight of alltime? Hardly. He retired at 25 or 26. While Duran, Hearns and Hagler were putting in work throughout the decade winning some, losing some Ray was on the shelf. By age 34 Ray was no longer even competitive at '47 or '54.You ranking him so highly based on purely on Fanship makes my case.

7. The man had less than 40 fights in the meat of his career. Yet you have him up there next to Sugar Ray Robinson. The Welterweight division had many great champions that put in work. Much more than Ray Leonard. You got Kid Gavilan, Carmen Basilio Emile Griffith, Jose Napoles, Felix Trinidad, Luis Rodriguez, Micky Walker. Henry Armstrong did more in one year at Welterweight than Ray did his entrie reign. Just sayin man...let's not confuse StarPower or fame with accomplishments. Those guys i mentioned can't compare on $ level or commercial level but they put in work and didn't have the advantages Leonard had.

It may irritate his fans to read this but its not simply of case of him not being (my cup of tea). I told no lies.

 

Very impressive riposte, had me reeling and looking for cover, had I overstepped the mark, should I have maybe put more thought into my rather petty remarks , lets get the apology of to him ASAP, then I sat back and reread your hugely detailed account of SRL, and thought I might reply thus :
1/ well he did win the LHW title, sorry but since you like facts, the aforementioned is a fact.
2/ agreed the MH fight was controversial, lots had MH as winner, equally lots had SRL as winner, lets say it was a very close fight, shall we, point is ( a big point ) no one, but no one gave SRL the remotest of chances, people were afraid for his health, if you are old enough you will know that is true, also lest we forget, Ray had been out of the ring for something like 3 years or more, so even if he was defeated my oh my he put up a great, great fight against a champ that had been chawing up full blown MWs , much less a WW .
3/ you say he lost to a former LW , you omitted to say the " former LW " was either the best LW of all time , or second, plus Duran wasn't a LW when he climbed into the that night, he weighed 146.3 Mmmm, wouldn't that make him a WW ? .
Look SRL fought Durans fight and lost by a whisker, that surprised all the fight fraternity, they all realized that Ray had balls, and wasn't afraid to take on Duran at his own game, as we know know in the return SRL totally outclassed Duran, resulting in the Macho Man quitting, there was no clamor for a return, SRL had his number and them some.
4/ you might have a point, I truly don't remember if SRL was accused of ducking Hearns at that time, don't see why he would have, both would have been payed a lot of dosh.
5/ ok fair point.
6/ ranking fighters is very subjective, everyone's got a different perspective , on reflection maybe I ranked him too high, not on Fanship !.
7/ he retired due to eye trouble as I recall, not his fault really, as too all the greats you mentioned, apart from Armstrong, and SRR, the rest would have found beating Leonard a very difficult ask, don't you think buddy.
Enjoyed our posts and banter, keep well and safe mate. Michael.

 

He's asking to be taken seriously rating Maske at #4? Sorry that ship has sailed LOL!!!

 

You make some very good points, I think Leonard could compete with and beat a lot of great welterweights, but if he had campaigned for say 70 or so fights I think his resume would be quite different. Had he rematched Hearns at 154 around 1983 I think Tommy gets him outta there. And Ray wanted nothing to do with Hagler around that time either. He jumped after Marvin was in that car wreck of a fight with Mugabi .Heck Benitez wouldn't have been certain in a rematch at 154....."let's not confuse Starpower or fame with accomplishments" man that is a great line and soooo true.

 

Leonard is also given a pass for getting his ass kicked by Norris. Other greats gutted out wins against young champions while past prime, but Leonard didn’t.

 

Frazier has a better resume than Tyson??
I think it's normally a toss up, but i slightly think Mike wins this. Which explain why i have Joe ranked 10th heavyweight of all time and tyson 9th.
Both fighters did beat one great hall of fame fighter in their prime, bob foster and Michael Spinks.
Both also fought and beat another great hall of famer who was past it. (1971 Ali, 1988 Holmes, we can also add the fact both Ali and Holmes were not 100% ready, since Larry took the fight on short notice, and Ali, according to dundee, should have had more than only 2 warmup fight before facing a peak frazier).
They also against the only great heavyweight in their prime, 1973 George Foreman and the 2002 Lennox Lewis (but it should be noted that both tyson and frazier were a sad shadow of the invincible fighters They once were, especially in Tyson's case).
But in the end, Tyson fought 4 hall of famers Holyfield, Lewis, Michael Spinks and larry Holmes whereas Joe shared the ring with 3 , Ali, Foreman and Bob foster.
So i will go with Tyson.

 

Comparing 1971 Ali and 1988 Holmes is intelectual dishonesty to say the least.

 

I just said Ali, like Holmes, was not in his prime.

 

Ali was arguably still in his prime, although likely past his peak. He had a lot of great wins after the FOCT.

Meanwhile Holmes was old, rusty and retired. So saying that Ali like Holmes was not in his prime is a manipulation.

 

Jerry Quarry

 

You mean underrated?

 

Bruh LOL, this is not the right word for me, i think you should have said he was very rusty, has been out of the ring for nearly 4 years, 1314 days actually. Past his prime, but certainly not as much as Larry Holmes, and i agree with that. However if you can back up your claim that Ali was still in his prime with sources , then like Ali himself said, i'm gonna get on my knees and kiss your feet and said you are the Greatest!!
Ali did have great wins after the FOTC mostly because he was in a better fighting shape, unlike the one who rushed to fight Joe Frazier for the first time after only six months of training ti get himself "prepared", with 2 warm ups, before facing an all time great.
Holmes himself, after his bad performances against Mike Tyson, after getting several warm-up fights in his 2nd comeback, looked more impressive, scored wins over Ray Mercer, going the distance with Holyfield and losing against McCall by one point.
Defenitely not a better "comeback" run than Ali's, but still impressive.
In summary, IMO Ali was not as rusty as the late 1980's/early 1990's Holmes, but that doesn't change the fact he was past his prime post exile!!

 

You're intellectually dishonest if you say Ali was arguably in his prime for Frazier. Nobody believes that.