Would Jimmy Bivins be P4P #1 Today ?

Lee Murray>Usyk is now another hill i will be dying on, along with Oreos>Chip's Ahoy and Sonic>Mario

 

yes, and I always accounted for such i.e - MWs cum L-HWs
WW cum MWs... L-HWs cum HWs.

but today they are Stature wise BIGGER Men cutting 25-40 lbs and more, operating in Divisions 2 & 3 below their walk about weight.

the discussion is clear to most on this thread, except those that just default mythical match ups 'weight - weight' which under HW would never be met today, generally speaking, 'them' to now...

even many, many past HW's Stature wise Today would have the luxury of a Bhop, RJJ or Calzaghe or Froch and all, be operating at MW, S-MW and L-HW.

 

PERFECT.

 

Lee Q Murray being considered some great in order to inflate Bivins rep is wild.

 

But he was ranked #3 in 1943! That definitely better then being undisputed in two weight divisions............

 

True

 

Yeah, Dwight Qawi was an example of a shorter guy who was firmly LHW. Bivens did start his career at 160 or so, but as he matured, he generally was around 175-185 or so. Even in this area, I don't see him necessarily staying at 160 that long, especially given that 168 has been where the money is at over the past few years.

Ezzard Charles - Counter-Punching Excellence

1:48-1:57 shows Charles

...Jabbing and using it to frame Walcott to land a right hand to the head.
...Looks off the right-hand counter from Walcott to take the sting out of the shot.
...Immediately counters with a right to the body,
...Blocks Walcott's 4-3 to the body, smothers the 2 to the head.
...Uses the positioning from the smother to work the body, landing a 5-6-5 to the body. Missing the final uppercut and takes a hook below the belt.
...Parries the right, weaves under hook, and then disengages, steps back to avoid the left hook and then check hooks the hell out of Walcott, causing him to fall face first to the mat.

So, in the middle of a 50/50 exchange with one of the finest technicians to live, Ezzard Charles started out the exchange well, defended well to avoid or nullify the vast majority of Walcott's shots, landed well to the body and then disengaged at exactly the right time and deposited Walcott on his face to end the exchange.

Sorry, as impressive as Moore looks in that exchange, Bivens is a bit more compliant and not as impressive as Walcott was at this point. Charles is at greater risk in the entire exchange and produces just as much good work as Moore in less than half the time and scores his only knockdown of the series. I'm taking this sequence over Moore's and not apologizing one bit for it.

Either way, Moore does not look leagues better than Charles on film. Marginally more technical, but certainly not by a space of leagues or streets. Maybe by a few millimeters. And, between Charle's split second reads and subtle transitions from offense to defense and the fact that he's objectively got faster hands you can see why he made Moore's life miserable.

 

Lee Murray was better than Usyk? You must be trolling? He was knocked down 10 times over a 6 fight series with Curtis Sheppard who weighed about 180lbs & had 33 losses in total.

Murray was taking losses to men like Sid Peaks who knocked him down TWELVE times in 3 rounds before the fight was stopped & Johnny Flynn who at the time had more losses combined with draws than actual wins!

In fact in one fight against Walcott Murray was disqualified for not even trying... in no way is this man on Usyks level in any shape or form. Absolutely embarrassing irrational statement. You should be ashamed.

 

Yes

 

Bivins beats Fury and AJ on a 2 on 1 tag team fight

 

I thought they were the cheer squad of light and love?

 

Hey, Usyk someone from the Past wants to 'meet' you...

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I think part of Rocky's point is that the talent pool during the ww2 era was depleted by military service, and that Bivins' so-called interim championship was a promoter-driven fabrication to sell tickets rather than a real title. I think fans today take things like interim championships more seriously than they deserve to be taken because they live in the watered-down era of multiple belts and weight divisions. Isn't it true that today they even crown "interim champions" after a belt-holder has been stripped of his title for refusing to defend it against the sanctioning body's poster boy? I'm not sure about this because haven't really followed the minutia of the sanctioning boxing all that closely since 1980. Maybe Bob Lee was the only one to do this??

 

This makes sense. Mayweather was a pound for pound greater fighter than Trevor Berbick, but h2h, Mayweather would likely lose to everyone Berbick fought (at least the world level opponents) and Berbick would thrash everyone Mayweather fought simply because he's so much bigger. Berbick would likely look destructive fighting light weights and welterweights.

 

Rocky claimed that Bivins "was an also ran from one of the sports most depleted eras". This is a contention that does not stand up well under scrutiny.

Firstly, Bivins went on a 23-0-1 run during which he beat the consensus top 2 x LHWs of all time, another 2 x top 20 LHWs of all time, as well as multiple other LHW contenders and bigger HW contenders. That's not an also ran.

Secondly, 5 (SRR, Charles, Louis, Pep & Moore) of the top 15-20 p4p fighters of all time were active in the 40's. All 5 are considered amongst the 16 fighters occupying the top 2 slots in the original 8 weights divisions (Louis @ HW, Charles & Moore @ LHW, SRR @ WW & Pep @ FW). Whilst Moore did better work in the 50's, his work in the 40's was notable and the other 4 did their best work in the 40's.

No other decade contains as many consensus top 10 p4p boxers of all time. No other decade contains as man consensus top 20 p4p boxers of all time. No other decade contains as many top 2 all time greats in the original 8 x weight divisions.

Roughly between 25-33% of the greatest 15-20 boxers of all time were active in the 40's, yet that decade only represents around 7% of gloved boxing history.

I prefer this depth of analysis to lazy contentions like "WWII was in the 40's so the era was weak".