Your most overrated/underrated fighters

What a great post.

A pleasure to read.

 

Obviously anybody can be either overrated or underrated.

I guess it depends what's been claimed.

I can see your point about Oscar. And he was lucky in some fights. He also employed the wrong tactics, like against Tito, and he stopped throwing the jab against Floyd.

However, he was also very unlucky too in some fights.

I wouldn't personally say that he's overrated. Not unless someone has him as a top 30 ATG fighter.

 

You've got to be joking here.

He didn't look fine at all.

He was absolutely exhausted, even though it was a slow paced fight.

He was running on fumes in those last 3 rounds.

 

I think he might have beaten Hopkins at any time and competitive with Jones, but most give him no chance with those two.
GGG is often judged too much on his older performances when he finally fought better fighters, he’d lost a lot by then

 

Is he overrated?

He was great, he beat some great fighters, and we lost him in his early 20's.

 

Herol Graham?

 

He'd always have been competitive with Hopkins.

He never had the confidence and the drive to chase down Roy in his prime.

Also, his resume is terrible for such a good fighter.

 

Hi Fred.
Brave but good choices on the overrated, in the underrated bracket might I add, Evan Armstrong, Colin Jones, Kevin Finnigan, Colin Power, Steve Robinson.
stay safe buddy, chat soon.
Mike.

 

It's always a bit tricky to say who is or isn't overrated, as a lot of people have different judgement - but yes I believe in general He isn't given as much credit as I feel He should.
The fact that You highlighted his losses makes me believe that You also don't rate him that high. Harding was a tough step-up and He fought through a broken jaw. I also feel He beat Glen both times - so those are not horrible defeats, to me.

 

Herol was one hell of a talent, a fine fighter who was so unlucky against Julian Jackson and gave a peak McCallum a tough fight.

I consider him overrated because people seem to forget he struggled with Ayub Kalule, got dropped and beaten by Kalambay yet some fans think he was a second coming of Ali.

Hagler may have been well past it when he lost to Leonard but it seems a consensus that Marvin avoided him and some seem convinced he´d defeat the champion.

I´m no doubt Herol would have frustrated Hagler and maybe even won a few rounds but there´s no way Herol would have won and I´d be surprised if he went the limit.

Herol Graham had the talent to win a world title and was so unlucky that he didn´t. I strongly recommend his biography in which he is very candid and is certainly an eye openner on mental health.

Nonetheless there are still some fans go over the top (the same with Kirkland Laing, one of my favourite fighters, whose flaws outweigh his undoubted talent) thinking he was good enough to have dominated the middleweight division like the great Hagler had done.

Even had he picked up a world title (like Kalambay did after beating Herol the 1st time round) I doubt he would have held it for long against talented fighters like Nunn, Tate or Toney.

 

Is it possible to be great AND overrated? If so-I have to put Mayweather in this category--(at least to some degree.)

Underrated--I would pick Alexis Arguello. He gets overlooked too often nowadays--people forget he was a world champion in 3 weight classes and a terrific puncher--very powerful and precise!

 

Of course its possible to be great and overrated. Floyd is an all time great, absolutely no doubt about it. But the mainstream thinks he's the best to ever do it, and he's simply not.

 

100% spot on!! (You stated it perfectly--that was why I made my comment about Floyd being great and overrated. The mainstream media definitely goes overboard with the Mayweather hype!)

 

Overrated - Johnson (best wins were smaller opponents or washed up), Wills and McVey (boring on film, too much clinching), Armstrong (unimpressive title defenses), Baer (crude skills), Monzon (best wins blown up welters and washed up former greats), Hopkins (hid out at 160 to pad his record and avoid better opponents at 168), Mayweather (never fought an elite level fighter at their best), Fury (prior to Usyk losses we had fans talking about him being an ATG), Wlad (the reincarnation of Primo Carnera), Jose Torres (unimpressive resume and title defenses, avoided Bob Foster) Ali (technically flawed fighter who thrived against smaller opponents, plodders, and got several gifts from judges)--a great HW champion with heart, chin, stamina and fought them all. Being overrated doesn't mean you're not a great fighter.

Underrated - Gibbons, Flowers, Zivic, Beau Jack, Montgomery, Ike Williams, Harold Johnson, Bivins, Graham, Curtis Cokes, Luis Rodriguez, Yaqui Lopez, Carlos Palomino, Buddy McGirt, Steve Collins.

 

I do rate him.

But I would never say that he’s generally underrated.

He was simply a very good, but non great fighter.

And his resume reflects that.

No, losses to Johnson and Harding weren’t horrible, but a great fighter would never have lost to those guys at their best.

It’s good that he avenged the losses, but they weren’t great fighters.

What harms him a lot, is that he couldn’t beat a clearly depleted version of Roy Jones in their first fight.

Roy was there for the taking, absolutely exhausted, but he couldn’t capitalise on it.

Roy won that first fight.

Now he deserves huge credit for the knockout win in their rematch. But that was one punch, what can happen in the sport. But he couldn’t do that in the first fight, and he couldn’t do it in their trilogy, despite Roy not having fought in over a year, and after suffering back to back knockout losses.

He then lost to Hopkins and Dawson.

So I’m not seeing how he’s underrated.

If he’d been a genuinely great fighter, he’d never have lost the fights that he did.