Your most overrated/underrated fighters

Okay.

Like I mentioned earlier, any fighter in history can be both overrated and underrated.

Again, it depends what’s being said about them.


Personally, I find it just about impossible to have an objective debate on the careers of Mike Tyson and Floyd Mayweather.

They are either horribly overrated, or horribly underrated.


A few quick examples:

“Floyd was unbeatable. Nobody in history could have beaten him. And the ‘Fab Four’ could hardly have laid a glove on him”

“Floyd was never a great fighter. All he did was run and hug. He was the most boring fighter in history”


Regarding Herol, I followed his career.

I’ve never heard anybody anywhere, claim that he was some ring genius, like the second coming of Ali.

From my experience, he’s always been underrated, where a lot of modern fans don’t think that he could have been a champion today.

Most people look at his losses, but can’t appreciate how good McCallum, Kalambay and Jackson were, and how stacked his era was, and how unlucky he was.

That’s why I questioned your post.

 

I have literally never heard of any British fan say that he was like an Ali or a Robinson.

Never.

 

Well, yeah - that's how I see him too. So perhaps He is not underrated after all ).

 

I would say a Montell Griffin as underrated. He beat James Toney twice and gave prime RJJ his most competitive fight before winning by DQ

 

Did he beat Toney twice though?

 

I am going to talk about within the boxing community like we are,not casually.
In my opinion,
Overrated: Joe Louis. I am basing these on who he beat. Those 25 defenses, I don't see that being broken ever, especially with how infrequently fighters fight these days, but he hasn't really beaten too many real great fighters.

Underrated: Floyd , Mike and Wlad.
Floyd - He did chose when he would fight the guys that he fought. And some of his wins were questionable, like Maidana and Castillo. But the whole "I only do this for money" imo is just BS and it is a persona Floyd has. He rematched the two of them because he did not like people saying they beat him. He did beat a lot of champions and even though they were past their primes, they were not in the same league of when Larry fought Ali's corpse.

Wlad - I know I just said that accomplishments are secondary with Joe Louis. However no one ever talks about Wlad. He was a great champion and ran the division for 10 years and I hope with time,people will come to respect him. He was constantly fighting ranked opponents.

Mike - Mike Tyson dominated for 5 years. He beat every ranked opponent in the ring magazine I believe besides Nr.4 buster douglas during that time. He had 9 defenses. He deserves credit.

 

Specific to this forum:

Underrated: Champions who never got a big fight or who came from less glamorous eras tend to get forgotten here. You’ll rarely see a post here mentioning someone like James Page, Aaron Davis, or Laurent Boudouani.

Overrated: Guys who weren’t A1 but existed in a great era and/or rose tinted era, especially at heavyweight. Not a day goes by without Wilfred Benitez treated like a top twenty ATG and h2h monster. And Quarry gets more mention than endless long reigning champions.

Fury, Joshua, and Fury also get underrated because they’re too recent.

 

Oh, Larry Holmes circles the globe several times with the power of his fans overrating him. In fact, he's orbiting as we speak..

Underrated- Antonio Esparragoza? Pipino Cuevas also.

 

Overated

Arturo Gatti
Mickey Ward
Vinny Pazienza

Underrated

Rocky Lockridge
Donald Curry

 

Can't agree on Hagler and JCC Chavez. They were greats who fought all comers. Calzaghe I can agree on. He was very selective about who he fought.

 

In following the posts involving british fighters, I feel Benny Lynch gets woefully underrated and overlooked today. In the past he was done so by mainly American writers and posters on internet forums whom, to be fair, didnt seem to know much about him, which was in stark contrast to Wilde.
Back in the old days some writers had him on a par with Jimmy, or even a little better.

 

Decided to go back to this topic after @Rumsfeld 's top 10 boxer's of the 2000s list has been released. It was tallied from the lists of members of this forum.
Joe Calzaghe ended up 4-th - and I would now mention him as the most overrated fighter of that period.

 

Overrated: Whitaker, Mayweather, Jr., for now Bud... and obviously Marciano.

Underrated: Julio Cesar Chavez, Mike Tyson, Roy Jones, Jr., Joe Calzaghe, Wlad

 

Seems pretty reasonable for that decade.

 

It seems reasonable to most people who took part, judging by his standing - for me He doesn't quite cut it even for top 10. Don't think his resume for the 2000s alone warrants it. Morales, Barrera and Marquez seem to all have significantly stronger win-tallies, to me.. and then there's bunch of other guys that I'd put ahead of him also. Mosley, Cotto, Wlad...