Your Unshakeable Boxing Opinions

Damn, beat me to it!

 

In terms of resume Ali and Louis are the two greatest HWs ever. No one else touches them.

Ali wasn't as good a fighter at any point after his exile as before. And while he probably did improve in some aspects up until Manilla, he didn't improve anything in the short time he had between coming back and facing Frazier in FOTC. In the first six months after a long inactivity you're just playing catch-up to regain as much as possible.

Whitaker beat Chavez and Pac beat Bradley (all three fights). There are more fights I feel were clear robberies, of course, but I must watch a fight at least two times to feel totally sure and right now I can't come to think of any more. Well, I have seen McCallum-Toney 2 many times and just can't see any other winner than Mike. Not as bad a robbery as the two first mentioned, though.

 

I'm always open for my mind to being changed, but for me, fighters from the 70s/80s and even some of the 90s were generally the highest level of fighting we have seen.

All this garbage from millennial's (I am one) about the sport evolving due to nutrition and training is b*llocks. No one can watch Sugar Ray, Hagler, Hearns, Duran, Sweet Pea, the Jinx Spinks, even Tyson despite his size (Fergy just had an orgasm of the volcanic equivalent of Pompeii) etc, and tell me they wouldn't rule the roost today. I don't care what some clean shaved 22 year old university 'sport scientist' says...and yet again this is coming from a qualified personal trainer who is not biased to 'new found' training but is objective.

However, I disagree with many of the elderly statesmen on here who claim the pinnacle was reached in the 20/30s. Have you seen Harry Greb shadow box?...please excuse me as I need to go and tidy up the cornflakes that I have just spewed everywhere in laughter! I will need to put my armour on as that always triggers the old timers!...but as reminded by McVey, very wise old timers so I may have to keep my mind open.

 

Get madddd at dem eggs!

 

Stop gettin' your dirt in Boss Man's yard!

 

What we’ve got here is failure to communicate .

 

Steroids played a bigger part in the boxing game in the 70's, 80's, and 90's than fans want to admit given their availability and utter lack of testing (Nevada didn't produce a positive test until the 2000's).

If you asked me for a smoking gun that was the tipping point for them in the sport, my gut call is that it was Mackie Shilstone putting that much weight on Spinks that quickly for Holmes I, which absolutely nobody expected.

That's not to disparage Spinks, as they weren't even illegal in boxing at that point. Its not fair to judge him by today's standards regarding it. That's just Mackie's MO, and the man's reputation in other sports shows that was something definitely in his "modern" repertoire. And that's what prompted them from being more of a niche to becoming the dirty little secret that fueled much of the 80's and 90's fights and fighters.

 

That’s basically exactly how I see it. 70s/80s/90s are the greatest eras in boxing history.

Colour tv came in play in 1970 so that really helps watching fights and training videos. Black and white tv seems to make the old era fighters look very beatable to me. Also most of the old greats we only have a few fights to judge them off. That’s why on all my lists and comparisons I separate pre 1970 and post 1970.

And the Harry Greb shadow boxing part is exactly what I think. There’s also some Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney training footage where it looks like anyone could beat them lol. I have no idea what they are doing. The only really old fighter I like watching because I rate him very highly is rocky Marciano. Have you seen joe Louis shuffle around the right like his legs aren’t working properly? How can shuffling old joe Louis beat someone like Holyfield or Holmes or Lewis or foreman or even Tyson fury.

I also don’t rate the klitschkos. Do they even make the top 20 heavyweights since 1970? Not for me. They have terrible glass chins and people like jimmy young, Earnie shavers and Tim Witherspoon for me are far better heavyweights.

This post won’t go down well.

 

Well I agree with parts of it. I think you are right on the money about the colour TV era making a bigger impact on people, mostly for the reasons you say. The availablity of near complete careers in living colour makes all the difference to a great many people.

Welcome to the forum.

 

Vitali does not have a glass chin.

 

In 15 round fights Floyd Mayweather would have done very well and would quite possibly have beaten the Fab 4 if he had fought them prime for prime at WW or MW.

Duran - If FM has moved and jabbed I think he would have won a clear decision

Hearns - Dangerous fight for Floyd but if he had moved and made Tommy miss constantly I believe TH would have tired quite badly as the fight went on and if FM repeatedly landed pot shots and stood his ground in later rounds he could have made the fight very close on the scorecards maybe even forced a late stoppage.

Hagler - Again dangerous fight for Floyd but the way MH struggled with Sugar Ray's speed and movement makes me believe Money has a legit chance in this one

Leonard - Sugar Ray in his prime at WW wins this

 

What i omitted of your post was good but this takes the cake with no personal disrespect intended.

Hagler, a full blown middleweight GREAT is beaten by a guy that never fought as high as middleweight in his life and was a very very very small junior middleweight? A guy that won his first title at 130? A guy that beat monsters such as Thomas Hearns?

Ironically tho SRL beats him at 147?

Sorry man but this is crazy stuff. As bad as Pernell Whitaker picking "Pernell Whitaker" to beat Hagler!!!!

 

Leonard beat Hagler in his first fight at MW after a 3 year break so it's hardly 'crazy' as you put it or beyond the realms of possibility that Floyd could do it, BTW I'm not saying Floyd would beat Hagler I'm saying I believe he has a legitimate chance.

 

Jees, I don't think Mayweather could beat Pac, Delahoya or Mosely in their primes, much less those 4

 

That boxing would be a much more popular mainstream sport if several things happened. A more popular, more mainstream, easy to follow sport would bring in much more money than boxing already does. I can't believe that boxing's power brokers seem to have never realized this.

Examples:

The, ahem, "lineal" World Championship needs to be preserved despite the efforts of boxing's moneymen to destroy it with ridiculous organizational belts and other shenanigans. Being a World Champion boxer used to be a position of honor and distinction, not a job title.

One World Champion per division, 15 round world championship fights, and an official unbiased set of rankings based on merit, not promotional ties.

Instead of all these weird alphabet soup belts, make championships regional, i.e. the U.S. champion, the Maryland state champion, the Baltimore city champion. Regional championship bouts could be 12 rounds. And you don't lose your national title simply by fighting for the world title. You only relinquish that national title if you win the world title.

And it's no disgrace to simply be a contender and not hold a belt. A bout between two top ten contenders is still an intriguing bout, even without a belt attached. Especially if there's just ten in the top ten, not forty because of several ruling bodies.

No title strippings unless absolutely necessary. If someone must be stripped for not fighting their top contender or for inactivity, make it really hurt. As a World Champion, you represent boxing. So if, say, George Foreman refuses to defend against number one contender Riddick Bowe, Foreman is stripped and loses his license for a good while. Now, if someone can't fight because of a situation beyond their control (i.e. Ali's draft evasion situation), an honorable relinquishment of their title is okay. Once they can box again, they have to earn their way back up (as Ali did by beating top contenders Quarry and Bonavena). No instant number one ranking upon their return, as sanctioning bodies like to do.

Fewer and more logical weight divisions.

No sitting on the number one contender position. If you're top contender and you don't fight, your rating starts sinking due to inactivity. Or if you're top contender but not fighting other contenders, your rating can slip depending on what else is happening in the division.

***

Again, WE know what a great sport boxing is. If it were run in a more logical, consistent, and easy to follow manner fewer people would be turned off by it, more people would be turned on, and more money would flow into the sport.