I'd say it's somewhere in between. I still don't see the savior of the division that some do. I've been ringside at one of his fights (2 years ago) and have seen him on TV half a dozen times since, and I'm still not overly impressed. BUT, he clearly has the power and the aggressive style to go along with it to make some more noise in the division. I wouldn't pick him against Vitali, but I like his chances against Ruiz, for example.
Sorry man, Hasim "Lucky Punch" Rachman is not gonna dethrone the Big V. I think it's gonna be a replay of the Klitschko/Williams fight, personally.
Rahman is better than Williams in just about every conceivable way, but other than that I can see why you think that.
Dempsey never held anything but a clenched fist when he demolished Willard. Doc Kearns, his manager, lied and fabricated so many stories that his word was worth it's wait in snakeshit by the time he started the loaded glove theories. First he claimed that Dempsey used plaster of paris, and then the iron bolt? When a guy can't even keep his story straight, it's a lie.
Exactly.
1. His former manager only started circulating those stories after he and Dempsey had a falling out.
2. Dempsey had his hands taped in plain view of Nat Fleisher and others and they all shot down the plaster of paris theory. He had his gloves put on in the ring in front of tens of thousands of people, and so there certainly wasn't any opportunity to do anything after they were wrapped.
3. The stories about Willard's busted ribs, broken cheek bone or eye socket, broken nose, missing teeth, broken jaw, etc. are all myths. He gave interviews after the fight, was able to talk perfectly and all of the witnesses who were actually there say that he didn't appear to have any serious injuries.
Don't you Klitschko supporters want to see him fight at least one mandatory challenger? Just one?! Are you really satisfied with opponents like 38 year old, semi-retired Corrie Sanders and complete garbage like Danny Williams and, God forbid, Kevin McBride?
We're going on 15 months now that he has held the WBC title, and he hasn't faced a single mandatory challenger. Not one. And does it really surprise you that there are people who are getting a little fed up with it? If Rahman beats Barrett and is in shape and available to fight Vitali on September 24, will you still stand by him?
Rahman has said he'll be ready in September. Now, maybe you don't believe him, and that's fine. But, I'd like Vitali to come out and say, "Fine, Rahman. If you are available, we'll fight on September 24. If you're not available, then I'm going to fight in October."
The Ring giving Vitali the belt was complete bullshit and everyone knows it.
First, Corrie Sanders went from being unranked to #3 as a result of the knockout of Wlad. As long as I have been reading Ring Mag (which is a LONG time) I don't ever remember a fighter getting such a big jump like that on the basis of one win.
Second, the Ring's policy was always #1 fights #2 for the vacant belt. Sanders was #3 and they decided to change their policy so that in some circumstances #1 v. #3 was OK.
I still think Vitali is the best HW in the world at the moment, until proven otherwise, but I completely lost respect for Ring when they pulled that bullshit.
SAC ... yeah Spinks gave up 50 lbs to Holmes, who was 48-0 going into that fight. Larry was trying to match Marciano's record of 49-0, but lost a UD to Spinks. As heavy Champ Spinks then made 20 consecutive title defenses during his seven year reign and, get this ..... only Joe Louis made more with 25.
Huh?! What are you talking about?
he looks dehydrated...which he probably is.
Absolutely. It's just dehydration. Like I said before, he'll come into the ring weighing a good 15 lbs more than the wife beater.
funny how harris was told get him with that short hand left and then harris got nailed by the same punch manny told harris to nail maussa with haahaha
That was funny, except I wouldn't call that a short left hook. His arm was almost fully extended -- it was more like slapping jab. That punch didn't have enough on it to knock down my 11 year old niece.
This fight could be closer than everyone thinks. I think Gatti will be the much bigger man (outweighing him by anywhere between 10 and 15 lbs) when they come into the ring. He will have the strength to apply the kind of pressure that Castillo did. Also, recall that Mayweather has those fragile hands. What is going to happen if, after dominating Gatti for 4-5 rounds with his uncanny speed, he hurts his hands again. How does he keep Gatti off of him for another 7-8 rounds?
I think you have to favor Mayweather, but things could get very interesting down the stretch.
It's almost the same as inviting friends over to watch. Theyre gonna buy booze anyway so it's business as usual.
:confused:
That's why it's NOT like inviting friends over to watch. The bar is making money by showing the PPV (from food and liquor sales) and HBO PPV wants a piece of the action.
He probably is, but since he is either unwilling or unable to fight his mandatories (he still hasn't faced a single mandatory challenger) or fight the other title holders to unify, it's kind of hard to say.
He'll be fine.
I'm sure you're right. He seems to have boxing weight management down to a science.
It takes a terrible toll on the body, though, and you have to wonder whether one of these days (as he gets older) he just isn't going to able to pull it off.
That's a pretty good list, but I completely agree with you about Tunney. WAY too low.
He beat a number of hall of famers, including the #4 and #13 guys on that list! He only lost once in 87 fights to Harry Greb (no shame there) and he avenged that defeat by giving Greb a savage beating.
He's definitely up there -- I don't know if he was the greatest. There are strong arguments for Ezzard Charles, who never had a chance to fight for the light-heavyweight title, but beat Archie Moore (another candidate for greatest LHW of all time) easily three times and all in all was 9-0 against four world light-heavyweight champions. He of course held onto the heavyweight title much longer than Spinks too.
I shoulda' said something like "20 consecutive defense of his championship status", or the like.
Well, you'd be wrong about that too. You must be mixing up Holmes and Spinks. Holmes is the one who was going on 20 defenses when he lost to Spinks, not the other way around.
You could just look up his record, you know.
Toney might be small but he could win a fight against klicko on points and he may even wear him down. Those big heavyweights tire after so many rounds and james is still ticking. Did you all see his fight against Jirov? Everyone thought that Toney got hit so many times but he didn't and at the end of the fight he was able to put Jirov down. The same thing would probably happen to Klichko.
The big difference of course is that Jirov is a small cruiserweight/heavyweight, while Vitali is massive. And Jirov hasn't been able to beat anybody decent at heavyweight, while Vitali has.
It's one thing to give Toney a chance (and I do think he could give Klitschko a tough fight), but to say he would probably put Klitschko down in the late round based on what he did against Jirov is going too far (in my opinion).
Roy has NO business being ranked at middleweight. He fought 35 of his fifty fights above the 160 pound limit. His ranking, like Moore, Conn and Charles, comes most naturally at light heavyweight where I have him near the bottom of the top ten. All-time...all fighters ever...not even top twenty.
Agreed. Anyone who puts Jones in a top 10 all-time list needs to hit the history books and watch some boxing film.
I can see the arguments for putting him in a top 10 light-heavyweight list or super-middleweight list, but there are no good arguments for ranking him overall in the top 20 all time.
Somewhere in the top 30-50 is probably about right.
Yeah, the more I think about it the more I'm remembering a big fuss made out of Jones' big bump from their previous ratings, which supposedly was a result of him defeating Ruiz.
Anyways, I found a link to that ranking I was talking about (top 80 over the last 80 years), so here it is if you or anybody is interested;
http://boxing.about.com/od/history/a/ring_80_best.htm
Thanks for posting that. I bet the authors of that list might have second thoughts now about putting him so high at 44. The ability to take a punch has to figure in those ranking somewhere, and Jones obviously lacks that ability. Jones getting one punch KO'd in the second round by Tarver and then getting knocked out by the light hitting Johnson should really cause people to revaluate his career. Look at the other guys on that list: Louis, Robinson, Ali, Greb, Monzon, Whitaker, Ray Leonard, Benny Leonard, etc. It just doesn't happen to the great ones, even when they have slowed down a little like Jones.
I still think top 50 is about right, though.
You're like the guys who talk about the DQ against Griffen. You fail to acknowledge the other fight that he won.
No, I'm not. I mentioned his big wins: Ruiz at heavyweight, a green as grass contender Hopkins in 93 for the vacant MW belt and Toney in 94.
Since you bring up Griffin, though, you do realize Jones was struggling against him before getting DQ'd, right? Yes, Jones v. Griffin II was an amazing performance, but if Jones is truly top 10 or even top 20 or 30 P4P material he never would have been in that situation to begin with (against a decent, but not great, opponent like Griffin).
He didn't avoid 'most' of the top 168 guys, he avoided ALL of the top 168 guys. Also, the only IBF #1 contender he fought at 160 or 168 was Bryant Brannon in his last fight as a 160-168 fighter (Bryant who?).
I was trying to be fair. Jones did fight Toney, who (despite all of his weight problems, which I do believe played a huge part in his loss to Jones), was not exactly a slouch at 168.
Sure, Toney was completely weight drained for that fight, but that's not Jones's fault.
And I'm of the belief that you don't neccessarily need to have a belt around your waste to be classified as the best in your division,
I completely agree, and Charles and Tunney are clearly two of the best light-heavyweights of all time, even though neither one of them ever captured the lineal light-heavyweight crown.
But, if you're talking about "greatness", then a lot of people are going to want to look at objective criteria like number of title defenses, or of course whether the fighter ever became THE world champion to begin with, and under those criteria Charles and Tunney take a back seat to Spinks.
To us, boxing is special. Unfortunately to them it's a business, just like any other, and they're going to try to capture every stream of revenue they can.