Need to learn about lineage
The bold is where everyone should realize it's not worth reading on. Tito did not “unify” anything. De La Hoya was the one and only welterweight champion having beaten Pernell Whitaker. Tito became the champion that night (kinda). Oscar was the champion until that night. Before that Tito was wearing a piece of paper.
Boxing Guy: A couple of things. Officially Trinidad won the fight with De La Hoya. Three professional Judges and a small percentage of the press had Trinidad winning the fight. You have to go by the official decision because if you don't then you should consider Jeff Fenech a 4 time world champ, you wouldn't recognize Jack Sharkey's HW championship, and Henry Armstrong would have had a title at middleweight. It doesn't work like that you have to respect the offiicial decision just like the sports book. And anyways if you want to debate decisions, Oscar's fight with Sweat Pea could have gone either way, easily.
Secondly: Yah Whitaker had beaten McGirt who had beaten Blocker who had beaten Honeygan who had beaten Donald Curry for the undisputed championship, but before that the lineage had been disrupted when Sugar Ray Leonard retired. I believe in heavyweight lineage, but I think Trinidad's reign was impressive enought to merit a partial claim to the title. It was more impressive than Sweat Pea's 147 pound reign. Oba Carr 36-0 Yori Boy 56-0 Camacho-60 something and two.
Great article, Raskin was brutally honest in his self analysis. I love the Ring stopped following it when they stopped printing and now subscribe to boxing news from the UK. I worked for ring, I covered the Edwin Valeros first title fight with them in Panama and did their interviews with Barrera, Morales, and Marquez. I asked Nigel Collins that if they were truly independent then why didn't they publish Oscar's pics in fishnet stalkings and reminded him that they had posted pics of Mike Tysons smashed BMW years before. He said, "I don't think those are real." Nobody is perfect and we all have to toe the line, but the Ring was shady when Don King manipulated thr ratings for that ABC torney and I think even mode shady when Oscar De La Hoya bought it. It's tough making money writing about boxing. Except for a handful of guys most of the writers are starving, but they get to go to the fights ringside and that worth something. Steve Farhood is the best writer/expert in boxing if the Turk wants to get the Ring going hire Steve Farhood.
I like Wilder, he was probably the only Olympian that I followed. I like his heigth and his power. And even though he started late, he was a Bronze Medallist at 22 years old so he's made up a lot of time already. And even though he's kind of skinny, he's young and should fill into a rock solid 225-230 pounder. I'm excited about this kid. They just need to keep him busy, focused, and out of trouble.
I'm not saying that I think Spinks or Foster would have surely beaten Jones, but Spinks had enough pop to take Jones out with one punch as did Bob Foster and it would have been hard for anyone to have outboxed Jones, but Lou DeValle said "Jones is like a turtle,and you have to get him when he comes out of the shell," and I think Foster and Spinks might have gotten to him. All they needed was one shot, remember the Marvin Johnson fight? Spinks ended it with one punch. Now SPinks did look horrible with Eddie Davis, but that was one fight, Jones looked bad against Montell Griffin in the first fight for about six rounds. If you don't think Michael Spinks, the only Light-Heavy to move to win the linear heavyweight title and not some bogus belt (Toney & Jones) would have a legitamate chance of beating Jones then you are one of those Jones fans that thought he was going to beat Calzaghe a couple of weeks ago and have trouble dealing with reality when it comes to Roy Jones.
Sometimes its fun to get arise out of people. Sometimes us writers have these great stories about someone from the past or some deep insight on something and nobody cares.
Cliff:
Charles Burley was a stud and so was Williams. Burley should have hooked up with Kearns, he would have got him a shot. He got one for Moore.
Good Stuff. The Chris John fight isn't getting enought pub and he has been a distinguished champion and a win over a tough silver medalist in his home state will validate John's career and deflect those claims that his record is a result of homecooking.
Canelo is bigger than Oscar. The golden boy weighed 128 3/4 in Bredhal fight. Most of Canelos championship wins are at 168, he is naturally bigger. I think Canelo would have beaten Oscar. Maybe Canelo in 2013 against De La Hoya 2001, but Canelo in 2020 beats any Oscar. De La Hoyas best weight was at 140, he tore up chavez, dominated a 41-0 Miguel Angel Gonzalez so everyone is comparing apples with oranges. De La Hoya at 140 was probably a better fighter pound for pound than Canelo.
No one these days rates even a peak Tyson as high as Louis or Ali, so why are you comparing with him with them? False comparison. You don't have to be as good as them in order to be an ATG.
Tyson doesn't come close to Louis and Ali on the list, but he's up there pretty high. Ali, Louis, Johnson, Jeffries, Holmes, Lewis, Foreman, Marciano, Dempsey, Tyson. Something like that.
You have to take the motivation factor into consideration as well, Roy certainly would have fought much more focused against great fighters like those than he did against Lou Del Valle. BTW, can the Cincinnati Cobra get some love? I think Ezzard Charles had much more of a chance than Archie Moore who was completely dominated by Charley Burley who was very similar to a prime Roy Jones. Charles on the other hand beat Burley twice, in fact it is said that he came really close to knocking out Burley in the 4th round of their first fight, though it can be argued that Burley took the first fight on short notice. Of course, Roy is naturally the bigger man than Burley(although you could argue that with todays suppliments/sports medicine that Burley and Jones might be the same size if he were around now.)[/QUOTO
Originally in the article I made the cut off date 1958 and the Cincinatti Cobra was finished as a world class contender by then. Pre-1958 I definitely would have put down a number of other fighters that could have beaten Jones and Charles would be at the top of the list probably followed by Greb and then a number of other astute fighers.
Great article! A mythical match up between Evander Holyfield Versus Joe Frazier would be the greatest heavyweight war in history! Who do you guys like in that fight?
If boxing's fate depends on Dazn, the most fraudulent streaming service to ever exist on a mass scale then boxing has a bleaker future than I even thought possible. Dazn is shady they use predatory tactics.
I just want everyone to know that I didnt want to desigrate Roy Jones. He's a fistic heroe of mine and I think he is very special, but I I don't want these chumps taking credit for beating Roy when it isnt the real Roy Jones, the one I practically idolized. None of these guys from Pavlik to Hopkins to Calzaghe would have stood a chance with Roy ten years ago, but Roy is shot, its over and I want him to retire.
I totally agree with the last post, but you know what gets me, is Evander Holyfield. He gets so much credit and he is a legendary heavy, but after he beat Douglas, Tyson wanted the Holyfield fight and the Duvas said "No we are going to fight Formeman for 20 million first to milk the title." So Tyson went after Ruddock who was hot after almost killing Dokes and then the fight never happened because of the rape stuff. Maybe Evander's mental foritude, the thing that enabled him to beat Ricky Womack, another bully in the amateurs would have overcame Mike when he was significantly better, maybe not. I like Mike and won lots of money betting against Evander in first Bowe and first Moorer fights.
1) You didn't read the sentence correctly. Slow down. Jackson's prime was effectively over in 93; just Jackson. The mutual losses in part killed off what was a path designed to possibly lead them towards each other. King was building a Middle tourney, or so he kept claiming as early as Norris's fights with Blocker and Waters. Then Jackson got KO'd...then Norris. Never came together.
2) When could it have happened solely because Norris wanted it (and not saying he went out of his way for it)? Did King make a significant offer that Norris turned down? Or is this another magic assertion about the special power fighters have to make any fight, any time? To get King fighters, there had to be a huge money pot (there wasn't one for that rematch) or signing with King. Norris didn't do that until 92/93 and Jackson lost to McClellan shortly after Norris joined the stable.
If Norris had turned down or avoided a rematch in any serious way, I'd think Jackson would note it. Not a word: http://www.thesweetscience.com/boxing-article/6225/tss-where-are-they-now-julian-jackson/
In an interview after Norris came back to fight Boudani for the title, his father stated that he saw Terry starting to slip around the Nick Rupa fight. Norris was still one of the better fighters in the world, but he had lost a little something after the Brown fight and the Santana debacles. By the way I was ringside at the Norris-Taylor.
More overrated than ALI, Marciano, De La Hoya, Pacquiao, Johnson, and all the other cliche fighters?
You know who really was underrated though? Sugar Ray Robinson.
Holyfield and Marciano are the most overrated. Ezzard Charles was already losing fights when he went to war with the Rock. Patterson might have knocked Marciano out. Holyfield ran from everybody when he was champ the first time. Holyfield is a gladiator, and could win a big fight, but tell what was his most impressive defense? Michael moorer the second time. I think Wlad who would have beaten evander.
Crawford is so gifted, but he is a horrible business man. He fought over purse parity and lost out on the Pacquiao fight. Now he messed up this fight. Mayweather was the B side with Oscar and afterward he never made less than 20 million for a fight. Crawford is a moron. He should make this fight happen. Spence made the Garcia and the Pacquiao fights. Crawford is the reason the fight did not happen. He could he the best boxer since Whitaker but now he is approaching middle age. Will probably never achieve top 30 all time greatness and he could have.
Ski: There are alot of writers that got into boxing because they couldnt get into other main stream sports, but Im not one of them. I have a book collection of over 50 boxing books and over 400 magazines. I follow the sports world, but only watched one NFL game last year, the super bowl and havnt watched one world series game. Im a boxing guy, but more than that Im a boxing historian. I regularly read about boxing history and don't follow the fight game and am not as knowledgeable about the current scene as some of the scribes on this site that could name you the worlds 14th ranked 122 pounder. The only other sport i closely follow besides boxing is college basketball, I love it. As for you if you think Jones will beat Calzaghe, you don't have very good reasoning skills and are one of those blind followers that believe the hype. Give it up, its been over for Jones for 5 years. He's a shell of himself. Its over.
I hope I got my point across. I don't think Mayweather hurt boxing because he was boring, I think he hurt it because after the De La Hoya he finally became a mainstream star and retired when there were lots of fights (EVENTS) that would have put boxing on the fronts of sport pages across america. He was on dancing with the stars and his fight with Hatton did 875 thousand buys. I guarantee Pacquioa-Hatton won't do over 700 thousand. Floyd is a star now and right now he will do bigger numbers than anybody in the sport in the US market.
Bruseles was an eliminator for the Gatti fight.
Didn't Cotto fight Corley too????...AFTER Floyd fought him.??
I guess Cotto wastes fights too....I mean Micheal Jennings and Alphonse Gomez...LOL
A gimme title defense or two is ok, but for three years FLoyd fought Rick Frazier type bums, he wasted his career from 2003-2005
It is funny how people dont really appreciate Mayweather until he retired and U.S boxing went to shit!!
and now everybody wants him back...people need to start showing some respect and stop being a critic 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.
You must realize (critics) that floyd is not your slave. You just cant demand he do something and when he doesnt do something he is now a piece of shit... It doesnt work that way.
This writer is just another hater plain and simple.
Why isnt he Demanding Kelly Pavlik step up and fight and be a U.S star
Why isnt he demanding Shane Mosley take on Paul Williams So it can be 2 american stars going at it.
Why isnt he asking anything for nobody but mayweather?
He says Floyd doesnt need to save boxing, but he writes a whole different story when the common denominator to all the problems in boxing right now and lack of exposure is floyd fault.
What about Bob Arum Protecting his fighters from Paul Williams?
This guy is nothing but hater plan and simple.
The only person he put accountability on was Floyd Mayweather.
and that right there is the Problem..!!
1:15- ON
I don't hate Floyd Mayweather, but what would happen to other sports if their top stars quit as soon as they arrived to the top. People don't even talk about boxing except for hardcore fans. Tyson brought me into the sport when I was in elementary school and then I really got into it when Foreman fought Holyfield in 91. If there aren't big events how is boxing going to reach out and make new fans. And Floyd was at that point to where his fights were going to be big events and get the casual fans interested in boxing, reading about it on the net, but he retired thinking he was all that when he was damn good, but you can't tell me you think he is up there next to Leonard and he could have been with a couple of more big wins. This isn't just about boxing this is what would also have been best for Floyd. More money, more legacy. BAM
Angel Manfredy is of hispanic origin and the article explicitly stated that only fighters of European origin. From Wikipedia to Ring Magazine its been widely publicsized that Manfredy is Puerto Rican. Now with Joe Mesi he would probably have been next on the list, but he was never in the top 6 heavyweights in the world and was taken out of the game by a cruiserweight that got knocked out by a way over the hill Michael Moorer shortly after. Now with Spadafora, I followed Paul's career closely and bet against him when he fought Manfredy and initially had him 7th, but when I wrote the article a mishap occurred and he wasn't on the list and when I realized what had happend I quickly remedied the error and placed Spadafora where he was suppossed to be. Now the island of Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the united states and Puerto Ricans do not need a passport to come to the US and were drafted into the Korean war. Puerto Ricans have had the opportunity to become a state and have voted against it. Thus they are not represented politically, but they don't have to pay federal income tax.
How can you question Floyd's commercial appeal. De La Hoya Paquiao did less than a million and FLoyd and Oscar broke every record. That was because of Floyd and Oscar and not just Oscar. Pacquioa-Marquez did what 350 or 400. Hatton brings the Brits over here but he's not a hot commodity here. Floyd is mainstream now, he's bigger than anybody in America. Pacquioa-Hatton probably does 600 to 700 buys, Mayweather PAcquioa breaks a million.
Tyson filed BK, but he got fined for having too many people partying on his yaht off the coast of Italy. Evander is broke and he won't be eating those 200$ steaks he likes, but he'll never be a nine to five 100k a year guy either. He can do autograph signings and speaking engagments and make at leat 300-600k a year. People always talk about how sad it is to see pete rose signing at Vegas, but the guy makes at least a couple of grand a day minmum.
Hell Most of us would do that and love it.
Loma is so overrated and I had to hear about his greatness as the boxing comminuty swung off his nuts. He is skilled but what's his best win? Linares got stopped by Demarco who was dominated by Valero and Broner. The Ax man Walters victory was a good one, but thats about it. Weak opposition and just when the weight classes around him started filling up with some talent he lost to Teofimo and Haney. He is not top 50 all time in the pros. In the amateurs he is top 5 all time.