I think most of Floyd's later wins as a megastar were against guys coming off their own big wins. Baldomir was the lineal champ, Hatton was undefeated, Mosely wrecked the undefeated Margarito, Ortiz was in FOY against Berto, Cotto got his revenge off Margarito, Guerrero was on a hot streak, Alvarez had just unified with Trout, and Maidana had just beaten Broner. Oscar and Manny weren't on hot streaks but were megastars in their own right. The only fights where the opponents and fight weren't 'hot' was probably the Judah, Berto, and Marquez.
Exactly the only major cherry pick fights were the Marquez one because he was coming up so much in weight and his last fight vs Berto because he wanted an easier fight to close out his career
I think having never won a fight where he was a clear underdog is what keeps Floyd from ever being mentioned as the GOAT. Hard to be the greatest when you only win fights you're supposed to win.
He never had that Ali vs. Liston/Foreman fight or Leonard vs. Hagler.
Top fighter of a generation and greatest boxing businessman all-time for sure.
Goat or near goat? Naw.
He was the underdog vs Corales
He has a good argument for goat depending how you define it. Based on modern day standards he ranks very highly. As far as having the most consistentcy he is the best ever.
As far as having the best peak ability or wins I wouldn't say so.
As far as being the most complete fighter in history, he is up there but I would say Sugar Ray Leonard is more complete than him because of his superior combination punching and finishing abilities.
It’s hard to compare fighters of this era to past atg fighters. People say the old timers fought cab drivers etc, but many of them also fought several times a month and hundreds of times in their careers. It’s hard to imagine the divas of today being able to match such a gruelling schedule.
Exactly. It works both ways when you compare the old era to the new era
note: im not talking about who's the bigger draw, who has more fans, more ppv (although they all belong to floyd). im just talking about what they achieved in the ring.
i enjoy watching both floyd and pacquiao fights. i prefer how floyd fights more, but im trying to be objective.
First off, Floyd has been "the man" in 4 weight classes, and Pac has only been "the man" in 3 weight classes even though he's an 8 belt title holder.
I look through both of their resumes, and Floyd beating a prime Castillo, prime Hatton, 154 De La Hoya, prime Canelo is better than most if not all of Pacquiao's resume.
it's funny how a lot of floyd haters say that floyd waited for his opponents past his prime, but manny's claim to fame was beating past prime fighters like barrera, and morales who beat his ass first time they fought.
manny has fought a lot of fighters coming off of a loss. Floyd sometimes did it in the past (Judah comes to mind), but he has also beaten a lot of boxers after their best performance.
manny has also been knocked out twice early when he was 17 and 20. now i can understand why people don't really count these losses, as he wasn't in his "prime" yet, but let's be real. imagine if floyd got knocked out once early in his career? floyd haters would be bringing that up nonstop.
oh, and Floyd beat Manny quite easily in their fight. that's what's most confusing. If floyd and manny fought MAYBE, i can see why people debate this. but they literally fought and manny got schooled lol.
im down for debate, what are the reasons why manny supposedly has a better resume?
You had me until prime Canelo. But yes, I do agree that Mayweather is better (and greater) than Pacquiao
YES!!!!!!!
IF Thurman ducked Spence then,
Spence is ducking Crawford
Same situation right now.
Thurman always said that the Spence fight is gunna be lucrative in the future. Basically the same attitude Spence is displaying right now whenever Bud's name is mentioned.
"We not worried about Crawford right now"
"Maybe next year or the year after that"
Same sh.it bro. Nobody has the urgency of being undisputed except Crawford.
Exactly too many inconsistencies in boxing
Errol Spence is a real dude, but he really made a name for himself based on the falsehood..not enough fans use common sense when it comes to matchmaking...it was clear back in 2015 that Spence and Thurman was likely their super fight..Thurman from 2015-2017 was fighting the likes of porter and danny garcia..big money fights compared to Errol at the time that was growing as a contender..it’s like asking Errol as a unified champ now to fight jaron ennis...showtime started really building towards Spence vs Thurman after Spence got brooks belt in the summer, but injuries then hit Keith hard..showtime even had a joint press conference btwn the two talking about their future fight...Thurman never ducked Spence but I think bc Thurman was so honest about how talented he thought Spence was, fans took that for a sign of weakness but really to me it showed that he felt the Spence would be a defining fight for his careered
Exactly. Thurman is the realest guy in boxing
Since he never fought Ward at any weight who are you to say he would have lost to Ward? Ward was dropped and hurt by Boone, a fighter who lost as many fights as he won and had a 23% KO ratio. GGG's KO ratio is still close to 90% in his old age. Ward really lost to Kovalev and was lucky to get the win. Ward retired many years ago while GGG is still a world champion making more money that Ward ever dreamed of. Ward was not unbeatable.
LOL @ bringing up money like that's relevant. What are you his family?
Ward moved up to 175 to fight the number one guy. Unlike GGG who was not willing to fight Ward at 168, despite his trainer saying he could beat anyone from 160-175.
Ward would've outboxed him easily.
Yet he beat Canelo, made him change his entire style, and arguably beat him twice.
I'm disappointed with his selection of opponents but u can't act like he didn't start getting good fights until late in his career.
It's a reason Sergio, Cotto didn't fight him and reason why Canelo waited 2 years to fight him
I agree with the Cotto and Sergio part. As far as Canelo goes I think its reasonable to say he needed some time at Middleweight before facing GGG. Standard boxing stuff.. Wasnt like he waited 5 years.
He is 38 now so he is not as good as he was when he was 27 or even 32. Who the hell is? 22 KOs in a row in his prime prove his power was the best at 160 and that was mostly against world title challengers. Name another middleweight with even 8 KOs in a row.
Nobody has fought at that wait for that long vs that level of opposition. He has power just not as much as people perceived
When he started facing better competition he stopped knocking people out. Just like how Keith Thurman was called "One Time" and once he started fighting better comp he stopped knocking people out
Good opposition, strategically, to polish your resume and say you fought as high as lightheavy. Kovalev and Fielding at supermiddle are examples.
I agree but he is fighting Callum Smith soon who is a legit champion. Kovalev did still have a belt, obviously, he wasn't the same fighter but still an impressive feat.
But I agree it's not like he fought Beterbiev.
You can't agree completely because the other poster is saying GGG isn't overrated. Contradicts your thread thesis.
I completely agree that he's a great fighter. He's a hall of famer just ridiculously overrated by people who think he was the best P4P or that he could've beaten Andre Ward at 168.
His knockout power is also very overrated as that can be seen by his last 4 fights vs elite competition
Golovkin debuted on HBO at age 30 and fought Daniel Jacobs and Canelo at 34-35.
Most people agree that a fighter's prime is roughly ages 27-32 so it's fair to say that Golovkin was at least slightly past his prime when he fought a prime Jacobs (age 30) and Canelo (age 27).
Also, the "GGG didn't fight anybody" argument is often repeated but let's look at the top 10 from 2013:
Sergio Gabriel Martinez, Champion (Martinez didn't feel like GGG was a big enough name, even though GGG was rated as his #1 challenger. I don't fault Sergio too much though. Sometimes guys just miss each other)
Gennady Golovkin
Felix Sturm (avoided GGG like the plague)
Daniel Geale (GGG knocked him out)
Peter Quillin (promotional differences)
Darren Barker (no demand for this fight, plus fans would have considered Barker another "bum" if GGG beat him)
Matthew Macklin (GGG knocked him out)
Martin Murray (GGG knocked him out)
Marco Antonio Rubio (GGG knocked him out)
Max Bursak (see what I said about Barker)
Curtis Stevens (GGG knocked him out)
Now GGG didn't beat them all in the same year, however he knocked out half of the guys on this list within a two-year period. I'm sure GGG haters will call these guys bums but who else is there to fight if not the top 10 guys who are willing to get in the ring? Erislandy Lara is a miss, but other than that I don't count Andre Ward because he was largely inactive for a few years.
Martinez sidestepped GGG. Miguel Cotto did the same and ended up fighting Canelo instead, which is understandable from a business perspective. The same goes for Canelo because who wouldn't want a PPV fight against a lesser threat for more money?
I will say that GGG could have taken short money to get Canelo in the ring sooner than later, however everyone else made business decisions so I guess he made one too.
Ya but GGG was never in any real wars prior to the Jacobs fight. He may have been 35 but he wasn't the normal 35 that boxers usually are so age can be misleading.
I am not saying that it was all his fault for why some of those fights didn't happen and agree he was probably ducked by many. But the facts are that he was very overhyped by HBO and boxing fans in general and while he was a little bit older the MAIN reason for his sudden decline in knockouts and dominant performances was because of his step up in competition.
Canelo fan here. The bold is something I'm starting to dislike about Canelo, all the meaningless weight jumping. Not a good thing.
It's not meaningless if you are fighting good opposition.
Fury couldn't even follow through fighting a no-name on December 5th. I do not think Joshua is the problem. At least he fights top 10 competition more often.
Exactly! People talk about AJ being a ducker but he has consistently fought top competition and has faced the most amount of top 10 opponents out of anyone in the heavyweight division.
GGG is both underrated and overrated.
He's overrated because he's not truly an historic fighter. The regular WBA never counted, and it shouldn't start counting for GGG. He's just a great middleweight, but his resume, on paper, has noting historic to it. Him never fighting out of his division is baffling to me as well.
He's underrated because he's not a bum. He's actually one of the most skilled middleweights that I ever saw and has a lot of subtleties to his style that many don't notice. And I will concede that some fighters ducked him, though I believe he ducked fighters also. He also gets flack for defending his title, which I will never understand.
This is very accurate and I agree with almost all of it. I'm not saying he wasn't a great middleweight just a very overrated fighter.
And the 1 weight thing is true as well. Can't compare him to someone like Canelo when he only fights at one weight his whole career
GGG talent and skills are not overrated it is just people who used him for their own ignorant agenda OVERRATES him and they did so at the time to say he was "Better Than Andre Ward" and then they used him to be Anti Canelo Alvarez
GGG is a excellent fighter though, Good Jab, Great Chin, Big Power
Completely agree
You couldn't post this on your original account? And age has quite a bit to do with his decline as well. Not hard to see the difference in physical abilities from his late 20's and early 30's till now. It's life. You got to start deteriorating eventually.
This my original account haha, I made it yesterday. Age can be a factor in GGG decline but not the main reason. His resume is extremely thin for a supposed "ATG"