What factors do you consider when determining a fighter’s greatness?

[REDEEMER]

If he can knock out Terrell who was just as big as Wlad, and had a better chin, he can beat Wlad. Boxers' overall skills have diminished over the decades. Particularly in the HW division. Any time Wlad got tagged on the chin he spazzed out and lost his composure. Hence his tendency to jab and grab and basically try to survive each fight and use his size advantage to either keep them on the outside or lean on them during clinches. Wlad was a modern day Primo Carnera. Watch the film on each of them, very similar. Carnera was considered a sideshow attraction and a joke amongst the HW division. Many of his wins were fixed. Wlad prospered in a weak division and a considerable size advantage. He was knocked out by Puritty, Sanders and Brewster, far lesser fighters than Williams. Even AJ is very limited. He has a weak defense and suspect chin. Another large super HW using his size advantage to feast on a weak division.

Terrell was much slow of hand and feet with a high guard though . Wlad was far superior athlete and Terrell wouldn’t make a top 5 fir him ,I’d pick every guy there to knockout Terrell I listed maybe besides Byrd . Peter probably being the easiest style wise but he was no easy win just watch his fight with Vitali who was better then Wlad .


Terrell isn’t a selling point for me unless you can tell me what he did better then Wlad , Williams was also shaken by punches it’s why he took on many soft touches but I don’t see him beating a guy 6”6 with great jab himself and size advantage. Wlad wasn’t knocked out by Purrity who also defeated or drew with Morrison. He was fatigued in the last round and punched himself out against a guy who was never stopped .

[Marchegiano]

It wouldn’t matter what the ratings are ,it would be known who’s a legit fighter or not in rankings and how good they are . If there’s on,y one ranking system then you go by it .

Look at Wilders title defenses and Joshuas .


Theres a clear difference in quality ,AJ is easily fighting better guys that’s not debatable and everyone he’s fought he’s defeated so far ,no one has walked away from him not losing .


Marciano vs Ali’s title defenses ? Clearly Ali is greater and had more title defenses against better fighters .



Joe Louis and Holmes hold the records but did they really fight better opponents ? Not really .

Everyone from the 1880s to 1929 has a lot of losses and to not so great competition, plus, Wilder, Joshua, Ali, and Holmes would not be applicable in during that era. They're black. Marciano is the clear leader of the names mentioned in the constraints of the period. Unbeaten white man who cleared all the top white comp and even the black comp too. He'd've been god like in 1915.

If it wasn't murkier than what you described no one would have any reason to ask. It's very difficult to look at modern boxing and bring those ideals into the early phases of queensbury. Give it go, pick a period and start justifying who is good and who is ****.

[REDEEMER]

Everyone from the 1880s to 1929 has a lot of losses and to not so great competition, plus, Wilder, Joshua, Ali, and Holmes would not be applicable in during that era. They're black. Marciano is the clear leader of the names mentioned in the constraints of the period. Unbeaten white man who cleared all the top white comp and even the black comp too. He'd've been god like in 1915.

If it wasn't murkier than what you described no one would have any reason to ask. It's very difficult to look at modern boxing and bring those ideals into the early phases of queensbury. Give it go, pick a period and start justifying who is good and who is ****.

I’d say every era that has proceeded the last has produced better fighters just like any sport . I’m talking as a whole not a single champion but id say a prime Mike Tyson with Cus is a very tough task to get around for instance in any era because you are dealing with a defensive master with power in both hands who threw every punch and everywhere .

Yes the rules have changed as well with rounds , gloves , clinching of no holding and hitting or shoving , equipment etc but the constant remains and that’s better athletic guys who are top fighters are harder to defeat in the ring .

Ali said it best when he said heavyweights are always good they always get better with time and at the period they are fighting ,I’d agree with it .

[billeau2]

Cleveland was a good fighter but he beats Klitschko ? Williams fought 30 guys coming off loses in about 60 fights in a decade and compiled many guys coming off loses throughout his career . He has struggled with big guys and defeated just a few punchers not close to Klitschko. Who on Williams wins to you see that shows the can defeat a Wlad Klitschko that he’s defeated ? I don’t see anyone ., I’m not even sure why a particular individual on here is using Sanders who was a huge southpaw as proof ? Wlad didn’t even train fir a southpaw that night and under Steward would be near a huge mismatch against a Cleveland Williams .

Pretending Haye , Peter , Povetkin, Brewster ,Byrd , Chambers , Ibragomov ( better southpaw then Sanders ) and AJ who he managed to hurt bad are just stiff jabb ,jabb repeat fighters is ridiculous as a reason Williams and Listons opponents were better .

They both fought against weaker competition. Look at the fighters you list lol. Its hardly a ridiculous assertion.

[billeau2]

Terrell was much slow of hand and feet with a high guard though . Wlad was far superior athlete and Terrell wouldn’t make a top 5 fir him ,I’d pick every guy there to knockout Terrell I listed maybe besides Byrd . Peter probably being the easiest style wise but he was no easy win just watch his fight with Vitali who was better then Wlad .


Terrell isn’t a selling point for me unless you can tell me what he did better then Wlad , Williams was also shaken by punches it’s why he took on many soft touches but I don’t see him beating a guy 6”6 with great jab himself and size advantage. Wlad wasn’t knocked out by Purrity who also defeated or drew with Morrison. He was fatigued in the last round and punched himself out against a guy who was never stopped .

He did tell you..Terrell had size and chin over Vlad. Williams was shaken, Vlad was knocked cold by Brewster and Sanders...

[DeeMoney]

I’d say every era that has proceeded the last has produced better fighters just like any sport . I’m talking as a whole not a single champion but id say a prime Mike Tyson with Cus is a very tough task to get around for instance in any era because you are dealing with a defensive master with power in both hands who threw every punch and everywhere .

Yes the rules have changed as well with rounds , gloves , clinching of no holding and hitting or shoving , equipment etc but the constant remains and that’s better athletic guys who are top fighters are harder to defeat in the ring .

Ali said it best when he said heavyweights are always good they always get better with time and at the period they are fighting ,I’d agree with it .

I agree with that assessment in general, but think there are a couple of caveats that apply to boxing.

1) Size has held constant thanks to weight classes. One of the biggest differences for athletes in their evolution has been getting bigger, and being able to be bigger without too much sacrifice in other aspects. Look at an NFL linemen from the 1960s compared to one from today. Your modern linemen will be significantly bigger but have equal (if not greater) speed; it would be ridiculous to match these two up. Conversely, compare a middleweight boxer today with one from the 1960s....they're still pretty much the same size. I guess same day weigh ins compared to day before has allowed for a slight change, but not that much.
Along those lines, boxing is as much a distance, high stamina sport, as it is anything else. There is little change in body type over the years with these types of athletes. Compare a Paavo Nurmi to runners today, and he is actually bigger.

2) Boxings diminished popularity, at least in the US. Other sports have supplanted boxing in the pecking order for the top athletes, and have trimmed off the top end of the talent pool to an extent. There is still a growing population, and many great fighters, but based on percentage of population, not as much as there was half a century ago.

[billeau2]

Everyone from the 1880s to 1929 has a lot of losses and to not so great competition, plus, Wilder, Joshua, Ali, and Holmes would not be applicable in during that era. They're black. Marciano is the clear leader of the names mentioned in the constraints of the period. Unbeaten white man who cleared all the top white comp and even the black comp too. He'd've been god like in 1915.

If it wasn't murkier than what you described no one would have any reason to ask. It's very difficult to look at modern boxing and bring those ideals into the early phases of queensbury. Give it go, pick a period and start justifying who is good and who is ****.

Everyone wants to ignore the changes and assume that boxing follows the trajectory that sports follows. If you look at things like the money per capita in the sport, sports like football, soccer, basketball blow up, they go upwards on a graph. Hence, the athletes get better (paid more), as the sport becomes greater. The farm systems become better, colleges use football now as the prime financial earner... And one can look at football players, the difference in size, speed, abilities, it is obvious.

Boxing is different. Allowing for inflation and for per capita, less money goes into boxing as a professional sport. Superstars are a separate class... Fighters are starting later, and there is competition from other fight sports and endeavors like football. If you look at film, unlike football for example, you see fighters doing less than they ever did. You see bigger guys that have some natural talent, with the exception of fighters who were trained from an early age like Tyson Fury.

Boxing styles changes significantly as well... Unless people try it, they usually have a hard time understanding how different it is to punch with smaller gloves, small enough to generate and transfer power without the big punching movements fighters use today and since Dempsey. So in reality there have been two boxing styles to critique with different variables. Against a fighter like Tyson back with minimum padding, guys fought at sword's length. No one got in the gap (perfect example would be how Woodley fought Paul BTW), and you would not swing far and wide because you would break your hand...

yet people persist in this fiction that boxing is just another athletic endeavor where athletes have "evolved" and not a hybrid sport/fight endeavor with its own trajectories.

[Marchegiano]

Everyone wants to ignore the changes and assume that boxing follows the trajectory that sports follows. If you look at things like the money per capita in the sport, sports like football, soccer, basketball blow up, they go upwards on a graph. Hence, the athletes get better (paid more), as the sport becomes greater. The farm systems become better, colleges use football now as the prime financial earner... And one can look at football players, the difference in size, speed, abilities, it is obvious.

Boxing is different. Allowing for inflation and for per capita, less money goes into boxing as a professional sport. Superstars are a separate class... Fighters are starting later, and there is competition from other fight sports and endeavors like football. If you look at film, unlike football for example, you see fighters doing less than they ever did. You see bigger guys that have some natural talent, with the exception of fighters who were trained from an early age like Tyson Fury.

Boxing styles changes significantly as well... Unless people try it, they usually have a hard time understanding how different it is to punch with smaller gloves, small enough to generate and transfer power without the big punching movements fighters use today and since Dempsey. So in reality there have been two boxing styles to critique with different variables. Against a fighter like Tyson back with minimum padding, guys fought at sword's length. No one got in the gap (perfect example would be how Woodley fought Paul BTW), and you would not swing far and wide because you would break your hand...

yet people persist in this fiction that boxing is just another athletic endeavor where athletes have "evolved" and not a hybrid sport/fight endeavor with its own trajectories.

Yeah man, when I am asking REDEEMER , and I don't even mean this as a put-down just acknowledgment we hardly ever agree, for his opinion, you have to know I am very hungry for anything.

Higher academia/credentials, CBZ/TBRB/IBRO etc "historians" all go with this super lame cop-out where they just explain how difficult it is to make a criteria that is fair and universal across the eras.


What I think is interesting is if I made a top ten BK HWs thread it'd get very little conversation because most boxing's fans interest in BK is passing at best. Which I don't mean as criticism and don't expect all folks to be completionists like me. It's just kind of true, imo, especially if I made a LPRR post in NSB. -Kev- is there currently arguing with me because I suggested anyone in the modern era interested in boxers before film should read newspapers, in NSB.

LPRR isn't seen as "boxing". No one argues with me, anymore, often anyway, about the connection between pygmachia, pyx, LPRR, and QBR anymore but it's a pretty common opinion to hear LPRR isn't real boxing or modern boxing, it's its own sport.

I think it is more than fair to say QBR should not be the chronological landmark, so to speak. Dempsey does not belong on a list with Fury anymore than Mace does. Dempsey and Mace, outside of rules and looking more at boxing infrastructure, have a ****load more in common than Dempsey and Fury. This is not a knock on Dempsey. Edit - I think Dempsey would whoop Fury though, it'd be kinda funny.

When I first started to think this way I settled on the bodies. "modern" boxing would begin with the bodies, and in 2016 I'd've told you that, but, as time progresses and you learn more, it may sound silly late but I don't think boxing before the mid 30s should be considered "modern". Because before bodies is very much like LPRR in terms of champion's fighting contenders, how to deal with a vacancy, the closest thing to a rating system back then, stuff like that. LPRR had "the lists" which was famous guys into boxing's person top choices. Like King George had a list. So back then you'd be like KG watched it all he's rich af so I reckon he knows about right. Then early bodies don't even really look like bodies today until the 1930s. I think 29 is the first body ratings? Some such. Then you have, imo, the final piece, racism. Modern boxing might be racist but not like that ****, there is no color line today.

So I think we are at a point where boxing needs a need category because it is old enough for one. Like with my ancient HW champions, I divided say the Archaic period from the Classical. For the same reason like everyone does that in every history, classical Greece is very different from Micean and Archaic Greece. I think boxing is ready for that, or rather QBR is read for that.

I think the older gen historians ****ed up when they classified boxing by rule structure rather that infrastructure and now no one but no one has a good way to compare Tyson Fury to John L. Sullivan.

[-Kev-]

Yeah man, when I am asking REDEEMER , and I don't even mean this as a put-down just acknowledgment we hardly ever agree, for his opinion, you have to know I am very hungry for anything.

Higher academia/credentials, CBZ/TBRB/IBRO etc "historians" all go with this super lame cop-out where they just explain how difficult it is to make a criteria that is fair and universal across the eras.


What I think is interesting is if I made a top ten BK HWs thread it'd get very little conversation because most boxing's fans interest in BK is passing at best. Which I don't mean as criticism and don't expect all folks to be completionists like me. It's just kind of true, imo, especially if I made a LPRR post in NSB. -Kev- is there currently arguing with me because I suggested anyone in the modern era interested in boxers before film should read newspapers, in NSB.

LPRR isn't seen as "boxing". No one argues with me, anymore, often anyway, about the connection between pygmachia, pyx, LPRR, and QBR anymore but it's a pretty common opinion to hear LPRR isn't real boxing or modern boxing, it's its own sport.

I think it is more than fair to say QBR should not be the chronological landmark, so to speak. Dempsey does not belong on a list with Fury anymore than Mace does. Dempsey and Mace, outside of rules and looking more at boxing infrastructure, have a ****load more in common than Dempsey and Fury. This is not a knock on Dempsey. Edit - I think Dempsey would whoop Fury though, it'd be kinda funny.

When I first started to think this way I settled on the bodies. "modern" boxing would begin with the bodies, and in 2016 I'd've told you that, but, as time progresses and you learn more, it may sound silly late but I don't think boxing before the mid 30s should be considered "modern". Because before bodies is very much like LPRR in terms of champion's fighting contenders, how to deal with a vacancy, the closest thing to a rating system back then, stuff like that. LPRR had "the lists" which was famous guys into boxing's person top choices. Like King George had a list. So back then you'd be like KG watched it all he's rich af so I reckon he knows about right. Then early bodies don't even really look like bodies today until the 1930s. I think 29 is the first body ratings? Some such. Then you have, imo, the final piece, racism. Modern boxing might be racist but not like that ****, there is no color line today.

So I think we are at a point where boxing needs a need category because it is old enough for one. Like with my ancient HW champions, I divided say the Archaic period from the Classical. For the same reason like everyone does that in every history, classical Greece is very different from Micean and Archaic Greece. I think boxing is ready for that, or rather QBR is read for that.

I think the older gen historians ****ed up when they classified boxing by rule structure rather that infrastructure and now no one but no one has a good way to compare Tyson Fury to John L. Sullivan.

While you are going to go back and forth with yourself, my offer of help still stands. Shoot me a PM. I have resources for you no matter where you live in the US.

[billeau2]

Yeah man, when I am asking REDEEMER , and I don't even mean this as a put-down just acknowledgment we hardly ever agree, for his opinion, you have to know I am very hungry for anything.

Higher academia/credentials, CBZ/TBRB/IBRO etc "historians" all go with this super lame cop-out where they just explain how difficult it is to make a criteria that is fair and universal across the eras.


What I think is interesting is if I made a top ten BK HWs thread it'd get very little conversation because most boxing's fans interest in BK is passing at best. Which I don't mean as criticism and don't expect all folks to be completionists like me. It's just kind of true, imo, especially if I made a LPRR post in NSB. -Kev- is there currently arguing with me because I suggested anyone in the modern era interested in boxers before film should read newspapers, in NSB.

LPRR isn't seen as "boxing". No one argues with me, anymore, often anyway, about the connection between pygmachia, pyx, LPRR, and QBR anymore but it's a pretty common opinion to hear LPRR isn't real boxing or modern boxing, it's its own sport.

I think it is more than fair to say QBR should not be the chronological landmark, so to speak. Dempsey does not belong on a list with Fury anymore than Mace does. Dempsey and Mace, outside of rules and looking more at boxing infrastructure, have a ****load more in common than Dempsey and Fury. This is not a knock on Dempsey. Edit - I think Dempsey would whoop Fury though, it'd be kinda funny.

When I first started to think this way I settled on the bodies. "modern" boxing would begin with the bodies, and in 2016 I'd've told you that, but, as time progresses and you learn more, it may sound silly late but I don't think boxing before the mid 30s should be considered "modern". Because before bodies is very much like LPRR in terms of champion's fighting contenders, how to deal with a vacancy, the closest thing to a rating system back then, stuff like that. LPRR had "the lists" which was famous guys into boxing's person top choices. Like King George had a list. So back then you'd be like KG watched it all he's rich af so I reckon he knows about right. Then early bodies don't even really look like bodies today until the 1930s. I think 29 is the first body ratings? Some such. Then you have, imo, the final piece, racism. Modern boxing might be racist but not like that ****, there is no color line today.

So I think we are at a point where boxing needs a need category because it is old enough for one. Like with my ancient HW champions, I divided say the Archaic period from the Classical. For the same reason like everyone does that in every history, classical Greece is very different from Micean and Archaic Greece. I think boxing is ready for that, or rather QBR is read for that.

I think the older gen historians ****ed up when they classified boxing by rule structure rather that infrastructure and now no one but no one has a good way to compare Tyson Fury to John L. Sullivan.

Well the first thing that comes to mind... You have a much greater view over the horizon than most... Sometime Im guessing during the Hellanistic times in Greece, a time when because of Alexander the great, Aristotle's pupil... gave the world the form and substance of Hellinistic thinking, sports that emphasized the glory of the individual, over military matters, etc came to be. I might be mistaken and perhaps this idea extended even earlier than Hellinistic philosophy... My sources are Arvantis and You! So if this is wrong let me know.

But what matters is that you have the long road view and can see different ways to designate different epoches in a truly well researched way. My thinking would be as long as these designations are consistent, make sense, and can stand up to hard evidence they are useful. One could do it like the Japanese do the old ways, the newer old ways, and modern ways, each with a book designating who is in. Or, the ancient way, also used in Japan, and so many of the ancient religions... one could have a tree with branches. So, for example, Black fighters and their traditions could be a separate branch, until united/reunited back... this would allow for people to see an arrangement that did not designate "better" etc. For example, if I have a family tree for Kukishin Den Ryu... at some point Yoshin Ryu combines with it, then they separate again... there is no indication of superiority, inferiority to speak of.

But when comparing, and noting changes, etc what we do need are people who can explain differences. Like why a boxing style from a certain time looked as it did. What expert technique looked like and why. Then things can be contrasted correctly. As far as ratings, belts, organizations... these things are existential in nature... they have the credibility we give them and little else. Like Charlie Z's belt lol... It is ridiculous but it is a valuable lesson in how silly people become when it comes to "belts, trinkets, etc..." In Ancient Aztec times when you won you didn't need no trinket! you were sacrificed to the Gods!! lol...

I guess this is why I like the lineal so much. it is what it is... and by not needing a belt, or anything other than the common man's knowledge it becomes iconic with no trinkets needed. But this is alas a cop out on my part... You and a few others have looked carefully at what these different groups do to fit into a logical frame of reference for the sport... And this is a wonderful undertaking that bares fruit when done properly.