15 Most Exciting Warriors of the Ring

[jabsRstiff]

When I sit down to watch boxing my first priority is seeing a good fight. That means it needs to be competitive. Now you can have an exciting fight between two dominant fighters (ie Ali-Frazier I, Leonard-Duran I ect.), you just can't have an exciting fight between a dominant fighter and an overmatched opponent.

Bottom line, a great fight is exciting; this or that fighter isn't. There's plenty of fighters over the years that I've liked, but I can't say there's been any I get overly excited over for their own sake or that stir any real passion in me. There's been lots of matchups I've gotten excited over though.

Poet

What if there's two evenly matched guys going in (not a mismatch), but one guy quickly seizes command and takes the guy out....you feel cheated?

[StarshipTrooper]

What if there's two evenly matched guys going in (not a mismatch), but one guy quickly seizes command and takes the guy out....you feel cheated?

Yeah, of course. I'm going to be disappointed that a fight that I thought was going to be good turned out to be a squash match. At least let me see half a fight with competitive action.

Let me ask you this: How do you feel when you watch an NFL game between two hot playoff contenders that you're excited about seeing only to have it degenerate into a 45-0 whitewash?

Poet

[jabsRstiff]

Yeah, of course. I'm going to be disappointed that a fight that I thought was going to be good turned out to be a squash match. At least let me see half a fight with competitive action.

Let me ask you this: How do you feel when you watch an NFL game between two hot playoff contenders that you're excited about seeing only to have it degenerate into a 45-0 whitewash?

Poet

To me, watching one football team squash another is not exciting, especially because I know there will be four quarters of game-time. Watching a very good fighter bomb out another is exciting as hell to me. It's shocking and you don't know exactly when it will end. There's beauty in watching a fighter blister another, especially if he displays something exceptional.

I often watch Edwin Rosario blow out Livingstone Bramble....love to see the variety of textbook bombs Rosario laid on a guy he wasn't supposed to beat much less KO. Got to see something very unexpected and thrilling, along with boxing skill. But, I have only ever watched Winky vs Jermain Taylor once. It was a competitive fight, but nothing exceptional happened and the fact (even as I was watching it) that I knew neither guy could take the other out took that particular edge off of the fight.

[Scott9945]

Yes, most (at least 51% qualifies) are conclusive, but I would reserve the adjective (extremely) for all KO's in concept.*

A KO always means the better man won that particular fight, whether or not he had an inferior record to his opponent or was trailing on all scorecards. That's the beauty of boxing rules, no matter how much you may be trailing in a fight, you have a puncher's chance of winning via the KO. If you won millions in the lottery, you're no less a millionaire that the fellow who earned it through blood, sweat and tears.

I freely concede that I may not know what the criteria for scoring a fight is, but I've never seen a Compu-box scorecard based on defensive tactics.




*The qualifier above is based on the possibility of referee error (Jersey Joe Walcot, not picking up the correct count from the timekeeper) or haste (stopping the fight too soon, e.g. Richard Steele)

I take each fight as its own story and accept whatever result (as long as it's reasonable) it brings. My hope is that the fight is entertaining and that I can learn from it. I remember seeing some blowouts on live closed circuit TV (Foreman-Frazier, Hearns-Cuevas, etc.) that were absolutely thrilling. When Andre Ward fights I just can't wait for the fight to be over, and a KO would be a blessing.

[jabsRstiff]

I take each fight as its own story and accept whatever result (as long as it's reasonable) it brings. My hope is that the fight is entertaining and that I can learn from it. I remember seeing some blowouts on live closed circuit TV (Foreman-Frazier, Hearns-Cuevas, etc.) that were absolutely thrilling. When Andre Ward fights I just can't wait for the fight to be over, and a KO would be a blessing.

How I see things.

To me Winky Wright wasn't boring because he didn't punch hard, he was boring because his fights were monotonous. He'd have an outclassed guy in front of him, but let the guy hang for 12. The first round and twelfth rounds were identical and it was becuase he wouldn't switch up what he was doing. I think if his fight with Trinidad was scheduled for 35 rounds Winky would picth a 35rd shutout. I don't even think a so-called "purist" could possibly stick through all 35.

[DarkTerror88]

In all fairness, Hagler v Hearns wasn't exactly a blowout. IMO it had the action of most 15 round fights crammed into one. It was even for the most part

[StarshipTrooper]

Ultimately what it comes down to is I'm a fan of the sport first, and a fan of this or that fighter a very distant second. My bottom-line is always going to be that I want a good competitive fight with plenty of action. A fight can be competitive and still be a snooze-fest.....but a non-competitive fight is guaranteed to be boring to me.

Poet

[Scott9945]

In all fairness, Hagler v Hearns wasn't exactly a blowout. IMO it had the action of most 15 round fights crammed into one. It was even for the most part

Once you get past the first half of the first round, that fight was all Hagler.

[DarkTerror88]

Once you get past the first half of the first round, that fight was all Hagler.

Valid point. Not gonna argue

[talip bin osman]

Some were brawlers, others were boxers, all have one thing in common: They're 15 of the most exciting practitioners of the sweet science. They were quintessential crowd-pleasers who generated anticipation and incited passion. When the bell rang for the start of a round, the focus was on the ring without distraction.

If your favorite fighter is not on this list, I meant no slight; when I got the idea for the thread, they were the first 15 to come to mind and I challeged myself to rank them.

1. Mike Tyson
2. Jack Dempsey
3. Roberto Duran
4. Joe Louis
5. Muhammad Ali
6. Sugar Ray Robinson
7. Aaron Pryor
8. Jake LaMotta
9. Michael Spinks
10. Arturo Gatti
11. Julio Cesar Chavez
12. Tommy Hearns
13. Alexis Arguello
14. Oscar De La Hoya
15. Sugar Ray Leonard

great list but... theres a name missing...

bobby chacon?