Kostya Tszyu-where does he rank?

[elfag]

Can you be any more selective?

Hatton also stopped and dominated a still good Castillo (nobody ever did that), dominated Paulie, beat Urango when he was undefeated, and moved up to squeak out a win over Collazo for a title--not his best performance, but he got the W and became a multi weight champ, unlike Zoo. He only lost to the absolute elite, not f ucking Vince Phillips. Oh, and he beat Kostya Tszyu.


For Zoo, Gonzales was shot and Mitchell was injured the first time and shot the second time. So he's got either Hurtado or Jake Rodriguez as his second best win, which isn't all that much. The Judah fight was basically a 140 pound version of Lewis-McCall I. Sure, it was a good win, but Zoo turned down the rematch despite there not being any other meaningful fights at 140.

LOL so biased, try making it a bit less obvious. JJC was not "still good", everyone viewed that fight as a give me, JLC was shot and had just been in two wars with corrales. He didnt do **** at 140 either. And hatton got a gift in the collazo fight, just call it what it was. Not going to make a big deal about his losses to pac and floyd, cause kostya would have lost to them too, but just be honest man.

[young_robbed]

well honestly he was always a guy I considered way overrated.

Let's take a look at his resume:

Old ass Roger Mayweather; not a great win, by any stretch of the imagination. and he couldn't even knockout the chinny old guy

Undefeated Hugo Pineda; not bad considering his record but then again this guy never fought anybody prior to fighting Tszyu.

Corey Johnson

A devastating LOSS to Vince Phillips, a guy he should have beat. Phillips was certainly fought like a great fighter that night though. Just whooped Tszyu's ass on every level.

Rafael Ruelas

A post Whitaker win over Diosbelys Hurtado, not sure if we can consider Hurtado to be in his prime when Tszyu beat him

Old ass Julio Cesar Chavez, no credit for this win IMO

Sharmba Mitchell x2

Undefeated Zab Judah, his best win probably

Ben Tackie

and of course the loss to hatton to end his career.

So there is nothing there that makes him an ATG in my eyes, the fact that he lost to Vince Phillips when Tszyu was supposed to be coming into his prime is a huge blow to his career & his resume.

I don't see him as an ATG at 140 and I don't think it's far fetched to think that he would lose to the likes of Pacquiao, Mamby, Bruce Curry, PRIME Roger Mayweather, or Pryor at their primes. Meldrick Taylor would beat him for sure. So would prime Chavez.

[Cardinal Buck]

LOL so biased, try making it a bit less obvious. JJC was not "still good", everyone viewed that fight as a give me, JLC was shot and had just been in two wars with corrales. He didnt do **** at 140 either. And hatton got a gift in the collazo fight, just call it what it was. Not going to make a big deal about his losses to pac and floyd, cause kostya would have lost to them too, but just be honest man.

He was a young guy and hadn't lost since the first Corrales fight. Looked fine in the rematch. Just because Hatton steamrolled him doesn't mean he was shot. No more past his best than Gonzales or Mitchell the first time around.

[Humean]

Can you be any more selective?

Hatton also stopped and dominated a still good Castillo (nobody ever did that), dominated Paulie, beat Urango when he was undefeated, and moved up to squeak out a win over Collazo for a title--not his best performance, but he got the W and became a multi weight champ, unlike Zoo. He only lost to the absolute elite, not f ucking Vince Phillips. Oh, and he beat Kostya Tszyu.


For Zoo, Gonzales was shot and Mitchell was injured the first time and shot the second time. So he's got either Hurtado or Jake Rodriguez as his second best win, which isn't all that much. The Judah fight was basically a 140 pound version of Lewis-McCall I. Sure, it was a good win, but Zoo turned down the rematch despite there not being any other meaningful fights at 140.

You know Tszyu must really have had a charmed career having had the fortune of only fighting 'shot' fighters.

You say Gonzalez was 'shot'. He was 28 and had only been defeated once prior to his 1999 defeat to Tszyu and that was in 1997 against De La Hoya, regardless of how high you rate DLH historically surely you could agree that DLH was one of the greatest fighers of his era? DLH defeated him pretty convincingly, Tszyu ****ed him up. Would Tszyu have won so convincingly if he had fought say a 1994 version of Gonzalez? Possibly not, but it is plausible that he might have.

Instead of asking the question, what was a fighter's best wins?, ask yourself the different question of 'What would you expect an elite fighter to do to the opponents that he did indeed fight?' For sure you wouldn't expect a knockout loss to Vince Phillips but that is really the only really poor display in a 34 fight career. Look what he did in the other fights, you'd expect an elite fighter to outclass the opponents that he outclassed in the manner in which he did. A non-elite junior welterweight would not have bludgeoned the opponents that he defeated.

I think if Hatton was an elite junior welterweight, and he may have been, then he was for a shorter period than Tszyu.

[Humean]

well honestly he was always a guy I considered way overrated.

Let's take a look at his resume:

Old ass Roger Mayweather; not a great win, by any stretch of the imagination. and he couldn't even knockout the chinny old guy

Undefeated Hugo Pineda; not bad considering his record but then again this guy never fought anybody prior to fighting Tszyu.

Corey Johnson

A devastating LOSS to Vince Phillips, a guy he should have beat. Phillips was certainly fought like a great fighter that night though. Just whooped Tszyu's ass on every level.

Rafael Ruelas

A post Whitaker win over Diosbelys Hurtado, not sure if we can consider Hurtado to be in his prime when Tszyu beat him

Old ass Julio Cesar Chavez, no credit for this win IMO

Sharmba Mitchell x2

Undefeated Zab Judah, his best win probably

Ben Tackie

and of course the loss to hatton to end his career.

So there is nothing there that makes him an ATG in my eyes, the fact that he lost to Vince Phillips when Tszyu was supposed to be coming into his prime is a huge blow to his career & his resume.

I don't see him as an ATG at 140 and I don't think it's far fetched to think that he would lose to the likes of Pacquiao, Mamby, Bruce Curry, PRIME Roger Mayweather, or Pryor at their primes. Meldrick Taylor would beat him for sure. So would prime Chavez.

You could name any fighter in history and come to the conclusion they were not great with that kind of analysis. You could always doubt the 'primeness' of a fighter, you could always say 'well if he was in his prime the he wouldn't have lost'. This kind of analysis then takes the evidence for why a fighter might be great as evidence of the very opposite!

[young_robbed]

You could name any fighter in history and come to the conclusion they were not great with that kind of analysis. You could always doubt the 'primeness' of a fighter, you could always say 'well if he was in his prime the he wouldn't have lost'. This kind of analysis then takes the evidence for why a fighter might be great as evidence of the very opposite!

No. What this analysis proves, is that Tszyu's resume is lacking. Lacking a lot of names. Like I said his best name is probably Judah. Beating up and old Chavez and Roger Mayweather does not make one great. What I said about Phillips beating Tszyu is 100% true. The same Vince Phillips that got destroyed by Quartey in 3 rounds and the same one that lost to Terron Millett. Phillips utterly destroyed Tszyu when Tszyu was in his prime. Is this correct? yes it is correct. Phillips was no great fighter, and very inconsistent.

Also, what is this supposed to mean?

You could always doubt the 'primeness' of a fighter, you could always say 'well if he was in his prime the he wouldn't have lost'.

Is this supposed to mean that Tszyu would always beat Roger mayweather and chavez sr if they were in their primes? Most people would disagree with you there. I hate to break it to you, but those wins are nothing special.

[Cardinal Buck]

You know Tszyu must really have had a charmed career having had the fortune of only fighting 'shot' fighters.

You say Gonzalez was 'shot'. He was 28 and had only been defeated once prior to his 1999 defeat to Tszyu and that was in 1997 against De La Hoya, regardless of how high you rate DLH historically surely you could agree that DLH was one of the greatest fighers of his era? DLH defeated him pretty convincingly, Tszyu ****ed him up. Would Tszyu have won so convincingly if he had fought say a 1994 version of Gonzalez? Possibly not, but it is plausible that he might have.

Instead of asking the question, what was a fighter's best wins?, ask yourself the different question of 'What would you expect an elite fighter to do to the opponents that he did indeed fight?' For sure you wouldn't expect a knockout loss to Vince Phillips but that is really the only really poor display in a 34 fight career. Look what he did in the other fights, you'd expect an elite fighter to outclass the opponents that he outclassed in the manner in which he did. A non-elite junior welterweight would not have bludgeoned the opponents that he defeated.

I think if Hatton was an elite junior welterweight, and he may have been, then he was for a shorter period than Tszyu.

Gonzales was coming off a draw with an ancient Chavez--I never watched that fight but if that's an accurately scored fight it's not a surprise that he was a sitting duck for Zoo. Zoo also looked pretty bad against Hatton and Urkal, and for small stretches in the first Mitchell fight off the top of my head. 140 was general pretty barren around Zoo's time and I think he would've been beaten if he stepped in against Shane or Oscar when they could've pit stopped at 140.

[Scott9945]

Gonzales was coming off a draw with an ancient Chavez--I never watched that fight but if that's an accurately scored fight it's not a surprise that he was a sitting duck for Zoo. Zoo also looked pretty bad against Hatton and Urkal, and for small stretches in the first Mitchell fight off the top of my head. 140 was general pretty barren around Zoo's time and I think he would've been beaten if he stepped in against Shane or Oscar when they could've pit stopped at 140.

I watched Gonzalez-JCC live and Gonzalez deserved the decision. That was the consensus among unbiased observers as well. Gonzalez was a very legitimate contender when he fought Tszyu.

[Cardinal Buck]

I watched Gonzalez-JCC live and Gonzalez deserved the decision. That was the consensus among unbiased observers as well. Gonzalez was a very legitimate contender when he fought Tszyu.

Let me put it this way: If you dumped that version of Gonzales into the current 140 pound Ring ratings, the only two guys who he strikes me as being more of a threat than are Zab Judah and Mike Alvarado.

[Young Herschel]

Did Kostya fight FMJ?

Sadly, HBO and Floyd Mayweather never really, really wanted to make this superfight happen in the middle of the 2000's.

Kostya Tsyzu was the undisputed and universal Junior Lightweight Champion of the World and he has unanimously defeated his mandatory challenger to all three belts . . . Floyd elects to fight an optional challenger from the Dominican Republic in Mr. Sosa and then take a mandatory challenge from Mr. Juuko. It should have been full speed ahead and all systems go once Tsyzu cleared the slate for Floyd by defeating his mandatory challenger, that power slugger from Ghana-Africa.

The only answer which comes to mind is that HBO was merely blowing smoke and the didn't really want that PPV super bout to happen and neither did Team Mayweather. There was every opportunity to move up and fight for all the belts at 140 pounds . . . but Team Mayweather decided to voluntarily face that Dominican Sosa instead of Tsyzu and then the South African Juuko next in a bout that was far less significant and could have been avoided all together or at least postponed until after he fought Kostya