The "Greatest of All-Time" Discussion

[GhostofDempsey]

We often see threads where a particular fighter is lauded as the GOAT. Most of the time it's a fighter who we can universally argue belongs somewhere in the conversation. Every so often someone will drop a name that met with denial, laughter or a sanity check.

I've never been one to say that any one fighter is the greatest of all time. Too many variables to consider and trying to compare one era to another is almost like apples and oranges.

When you consider who your GOAT is, do you take into account the era in which they fought, the quality of opposition (not just a resume full of recognizable names but ATGs at their best), number of fights, win/loss ratio, weight classes etc.?

What is your criteria for GOAT? Can you really narrow down that accolade to just one man?

[QueensburyRules]

- -See the top ten greatest heavies discussion above that goes back over a decade.

[Anthony342]

The barber shop scenes in Coming To America kind of sum it up pretty well. But it would be resume, who they beat and at what point they are in both of their careers.

[DeeMoney]

There seems to be a prevailing belief that Greatness is now measured in accomplishments while there is a separate argument for Best- which some would argue as being subjective. I think though that if your Greatest is different from your Best then you are evaluating the information incorrectly or limiting yourself. Still, that seems to be what many who debate these things are utilizing.

Example
Tom Brady is the GOAT because he has 6 rings, but Peyton Manning is the BEST because he was a better football players who contributed the most towards his teams success.

As I wrote earlier, I prefer to use the above described BEST model; I like to evaluate how good a fighter is compared to his specific weight class. As an aside I feel that weight classes allow boxing to be a sport where you can evaluate across decades. The biggest change in athletes in the past 80 years is size (an NFL team from 1940 would get smoked by today's college teams primarily due to size but a 147lbs is the same now as it was back then). So outside of heavyweight, and you can compare old heavyweights to modern Cruisers, its all the same.

As for resumes, they do provide context, but the sport is different now. Fighters fought more often 80 years ago, that afforded them more chances to earn better wins (PS why do we only count wins win looking at resumes, but never hold losses against a fighter). As such, they will develop better resumes, but not necessarily be better fighters. You have to be able to contextualize these things and not just throw names of wins. Conversely, there are more weight classes now and more belts, so having belts in 3 classes in 2019 doesnt quite mean the same as what Henry Armstrong did.

Sorry for the rambling wrote the beginning, got back to work, then finished up. I prefer evaluations of the fighter as opposed to just wins (a mix of peak resume, eye test, and evaluations of how I view their abilities), compare across eras (boxing allows for this) and I prefer peak as opposed to whole career- but thats just me.

[KingKrypton]

No thats why'd I like to put Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali as 1 A and 1 B. They faced a lot of similar social, political and economical issues. They both faced the toughest opposition available. Although I'd argue Robinson is slightly more skilled than Ali but being a heavyweight is a lot tougher, so its neck and neck.

[Eff Pandas]

What is your criteria for GOAT?

I have none. I find Goat debates to be some of the most worthless debates on boxing forums.

Can you really narrow down that accolade to just one man?

I don't think most boxing fans even have the knowledge of boxing history or have seen enough film to give an opinion on such a wide selection of possible nominees for such a title.

And the select few that do gotta come up with some fantasy realm or speculative logic on how you can even compare top fighters from every era when times were different, top opposition was or wasn't available & sometimes the rules that governed the sport were different among many other variables that are tough to quantify & handicap against others. Its an impossible mission to come up with a top ten Goat list let alone finding the Goat.

[chrisJS]

I’ve generally found the folks who scream TBE or GOAT the most are the ones that generally know the least.

[ShoulderRoll]

To me the greatest of all time is a guy who you can pluck from his era in his prime...drop him in any other era, and he would come out on top.

Obviously it's subjective but arguing about this kind of thing is what we sports nerds love to do.

[QueensburyRules]

As I wrote earlier, I prefer to use the above described BEST model; I like to evaluate how good a fighter is compared to his specific weight class. As an aside I feel that weight classes allow boxing to be a sport where you can evaluate across decades. The biggest change in athletes in the past 80 years is size (an NFL team from 1940 would get smoked by today's college teams primarily due to size.

- -got it ass backwards.

Biggest difference now is training and specialized nutrition including PEDs, and money that allows year long devotion to training, and change of rules that allows narrow focus specialized players called forth by computer algorithms instead of innate player and coach intuition in a game where the best athletes stayed on the field for all 60 minutes in what amounted to a part time profession necessitating another job in the off season to make ends meet for their families.

Jim Thorpe was a far superior athlete than today's athletes, as was Babe Ruth and Wilt Chamberlain.

Baseball, football, basketball has become tragically so stilted and slowed down that I can no longer watch it. So to is boxing, but on rare occasion we can see a rare old school fight like AJ vs Wlad or a pacquiao fight and so on. Even those are contaminated with modern training methods and rule changes, but the nature of a good fight remains pretty much as it was .

[Joe Beamish]

It gets awfully complicated, but my top criterion is resume. Who were the best fighters you defeated? Were they in their prime?

Thus for me in the modern era (40s and on), I tend to rank Ali and Leonard tops with Robinson. Robinson was amazing, but he didn't beat Benitez, Duran, Hearns and Hagler. But....Robinson was so great, he beat so many people -- it was a different era -- and the smartest people in the sport give him highest props -- and some of his middleweight fights are captured on film; he looks fantastically quick, shifty and vicious -- I still have to put Robinson alongside Ali and Leonard.

But that's an exception. Resume means a lot. It's the criterion that has me ranking Dempsey lower than many people do. For example. And Marciano higher.

The older the era, the harder it is to compare to the more modern times. Way different rules. Way different film, if any. Way different business and expectations from fans, and ways of judging winners. Really hard to compare.