Tweet
Originally posted by Steak
View Post
-
You've got to give Puga some credit atleast he's trying (but failing) to make a case for Pacquiao, most of the others that voted for him didn't even bother trying to fight a losing battle. -
Senior barely put a hand on SRL and got blasted from beginning to end. He probably has a grudge against the man for the beating he took.Originally posted by hugh grant View PostComment
-
No, they didn't. Ring started it in 1989. However, the rest you were right about. It was Tyson, Chavez, etc fighting for the top spot, but since Tyson didn't even start his career until the mid-eighties (85) and Chavez only begun his in 80 and wasn't champ until the mid-eighties they couldn't really have been part of it even if it did start in the early eighties, which it didn't.Originally posted by tim horton View PostComment
-
He could have been......but he wasn't. Like I said, I really enjoyed Yuri and followed his career. Great style and was very fun to watch and had some excellent fights.Originally posted by puga View Post
However, his brief stay in the P4P lists (he actually should have been rated there before he first fought Sasakul and beat him, around the time he was fighting Kittikasem for the second time) was just that. A very brief stay and he left the lists because he had two stay busy fights against nobodies through '96 and that was why he dropped out, then he lost to retired so no, he never went back and wasn't rated at all when he fought Sasakul in their rematch.
Many actually predicted that he would lose to Sasakul as he had not been looking good leading up to it. It wasn't an amazing win over a P4P top ten guy, but it was very good and it did avenge his earlier loss to Yuri at least.Comment
-
I had a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG, hard laugh at this logic.Originally posted by hugh grant View Post
Just hilarious.
Comment
-
well its debateable. No Pac has not beat someone as good as Duran or Hearns, but he also has a lot of other things Leonard has and also a lot more "good wins" as opposed to a few great ones.Originally posted by FootWork777 View Post
Pacquiao has a very large resume and he has wiped out multiple weight classes and done more than SRL. SRL has a few wins over some prime ATG fighters which is also good.
I'll admit though, tough call. For me at least.Comment
-
Yes, that's true. He took a genuinely brutal beating. One thing you have to give Mayweather Sr credit for is heart. He took a nasty beating for many rounds, was hurt many times and never gave in until the ref stopped it.Originally posted by intoccabile View Post
I've said it before and I'll say it again though; people are completely overlooking a major point because they are obsessed with one fighter and don't know a damn thing about the rest of the sport. Hugh is a classic example. He'll put down a win over Mayweather and al the other guys Leonard beat except for Duran, Hearns, Hagler, Benitez etc while hyping up Pac's wins over guys like Clottey, Diaz etc.
Let me explain again: There were the two major titles then. WBC and WBA. You weren't considered a champion unless you had one of those. IBF came in reasonably soon after that but it was thought of as similar to what the IBO is now ie. meaningless.
Being a contender rated 5th onward was to be thought of as an excellent fighter and is the same as being one of the paper champions today. Holding a vacant WBO title is no different today than it was to be the 5th, 4th, 3rd ranked fighter back then without the title because there was only two titles instead of six!
The highest Clottey was ever ranked was 4th. He also held a vacant title for one fight. You have mentioned that win for Pac numerous times as one of his best. Leonard fought and beat guys who were ranked number one through five, and more, that you put down as meaningless bum fights. Guess what? At the time in that day, they were considered as good or better than beating Clottey, Diaz, and Margarito. They really were. His win over Pete Ranzany was an excellent win as good as Clottey. Unlike Clottey, Ranzany was the number 1 fighter for a number of years at 147.
As were his wins over Randy Shields, Johnny Gant, Muniz, Tony Chiaverini etc. No doubt you'll come back with some ****** comment, but all that tells me is that you have no idea about anything other than Pac and his oppoents, most of which you also don't know about. I was lucky enough to have been there watching those fights and a fan of boxing then. They were all stiff tests and hard fights against top fighters of that time. He dominated guys who were as good or better than most of the fighters you are talking about. You have to get to the understanding that a contender then had more opposition than most titlists do today. With six titles to go around, thus six different rankings there are guys who fight only for the IBF sanctioned opponents. That means the division as a whole becomes diluted greatly. That didn't happen. The number one contender in that era was better and did more than any Clottey, or Diaz did today.
They were all top fighters in the division and would today have been titlists of some sort. Is that the only way you would understand they were as good as beating some paper titlist like Clottey who in any other era but today's would never have been a titlist at all?
You guys really are laughable with your thinking. There are other fighters in boxing's long history apart from the guys that Pac beat you know?
Your thinking is as simple and foolish as me saying this: Ranzany was the number one ranked fighter for years, had a record of 45-3 and Leonard beat him. That's better than Pac's wins over Clottey, Diaz, etc. Better record and higher ranked. You lose.
That's actually a better argument than your "Pac dominated his opposition and that makes him better, even though he was beating guys who had shown massive flaws, had been beaten as bad and worse and weren't actually that great anyway".
I for one (and I'm not nearly alone in this), find it highly amusing that a fighter can be ranked 4th, 5th or 6th and can still be considered a 'world champions' today. It's utterly absurd and this is the type of argument you guys use. The fact is that while that 5th ranked fighter might have some useless 'title', they are still only ranked 5th and that means there are four better fighters above him. To my mind, beating someone who was the number one fighter is a hell of a lot better than beating the 5th best fighter in the division, but who happened to have been given a vacant paper title. That's something that you guys seem to have a lot of trouble grasping.
Just because there weren't the ridiculous amount of titles in every single division back then doesn't mean there weren't number one ranked fighters. Holding some crappy vacant title today while being ranked 5th is still no different than being ranked 5th in the 70's. They still had to go through the division fighting the same highly ranked fighters. They just weren't given some fake ass title against someone who wasn't even ranked either for it. They had to get through more top fighters then though as there were more fighters in boxing in general.
So while you pretend that Clottey (ranked 5th or 6th or something) beating Judah (ranked 7th, 8th or 9th) for some BS vacant title actually means more than it does, Ranzany (ranked 2nd) beating Shields (ranked 3rd) is better than that by far. In fact, it would today, be the equal of when Cotto and Mosley fought without the name value of Mosley.
Maybe that helps put things in perspective for you guys that don't seem to understand that the significance of fighters doesn't diminish over time and that being ranked among the top of your division means as much forty years ago as it does today. Just because they are fighting today and you actually know them and have seen them fight doesn't automatically make them better fighters. The simple fact is that a lot of the guys you talk about as being great opponents today were never even ranked as high as many of the guys you summarily dismiss from Leonard's resume even though they were ranked higher for longer and beat more top fighters.Comment
-
Wilfred Benetiz>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Joshua ClotteyComment
-
Yes most analysts and historians have Pac as potentially the GOAT, yet SRL is higher in this poll. Quite embarassing really for Pac that people think SRL has achieved more than Pac.Originally posted by puga View Post
Roach has trained and seen some great fighters, and he says he knew Pac was special when he first saw him. Says it all really.
Erik Morales just beat Maidana who people were making out to be a monster. Pac is the only man to stop Morales. SRL wouldnt have stopped Morales.Originally posted by Mr. Blobby View PostLast edited by hugh grant; 04-25-2011, 02:53 AM.Comment
-
he was in the top 10 in 1995 and has'nt lost since until he fought sasakul....what's does that tell you?...it tells you that he was taken off the list unfairly.....kalule never beat anyone who has been on the top 10 p4p...kalambay did but that later in his carreer.....sasakul>>>>kaluleOriginally posted by Steak View PostComment
Comment