Comments Thread For: Culled from Canastota: Five Who Should Lose Hall Pass

[BIGPOPPAPUMP]

By Lyle Fitzsimmons - This is a fun time of year.

Around the first week of October, I can usually count on the annual International Boxing Hall of Fame ballot arriving from the boys in Canastota – which ultimately yields both a 1,200-or-so word column in which I announce my votes, and an inbox full of emails telling me I’m a blubbering idiot.

But in 2011, it’s the gift that won’t stop giving.

Rather than simply tucking the most colorful emails into my recycle bin and waiting for next year’s batch to arrive, I decided this time to at least try to turn the cyber lemons into lemonade.

As a general rule, the responses to voting columns can be characterized one of two ways: Either 1) the readers claim the guys I’ve chosen have no earthly business on a Hall of Fame ballot to begin with (See: Ottke, Sven – circa 2009, 2010); or 2) they insist that those I’ve turned thumbs-down on have a clear and irrefutable reason to be included (see: Johnson, Mark – circa 2011). [Click Here To Read More]

[UglyPug]

Lyle, you DKSAB. . . you're a cue ball headed NOOB. . . wilfredo vazquez, no HOF? SERIOUSLY?! nobody here likes you, and your articles are garbage. you like the sound of your voice too much. . .

The Ali trilogy; the first fight, and the third fight deservedly placed smoking joe in the hall of fame. . . nobody has put on such a great heavyweight battle. . . sometimes it's more about winning.

Cuevas shouldn't be in the hall. . . But the rest of the guys deserve their spot. . . You WILL NEVER be a hall of fame boxing writer. . just a pissed off bald guy who never made it.

[komandante]

Joe Frazier definitely is a Hall of Fame'r and should be there. I doubt about Stallone, Rocky is fiction..

[RINGG]

All five of those guys deserve it and should be there. Especially Cuevas and Chacon.

[Team Vitaminas]

but yet you're one of the first ones to say Pacquiao should be considered an all time great,Lmfao...if Pacquiao can make it then Stallone should truly be there as well.

[Tiozzo]

I expected to see Barry McGuigan in this list.

Here is what I think : there are some choices that are made which are largely based on emotions. Who doesn't like Joe Frazier ? There is only one man who he could never beat during his career, but if you look closely, his career isn't all that.

Quarry x2
2 brutal beatdowns at the hands of a mummy
Chuvalo
Bonavena
Machen
Mathis
1-2 versus Ali
Elis x2
Bugner

Not a long reign as champion, and Frazier never really bounced back from the loss of his championship. After Foreman 1, he had 2 useless rematches against people he already KO'ed, and 2 losses to people he had already lost to, even if one was one of the great battles of all-time.

Frazier is a borderline HOF, and it is a matter of opinion on which side of the line you put him, outside or inside....

[BennyST]

I expected to see Barry McGuigan in this list.

Here is what I think : there are some choices that are made which are largely based on emotions. Who doesn't like Joe Frazier ? There is only one man who he could never beat during his career, but if you look closely, his career isn't all that.

Quarry x2
2 brutal beatdowns at the hands of a mummy
Chuvalo
Bonavena
Machen
Mathis
1-2 versus Ali
Elis x2
Bugner

Not a long reign as champion, and Frazier never really bounced back from the loss of his championship. After Foreman 1, he had 2 useless rematches against people he already KO'ed, and 2 losses to people he had already lost to, even if one was one of the great battles of all-time.

Frazier is a borderline HOF, and it is a matter of opinion on which side of the line you put him, outside or inside....

This. Each one of these guys deserves it way more than McGuigan. If McGuigan's not on this list, no one else should be.

[fatmash]

come on smokein joe deserves to be in there he made a man (ali) into a vegetable !!

and he beat ali in his prime

[Grand Champ]

Take Frazier away from HOF and I take your life,

[fitefanSHO]

OK, so Joe Frazier (the first man to whoop The Greatest) is OUT but Matthew Saad Muhammad and Barry McGuigan stay in? Yes, you are a blathering idiot. I think I will pen a story about the writers who deserve to have their IBHOF ballots taken away...