[POLL] Who Has Faced The Softest Competition Overall?

[The Ninth Layer]

Lol what exactly do you think the point the other poster was trying to make?

What he said if you decided to read, was that while Ward is talented, he's done nothing recently to actually prove he's still that P4P level fighter (since he's faced, like you said, no hopers).

You're taking something Ward did 3-4 years ago and giving him credit for it now despite not doing anything to prove it since then.

This is the heart of the discussion, does Ward get to sit at #2 pound-for-pound for three years just on the weight of clearing out SMW in 2012? A lot of people had him out of the rankings because he was inactive, is a win over Paul Smith enough to get him back to the top even while other guys like Chocolatito and Crawford have been scrapping it out in other divisions in the meantime?

I definitely come down on the side that Andre Ward has earned the spot and someone needs to either take it from him or do something really dazzling, but I don't really blame any fight fan that rolls their eyes at a boxer whose three fights in the last three years have all been stay-busy or tune-up level mismatches.

[LacedUp]

Golovkin clearly has the weakest resume of the three.

[The Ninth Layer]

Ward has faced the weakest competition by far.

Froch, solid but nothing spectacular
Kessler, solid but nothing spectacular
undersized Abraham
drained Dawson
nobody else of note (Bika?, Allan Green, lol)

Froch has a record that is STACKED dude. Go look at the guys he fought and beat. His win over Bute is a huge legacy chip. Froch's only unavenged loss is to Ward and he fought EVERYONE at SMW. That one win alone is better than all of GGG's wins combined.

[LacedUp]

Ward has faced the weakest competition by far.

Froch, solid but nothing spectacular
Kessler, solid but nothing spectacular
undersized Abraham
drained Dawson
nobody else of note (Bika?, Allan Green, lol)

Tell me a supermiddleweight IN HISTORY that has a better resume than Froch.

I'll wait.

[ROSS CALIFORNIA]

I don't know the entire career of any of them, but at least kov fought Hopkins and Ward fought Froch. So I picked GGG.

[boliodogs]

I don't get the point of the thread is. The guy was asking for the year because the P4P rankings are based usually on a 1 year timeframe, not what you did 3-4 years ago.

If that wasn't the case and we were to go by career then RJJ, Hopkins and Pacquiao would be at the top of the P4P list. Hell Ali may as well come out of retirement since he'll be the #1 option on this poll based on your standards.

Obviously the answer in this poll is GGG but nothing about this thread disproves anything the other poster's thread was about because they aren't completely interrelated.

You are right, my friend. Pound for pound rankings are supposed to be based on how good you think the boxer is for his weight class right now, today, not 3 or 4 years ago.

[The Ninth Layer]

That's the exact problem.

I have no indication at all on whether or not Ward is that same Super 6 fighter embarrassing people (I think he is but he's still done nothing about it). We can't keep giving him a rank based on what he did 5 years ago when he's done nothing since to prove he's the same fighter.

For all we know, maybe the only reason Ward looks good now is because he's facing bums (which is the same reason people say GGG looks good, because of his competition).

I see your point, at the same time fighter accomplishments over their entire legacy is such a big part of p4p rankings for everybody. Imagine Floyd Mayweather comes back in 2017 and he beats Josecito Lopez (suppose he hasn't visibly aged in those two years), people would have him back at #1 or at least you'd have a lot of people talking about it, just because of how good he was historically. It might not matter what other fighters have done in that time frame.

Even with Floyd gone there's still the sense that nobody is really #1 p4p right now because of how far ahead of the pack he was and how much people respect his skills.

[The Ninth Layer]

You are right, my friend. Pound for pound rankings are supposed to be based on how good you think the boxer is for his weight class right now, today, not 3 or 4 years ago.

Do you think that today there's anybody at super middleweight that would be favored to beat Andre Ward?

For that matter do you think there's anybody between 160-175 who would truly be favored (we're talking betting odds) to beat him?

I would be very surprised if Ward isn't the betting favorite against Kovalev if/when they fight next year.

[Dirk Diggler UK]

Lol what exactly do you think the point the other poster was trying to make?

What he said if you decided to read, was that while Ward is talented, he's done nothing recently to actually prove he's still that P4P level fighter (since he's faced, like you said, no hopers).

You're taking something Ward did 3-4 years ago and giving him credit for it now despite not doing anything to prove it since then.

But Golovkin has never faced anything other than no hopers. 3-4 years ago. This year. 10 years ago.

So how do we know he's P4P level?

[Dirk Diggler UK]

You are right, my friend. Pound for pound rankings are supposed to be based on how good you think the boxer is for his weight class right now, today, not 3 or 4 years ago.

That's not "pound for pound". You narrowing it to one weight class which is the exact opposite of what pound for pound means.