Why Floyd will never be the greatest boxer of all time...

[Mattyp151]

Sorry, to clarify the point (which I admit I didn't make clearly at all, as 50% was still in my head and not written down).

What I meant was, boxers active TODAY with the potential to BE great.

As far as I'm concerned there's only a handful. Take any division above supermiddle. They're full of fighters who might be good to watch now, but will never go on any "all-time" lists.

Wlad could unify right now and still wouldn't get within spitting distance of any all time top 10 heavies poll.

But Floyd, Blow and Barrera have the potential to be genuine greats. In fact, I think The Amigo is.

Joe will never be a great. If Johnson beats Woods, he's going to fight yet another come forward and fire type fighter. Nothing out of the ordinary, he's beaten that same fight umpteen times. He needs to prove he's great by beating Kessler more than anyone else out there right now.

[Lights0ut]

Look at who is left in front of Floyd...

That wasn't your argument Anorak, but I congratulate you on attempting to shift the goal pasts after you put your foot in your mouth. What you said was:

Even if the guy beats everyone put in front of him now, the level of competition will never be good enough at this stage in his career to cement his legacy against history.

I know there are a lot of younger posters here and some boxrec followers who get overexcited when they see a live talent, but please... don't lose respect for history.

So beating DLH, Mosley, Margarito, Hatton or Cotto, and say Winky Wright aren't enough?

Please....you're just another old timer who thinks no one can live up to his fighter's greatness. If you wanted to say it would be hard for Floyd to become a GOAT due to his age, and most recent competition that would be a reasonable argument, but that isn't what you said. Complete with a black and white picture of the old time greats you said NOTHING Floyd could do could ever put him in the company of those greats. That's plain bull****.

[Tha Greatest]

WTF are people saying?

"If he beat DeLaHoya, Mosley, Paul Williams and Cotto."

That's bull ****ing ****.
DeLaHoya turned pro 14 years ago and is way past his best.
Mosley was always overrated and garbage at 147-154
Cotto is GREEN and a ok fighter, but not one to beat that will make you a legend.
Paul Williams...I honestly had no ****ing clue who he was till like 3 months ago, and he hasn't fought anyone special...

Leonard beat Thomas Hearns, Duran, Benitez, and Hagler. How the **** will Floyd be better than Sugar Ray Leonard? Get the **** out of here with that ****.


If he can beat Winky Wright, which he WILL NOT....then sure, put him in with Robinson and Pepp.

[Guest]

Joe will never be a great. If Johnson beats Woods, he's going to fight yet another come forward and fire type fighter. Nothing out of the ordinary, he's beaten that same fight umpteen times. He needs to prove he's great by beating Kessler more than anyone else out there right now.

You say that he will never be great, but he can be great by fighting Kessler. These statements seem to contradict each other.

Surely if he has six or seven fights against top opposition he can be a "paper" great, like Hopkins is?

[Mattyp151]

You say that he will never be great, but he can be great by fighting Kessler. These statements seem to contradict each other.

Surely if he has six or seven fights against top opposition he can be a "paper" great, like Hopkins is?

Joe will never fight Kessler. I hope that fights comes off, but when a guy who would be your ticket to unifying a division comes through, and he's 4th on your list to fight....c'mon. Joe is more worried about a superfight with a big name, no matter where they are in their career. When he claimed Clinton Woods would be a big fight, I lost my ****. Guy got made a ***** by Roy Jones quite a while ago.

[fluent2332]

LOL. What a joke. Old time fans never want to credit anyone or anything modern, no modern fighter could ever live up to their boyhood idols. Well guess what, OUR FIGHTERS ARE JUST AS GOOD.

I'll put a prime Roy, prime Pernell, prime Floyd, prime Tyson, prime Toney, up against any of your prime fighters, and like my chances. Your fighters are not better than ours, you just built them up a lot better than we did. I've seen plenty of tapes of Ali, and seen him go to war with BUMS -- I respect him and think he's the greatest, but a prime Tyson would give him hell regardless of what you fantasize about...I saw Ali lose twice to Ken Norton ( in my view) and Norton fought like an awkward doofus, I saw a club fighter Chuck Wepner take Ali 15 rounds and be virtually unfazed by his power. The difference between me and the old fight fans is that I know that doesn’t take away from Ali, but if a modern fighter has problem in a fight and doesn’t dominate completely, then it’s “XYZ fighter is so much better, he would have destroyed this guy”.

I have no ill towards the old fighters because I can see their greatness, but the same can't be said about older fight fans towards modern fighters. Older fight fans are disrespectful, arrogant, and degrading towards modern fighters and fans and I'm sick of it.

If Floyd can beat DLH, Mosley, Margarito, Cotto, Hatton, he'll be legitimately one of the greatest of all time....so stop the bull****, and stop detracting from things Floyd hasn't even done yet.

exactly. old fighters tend to get dramatized like they came out of a fairy tale

[Mattyp151]

Roy Jones from when he was 168 beats any fighter from 160-175, no doubt in my mind. The guy was the pinnacle of boxing, but he only stayed there for 6 fights.

[monkeyboy]

I have a question for you Anorak. Do you give any weight to the popularity of a fighter in your evaluation of a fighter? Bear in mind that popularity is usually based on the factors that are often discussed when referring to ATG fighters.
On one hand you have Duran, Ali, Leonard, Dempsey etc who are greats due to their opposition faced and methods of victory OR defeat. They were also HUGELY popular. Does their popularity factor into their place in History or are we purely talking cold assessment of their fights and boxing and physical abilities?
How many unpopular ATGs are there? My knowledge of boxing is far from encyclopedic but the only one I can think of who might be close to qualifying is Jack Johnson.
The relevence of this question pertains to Mayweather's popularity or lack of with the general populace. In this sense DLH with his gutsy yet flawed ring record but overwhelming notoriety is closer to qualifying than Floyd.
I think we can easily say that DLH has challenged himself far more than Floyd to this point. Does this matter? Sadly I think that until Floyd has a ring WAR with someone he will never be in the upper echelons of the history books. The Greats all pushed themselves to the brink and won despite overwhelming odds. Floyd has not done so so far.

[Mattyp151]

I have a question for you Anorak. Do you give any weight to the popularity of a fighter in your evaluation of a fighter? Bear in mind that popularity is usually based on the factors that are often discussed when referring to ATG fighters.
On one hand you have Duran, Ali, Leonard, Dempsey etc who are greats due to their opposition faced and methods of victory OR defeat. They were also HUGELY popular. Does their popularity factor into their place in History or are we purely talking cold assessment of their fights and boxing and physical abilities?
How many unpopular ATGs are there? My knowledge of boxing is far from encyclopedic but the only one I can think of who might be close to qualifying is Jack Johnson.
The relevence of this question pertains to Mayweather's popularity or lack of with the general populace. In this sense DLH with his gutsy yet flawed ring record but overwhelming notoriety is closer to qualifying than Floyd.
I think we can easily say that DLH has challenged himself far more than Floyd to this point. Does this matter? Sadly I think that until Floyd has a ring WAR with someone he will never be in the upper echelons of the history books. The Greats all pushed themselves to the brink and won despite overwhelming odds. Floyd has not done so so far.

Honest question, did you see Castillo I?

[Guest]

Roy Jones from when he was 168 beats any fighter from 160-175, no doubt in my mind. The guy was the pinnacle of boxing, but he only stayed there for 6 fights.

Let's not bring RJJ into this. Never have so many "well, he didn't fight anyone, but if he HAD..." arguments been built around one man.