Who is the greatest of all time? P4P? Robinson, Leonard, Mayweather or RJJ?

[AlexKid]

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[Rusty Tromboni]

Sooooo…. What's 'eye-test' to you Rusty?

Believe it or not, it's using your EYES two view available footage of a fighter and his opponents to make an evaluation of his ability.

Unbelievable right!?

I hope you were sitting down for that.

After you give yourself a few minutes to recover, consider the following:

For example, Lomachenko has exceptional footwork, technique, speed, punch variety, stamina. It's hard to find anyone that sharp.

As I've said countless times. This carries over from coaching Wrestling and MMA. You watch lots of tape. You don't really worry what a guy's ranked when your kid is going up against him. You need to know what he does, how he does, and how you're going to beat him.

Boxers are living breathing humans. Not comic book characters, or legends of gGreek mythology.

Watch Duran vs. Buchanan, Duran vs. Marcel, Duran vs. Buchanan, Duran vs. Leonard, Duran vs. Palomino... then try to tell me you think someone else is better because that's what some guy trying to sell a book said.

[Rusty Tromboni]

My current list


1. Srl
2. Hagler
3. Pernell
4. RJ
5. Duran
6. Hitman
7. Chavez
8. Manny
9. Hopkins
10. Floyd

Why Mayweather and not Billy Graham?

Why Hagler and Hopkins, but no Walker, Monzon, Steele or Greb?

I say Greb here. Even though theres no film of him, his record is simply unparalleled in the history of the sport, nobody fought such tough competition outside their weight class so often over such a long time and won as consistently as greb. He was I think a freak of nature and clearly a man born to fight.

Well said.

No one has even accepted my challenge to name fighters who'd beat Walker and Loughran. Tragically, there's very little of them, too. But there's enough that we can say they're great. Better than almost anyone else has ever been at equal weight.

Look at Tunney from the Dempsey fights. which fighter 200 pounds or below would you pick to beat him (not named prime Dempsey)? He couldn't best Greb at Light Heavyweight.

I don't need to see it, to know beating those men took someone with otherwordly skill.

[travestyny]

No one has even accepted my challenge to name fighters who'd beat Walker and Loughran. Tragically, there's very little of them, too. But there's enough that we can say they're great. Better than almost anyone else has ever been at equal weight.

Look at Tunney from the Dempsey fights. which fighter 200 pounds or below would you pick to beat him (not named prime Dempsey)? He couldn't best Greb at Light Heavyweight.

I don't need to see it, to know beating those men took someone with otherwordly skill.

So let me try to understand this.

You have been ranting and raving about SRR being some kind of weight bully. Talking about how he always beats up smaller men. Which obviously is bullshlt, when I've already pointed out to you that even Harry Greb outweighed his opponents a higher percentage of the time than SRR did.

But you keep pulling out these specific opponents of Greb. Walker, Laughran, and Tunney.

Now here's where it gets funny.

Mickey "The Toy Bulldog" Walker was a welterweight moving up to challenge Greb. He weighed 152lbs to Greb's 159 according to boxrec. And here is from a paper the morning of the fight.

Greb plans to take a walk in the morning and then rest until weighing-in time at 2 o'clock. It is not at all unlikely that he will scale in officially even lighter than he did today, probably at 157 or 157 1/2 pounds, and then build up to about 163 or 164 at ring time. Walker is expected to weigh about 153 pounds both at 2 o'clock and at ring time.

http://www.harrygreb.com/harrygrebwalkerpage.html

Hmmmmm. Notice who is bigger.



Then there is Loughran. They fought 6 times? What were their respective weights?

Greb 168 Loughran 168
Greb 168 Loughran 168.5
Greb 168 Loughran 166
Greb 166 Loughran 166
Greb 168.25 Loughran 165
Greb 167 Loughran 163.5

Looks to me like Greb was mostly the bigger guy.


Then you talk about Tunney and say we should look at him vs. Dempsey.

Greb did well against 175 Tunney, but you're lying that Tunney couldn't beat Greb at light heavy. He did just that. Check out their fight on 12/10/1923 when Greb was 171.5 and Tunney was 175.

At 181, Tunney apparently gave Greb a beating. So why the hell should we look at 190lb Tunney?????

So not only were you telling lies about SRR, you are hypocritically talking up fights where Greb was outweighing his opponents, you are telling lies that Greb didn't take a loss to Tunney at light heavy, and you are saying that your eye test is satisfied by watching much bigger versions of some of these fighters like a 190lb Tunney, when you know a 180lb Tunney gave Greb....what was the quotation...."As thorough of a beating as he has ever received."


Yea, ok. Now we further see that not only are you a flat out liar, but your bullshlt makes no sense.

[djtmal]

Why Mayweather and not Billy Graham?

Why Hagler and Hopkins, but no Walker, Monzon, Steele or Greb?




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I stick to who I watched coming up.

[Anthony342]

Some great stuff to talk about. Let me respond in the same sequence you use.

Regarding Slappsi: You don't have to be able to prove a negative, its always going to be opinion in this matter, but its fair to ask about the nature of the opinion as you are asking.

From Mendoza, to Chyrsantium Joe, who mentored Johnson, all the way up to Max B (and beyond)... culturally many Jewish fighters often had a deep and profound respect for technique, and the ability to be effective with less violence. I can only say this particular opinion comes from my Dad's side of the family. My dad who was Jewish, boxed in the Marines second world war, loved boxing, and despised the more violent aspects of the sport. He liked a contest where skill and technique won the match, and not brute force.

I think guys like Rosenbloom developed a style where they could win the sport and both guys could go home with the same Iq they came into the ring with. This is why I believe that none of these guys would just take that steriod induced power and run with it... Max Bauer could have done so in my opinion BTW and been a lot better historically. But this is an opinion, nothing more.


How would steriods make Ted Williams more explosive? Williams had super human reflexes, and he had incredibly strong wrists, from his grandfather having him swing around a saber. Certainly if we take a guy who is slower and weaker on the draw, and we give him a way to improve those qualities, like Miguyer and Bonds, we can see how that would work. But at a certain point there are diminishting returns... The hitting ability of Williams and Carew was in the stroke, the timing, reflexes, the wrists, it was in the swing... Muscles don't a hit ball farther unless a lot of other things are in place.

I agree with you that to a degree there is chemical help, but when Bonds, for example, was "helped" he was not a spectacular hitter by any means. Surely if you take an average individual and give them muscle and speed, you can help them immeasurably, but this does not necessarily translate when discussing the best, put another way: at some point there are diminishing returns on building strength and applying it to fine motor coordination. A good analogy would be, Horsepower is great, but Torque is the real measure of performance. You can have all the horses in the world under the hood! But power is where the rubber meets the road...

Montana is a great example. Great QB for sure. You know who was rumored to have the strongest arm? Not Dan Pastorini...a guy by the name of Jeff George, ever heard of him? Not many have because it does not matter really. It may have made Montana greater, but I wonder... Montana's greatness was never challenged because his throws were soft. Also, 'explosiveness" is more a quality, something you train into technique than muscle function. So when it comes to fighters, i do not see a definite advantage to trying to get bigger...You get explosive through how you train technique.

On the other hand being bigger, stronger, faster, became a necessity in football I believe we have a case where steriods revolutionized the sport. I agree on that point. BUT much more important is your next point about the average, or lack thereof, the average steriod user. I agree with you 100% on this point. It is a point I often try to make on the boards here. Steriod use at the biological level becomes interwined with nutrition, and other alterations we make to our intake to create superior outtake.

Victor Comte was a nutritionalist who bought a very sophisticated metabolic spectrometer. He went into micro nutrition, which is how he worked with the best athletes as a client base. At a certain level, what we call "steriods" are part of that chemical make up in our blood. I know this because one of my son's Godfathers knows Comte as a friend, and told me all about him.

So when we talk about peds, your point is a big problem: there are many outcomes, substances and uses... eventually when we go into this rabbit hole we find that part of peak nutritional and physical training involves messengers in the blood that ask the body to grow stronger. Great point!

An example of the problem? well you can increase bone density by microfracturing the bones...I know because it happened with me, my hands, legs, from karate, fractures happened...Literally when you heal after a rebreak the body says "uhoh we need to grow more bone per the volume so this does not happen!" Well...A steriod increasing bone and muscle density basically does the same thing, it tells the body "grow this area thicker" without the trauma associated with the process. So is one method "good" or "bad" because of how it is accomplished? Again, great point...

MMA is a new thing still, I don't know if we can really look at performance with any controls. Not that long ago guys were looking at what arts to bring in, then they looked at what happens during a match (great idea) to decide what to train in. if we look at the orignal UFC as a control vis a vis steriod use... there is just too deep a chasm. It turns out that when training for the ring, professional fighters have an advantage over those who train in a variety of styles, with a variety of skill levels, and a variety of individuals, etc... WHO KNEW! (sarcasm alert lol).

I brought up Ockham because there are a lot of things that could be responsible for JOnes versus Tarver and the result where JOnes was KO'ed. Nice post enjoyed responding to it. I think we are in agreement about a very integral point in this whole debate: Steriods are part of a much larger issue. When people look carefully there is a lot more to consider than just a cure all.

Good points and that's why it's more believed now that the banning of amphetamines, which used to be placed in coffee pitchers, contributed much more to the drop in home runs and batting averages, than the banning of steroids in baseball. Because of the increased reflexes and reaction time. Retired players have said that there used to be 2 separate pitchers in their clubhouses, one normal and one drugged.

And your son has a Godfather? Has he ever made anyone an offer they couldn't refuse? Being Italian on my father's side, I know that's a very sacred bond among the Italian people.

[Anthony342]

In boxing Robinson was the progenator of the concept of the best P4P, unless I am misinformed. the point is that its not a lie, it is based on what he was able to do in the ring. Fighting men, trainers, etc gave Ray Robinson the accolodes...the truth is many people have said Robinson did not even like to fight, and prefered to dance.

There is good reasons for considering Robinson a fighter that set a new standard. Now...with that said there are valid points about other fighters who some might call better. But its not hyperbole talking about Ray Robinson as the greatest, that I can see. For you to point out that fighters like Duran might be better, is fair enough but there is plenty of tape on Robinson and reasons on that tape to consider him great. There is also a whole bunch of tape missing.

I can see picking other fighters as greater, but there are reasons why art critics talk about Picasso, Cezanne... and there are reasons why Noma has 4 stars michelin... Or for that matter when the French Haute cuisine chefs patronized Alice Waters, there are reasons why she won that one... When we went to her place Chez Panise' they had the nerve to literally serve, for dessert, a type of tangerine, that was not even peeled! It was in a bowl with some of the leaves still on it, and I am thinking "really?" Well you peel the thing and bite in and it is the absolute sweetest, most golden orange, tangerine piece! lol. It may look like when mom sent you to school with a piece of fruit, but it sure does not taste like that!

Although I remember reading links posted here in the history section showing the term pound for pound being used in the days before Robinson, but it seems that the term became famous or maybe infamous when it was used to describe Sugar Ray Robinson. Anyone else remember this? Some historians here back me up on this?

[them_apples]

Idon't know of anyone who considers 160 Roy's best. Most of us say 168, 175, then 160. But even then, he entered the ring much larger than what he weighed on the scales. Even for the Ruiz fight, he entered the ring at 200 pounds - 10 pounds over weigh-in.

That's clearly not a natural Middleweight. Let's not forget, either, that most of Roy's success came from a needle in the ass.

My one brother is a pretty well known hitting coach, I asked him if he would consider guys like Bonds and Maguire great hitters, and he said aboslutely not. The technique and accuracy were there, but steroids helped those guys soooo much. It's impossible to really evaluate their natural skills. Then he rattled off about a whole bunch of notable batters from decades before, but who didn't have the numbers of a Bonds, but who look just as good on film. Maybe it's genetic?

if 168 didn't exist then 160 would be Roys natural weight. Not 175. His speed won him all his fights above 160. any good puncher at 175 if they caught him would have layed him out bad.

Roy was on steroids and a heavy bulking regiment when he fought at heavy. It was his goal to break 200.

So if he's a 160 lb fighter, his walk-around is gonna be in the low 170's if he's a professional. He could easily bulk to 200 and he did. Anyone could if they were a natural 170.

Roy actually started at 154 If I remember.

[billeau2]

Good points and that's why it's more believed now that the banning of amphetamines, which used to be placed in coffee pitchers, contributed much more to the drop in home runs and batting averages, than the banning of steroids in baseball. Because of the increased reflexes and reaction time. Retired players have said that there used to be 2 separate pitchers in their clubhouses, one normal and one drugged.

And your son has a Godfather? Has he ever made anyone an offer they couldn't refuse? Being Italian on my father's side, I know that's a very sacred bond among the Italian people.

My sons had Godfathers and a Godmother... my wife's doing lol.

Great points! There have always been performance enhancers around! How about the obsene amounts of Nicotine in chaws?

[Rusty Tromboni]

And the other way around. Plenty of white fighters historically didn't even fight black fighters for various reasons Some fighters didn't for personal reasons and some others didn't because of public hostility.

I'm sure, in your mind, there's a point to this very nebulous and non-specific statement. Do you care to further clarify exactly what it meant, why it matters, and how it applies to my comment?