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What do you think makes a fighter an ATG? Skills?
IMO, the #1 criteria for an ATG is resume. Anybody can look good against bums, but it takes a great fighter to beat top competition. Just as important as WHO you've fought, is WHEN you fought them. A win over a great fighter is less impressive if said fighter was past his prime. The sign of a TRULY great fighter is one who not only consistently beats top opponents, but dominates them.
There is no such thing. It's perception via opinion. Everything is hypothetical. There is no tangible criteria making an ATG in your mind only.Quote:
Originally Posted by VG_Addict
Disagree respectfully, all time greats can be found in any sport. Ted Williams, all time great baseball player, OJ Simpson, all time great American football player, some European, all time great soccer player.Quote:
Originally Posted by fan johnnyThere is no such thing. It's perception via opinion. Everything is hypothetical. There is no tangible criteria making an ATG in your mind only.Quote:
Originally Posted by VG_Addict
It's a combination of ability and resume. Legendary names who will always be remembered and brought up by boxing fans decades after they're gone.
To be an ATG a fighter MUST take on ALL legitimate contenders. No ducking & diving
A fighter can have all the natural God Given boxing talent in the world , but that alone will not5 make him an ATG. To be the best he's got to fight the best. To have a bogus 0 & claim to be TBE isn't enough. Its time to man up or get the heck out of boxing & let the REAL ATG's fight it out
Beating the best in your era and being lucky enough to get a couple of them while they're in thier prime, i.e., no question marks.
Edit: So ATG is mostly an illusion imho. You could easily add an * to almost anyone's record.
Longevity helps too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Beanflicker
You say that BUT there are plenty of examples of GREAT fighters having big trouble with guys who were supposed to be pushovers. If you get the right tomato can, yeah you can look like a million bucks, but if you get a dog with some fight in him he'll work you hard and make you look bad.Quote:
Originally Posted by VG_Addict
IMO, the step to making a prospect into a great fighter is to put him in against guys with all kinds of styles, who will give him different looks.
Floyd fought a southpaw in only his 2nd professional fight.
Yup. People constantly shit on guys like Floyd and Wlad and try to claim they aren't ATGs, but those guys have fought and consistently beat just about every style and body type you can think of.Quote:
Originally Posted by VG_Addict
Wlad has fought more southpaws in title fights than anyone else I can think of. It wasn't until 1966 when Ali fought Karl Mildenberger, that a southpaw actually fought for the heavyweight title....Wlad has fought: Tony Thompson x 2, Chris Byrd x 2, Corrie Sanders, Ruslan Chagaev, Sultan Ibragimov, and Francisco Pianetta....that's a lot of southpaws for a heavyweight to fight.
But people will put a guy like Gene Tunney or Jack Dempsey over Wlad, guys who never had to fight southpaws and ducked all black challengers :rolleyes:
Gene Tunney was a great fighter, great light heavyweight. Jack Dempsey was THE superstar of his era....these are things we can't argue with, but you're right they didn't fight all of the best fighters out there, same as Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb didn't hit against Black Pitchers (not that it would have mattered all that much just due to talent)...it raises doubts but not enough to really dismiss their greatness.Quote:
Originally Posted by Beanflicker
But to that end, Wlad has done an excellent job as Champion and is certainly and All-Time Great, I just think it's a shame that pussy Nicolay Valuev never fought Wlad or Vitali, and never really even pressed to.
Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb would have been second rate if they had to play against blacks and so would Dempsey and Tunney.
Wow, we're in sync this week. I was going to say to some degree fighting top ranked fighters may not matter if they all have a style that the ATG in question has dominated.Quote:
Originally Posted by El KabongYou say that BUT there are plenty of examples of GREAT fighters having big trouble with guys who were supposed to be pushovers. If you get the right tomato can, yeah you can look like a million bucks, but if you get a dog with some fight in him he'll work you hard and make you look bad.Quote:
Originally Posted by VG_Addict
The 1970's HW upset thread bares witness to your [dog with some fight in him]- claim all day.
The reason I disagree is that Boxing has a clear cut guy that is THE MAN and baseball being a team sport is less about the individual so it wouldn't have been Satchel Paige vs Babe Ruth 3 outs an inning for 9 innings....both could excel and do fine. In boxing you have Jack Dempsey, his manager supposedly turned down a fight vs Harry Wills or Sam Langford well after their primes, because they wanted a tune up fight not a tooth and nail battle.Quote:
Originally Posted by Beanflicker
Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb would ALWAYS be Hall of Famers regardless of who they played against, just look at the numbers. Sure there was Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, James 'Cool Papa' Bell and they were greats themselves but the Negro Leagues were by no means deeper with talent than the MLB especially with pitchers. Comparing and contrasting these guys and debating on how they would do is all speculation but I know and am 100% certain that the big stars of that baseball era would have still been big stars regardless of Blacks or Hispanics or Asians being on their teams....big shout out to Worldwide HR record holder Sadaharu Oh who had 868 homeruns for the Yomiuri Giants albeit in a league that was certainly lower caliber than the MLB in his era 1959-1980.
But yeah black boxers back in the day there were a lot of them that could have been and should have been champions especially Willis and Langford
ATG must have consistantcy at the highest level, career defining fight(s) against equally good competition, have to show heart and courage from adversity and have fights that are events.
Fighting southpaws really shouldn't be a big deal any more because every other fighter is a southpaw. It used to be problematic because they were very rare and it isn't like it is impossible to do anyway. especially when modern southpaws throw nothing but straight left hands, and extra especially when you are 6'7" and can reach over the top of them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Beanflicker
dempsey fought black guys on the way up. Can you name the worthy black challengers during Tunney's HW title reign?
No one can because they weren't given a shot and stayed in obscurity.Quote:
Originally Posted by greynotsoold
All I know is that blacks are generally stronger and more athletic than whites (their testosterone levels are higher on average, it's science). So if you're not competing against black men, you're not fighting the best fighters you can. Gene Tunney never fought the best fighters he could have.
this may indeed be true. And if so then Rocky Marciano sure did fight the best black boxers that were out there at the timeQuote:
Originally Posted by BeanflickerNo one can because they weren't given a shot and stayed in obscurity.Quote:
Originally Posted by greynotsoold
All I know is that blacks are generally stronger and more athletic than whites (their testosterone levels are higher on average, it's science). So if you're not competing against black men, you're not fighting the best fighters you can. Gene Tunney never fought the best fighters he could have.
As a black man: I don't get downing Tunney for what was common in his day. The last time I checked Roy Jones, Bernard Hopkins and a few other blacks have lost to dare I say, white guys.
The economic conditions mean that the poorest people go into boxing Irish, Jews, Italians, Mexican and Blacks.
Skin colour does not make a great fighter.
Clear as water; it's a matter of statistical probability.Quote:
Originally Posted by Master
Yes and that's why the Rock is an ATG HW legend and a true warrior of the sport.Quote:
Originally Posted by brocktonblockbustthis may indeed be true. And if so then Rocky Marciano sure did fight the best black boxers that were out there at the timeQuote:
Originally Posted by BeanflickerNo one can because they weren't given a shot and stayed in obscurity.Quote:
Originally Posted by greynotsoold
All I know is that blacks are generally stronger and more athletic than whites (their testosterone levels are higher on average, it's science). So if you're not competing against black men, you're not fighting the best fighters you can. Gene Tunney never fought the best fighters he could have.
No but it does mean (on average) a higher quality of athlete.Quote:
Originally Posted by Master
Black people have largely dominated the sport of boxing (especially the HW division) since they were given the opportunities they deserved. Why would anyone think the Dempsey/Tunney era would be any different?
To me it's a tainted era and I don't put much stock into those guys. People like to talk about how "protected" guys are today and how they don't take the fights they should. ;D
I undertand it in theory, but technically speaking, then a guy like Benny Leonard could he have been overated since he didnt fight many Mexicans- who dominate the smaller weight classes?
For sure, and he probably is overrated.Quote:
Originally Posted by SlimTrae
When you become a boxing fan who decides to go back and learn about boxing's yesteryears, we all get the same lines fed to us. Stories about how great this guy and that guy was, how much tougher everyone was, how everybody fought for the love of boxing and fought all the best opposition, ect ect. There's a lot of truth in there I'm sure, but there's also a lot of bullshit. The problem is most people are scared shitless in actually going against the grain, researching and actually forming their own opinions. And frankly, most don't want to, because their heads are full of dreamy nostalgic visions of a "better time", and to suggest that a guy might not have been all he was cracked up to be is like pissing on the bible or the quran.
If you want to talk specifically about the analogy you made though, boxing was a relatively new art in Mexico at the time of Benny Leonard brought over from Cuba, and Mexico wasn't producing the kind of fighters like obviously it became known for later on.
In the days of Gene Tunney and Dempsey, there were a ton of black boxers who were (generally) athletically superior, filled with anger from the way they had been and continued to be treated by white society, and a desire to break out of their impoverished beginnings.
Dempsey did fight Black fighters whom he beat and he was close to defending his title against the leading Black fighter.Quote:
Originally Posted by Beanflicker
Technically I understand as I named a fighter who started much earlier than the Mexicans I would have referenced like Jose Flores aka Battling Shaw in the late 1920's.Quote:
Originally Posted by Beanflicker
I just try to keep it in perspective that every sport had to be integrated, so do we draw the line or hold all white athletes accountable if they didn't face an athlete who race/ethnicity rules today?
As I'm sure; before the word pugilism made it to Mexico, there was more than a fare share of fist fights occurring in Tijuana & then some.;D
it's not like when American football or baseball made it there- that's a lot of stuff to learn. But a boxing match skill wise in the 1910s/1920's was basically a fistfight with mittens on IMO.
I guess Gorgeous George then would have gotten his buttocks kicked had their been a Dwayne the Rock Johnson to wrestle? Can you smell...what the Rock is cookin? :rolleyes:
You can't have an ATG without an elite level of competition. Not just after having built a career off of beating bums. This progression needs to begin early on. You do not coddle a fighter for the first 30-40 fights of his career and then start crowing about his being an ATG (or anything else, for that matter). The best, most respected fighters, are those who begin fighting good competition early on, many times even by their 10th fight.