Quote Originally Posted by powerpuncher View Post
Quote Originally Posted by Ron Swanson View Post
Quote Originally Posted by powerpuncher View Post
Most people are the same when it comes to ranking fighters. They look at the last few fights and see this unstoppable fighter that can't be beaten and forget about their struggles.

I remember when pac was having his impressive run, there were people asking if he were the best fighter ever. It was ridiculous, but at the time, he was looking really good. Now that everything has settled down, most people have understood that he is an ATG, but nowhere near the best ever.

This is the case with Loma and rigo. I remember watching rigo struggle earlier in his career and seeing him get hurt/knocked down. He looked good but not great. Then he beats donaire and a few other guys and people see him as this guy who literally shuts out every guy he has ever fought. That's just not true. He hasn't beaten enough good competition for me to say that he is the best boxer. I don't have enough evidence.

Loma is the same. He struggled with salido, and even struggled at times against Russell. I scored that fight 8-4 for Loma. Loma couldn't just make him quit like he did with Walters. It was still an impressive win, but he lost rounds still and showed vulnerabilities.

But as I said before, when someone has a few really impressive fights in a row, we tend to forget their struggles previously and act as if they shut out all of their opponents.

Therefore, kovalev and ward are the best on my list because they have both proven to be dominant for a long time and against a lot more opponents.

Wait, the little guys get marked down for struggling and marked down for losing rounds but Ward and Kovalev don't get marked down for struggling/losing rounds and for Wards inability to box with Kovalev and Kovalevs inability to infight? Kovalev was literally holding Wards head down and lifting one leg to block body shots. Not just once, I can show multiple pictures. That is crap, and completely wildly illegal, infighting. But no mark down for that clear missing skillset? Why are there different criteria?

My post may sound very argumentative, I'm not so good at expressing myself online. Often my tone is not exactly as it comes off in text.(I joke often and I'm sure people read it as very harsh) I'm really just asking because we've seen Ward struggle and lose riunds, we've seen Kovalev struggle and lose rounds.
Aside from the ward/kovalev fight, ward rarely ever lost rounds. He basically shut people out and if did lose a round, it was an early round where not much was happening. Kovalev rarely loses rounds either. The chilemba match was I think an anomaly but he basically destroys all of his opponents. Even an old Hopkins was a good fighter and kovalev beat him every single round. Because both ward and kovalev are so good, they made a close fight.

For example, if rigo and Loma fought each other to a draw, I can't say that they are both docked points in my mind because they lost rounds to an exceptional fight. If anything, it shows how good they both are.

Think of Floyd vs pac. Pac losing most rounds to Floyd doesn't show how bad pac is but how good Floyd is. So as in ward and kovalev, I think that fight showed how good they both were and not how bad either one is.

I think I answered your question.

Anyways, I see what you are saying with a pure who you think is better, but if I thought that Loma was the best p4p right now, I would say he is most likely a sure top 5 ever by the end of his career and I'm not willing to accept that at the moment.
I have to disagree with you, both Ward and Kovalev lost rounds and struggled at times against Miranda and Bika respectively against Chilemba and Pascal in their first fight. Both Ward and Kovalev got knocked down ( at least Rigo got KD by a powerfull P4P fighter) but all this doesn't really matters because struggling/losing rounds/getting KD is not a measurement stick for greatness; even Floyd struggled, lost rounds and got hurt a few times. The only things that matters IMO to establish the current p4p rankings are the skills proved in the latest few years and of course against whom.
The only significant fighter Ward has fought in the last 5 years was Kovalev and he got a very controversial decision , same argument works for Kovalev , on the the other side Loma and Rigo destroyed p4p fighters.