Quote Originally Posted by Beanflicker View Post
Quote Originally Posted by Rantcatrat View Post
Your point is that you look at visual clues from their in-ring dominance to determine who is the best, whereas I think that is only part of it. I think most of it is your experience, and the quality of the people you face. It's easy to look good against bad competition.

I have more faith in the fact that Ray Robinson fought professionally 200 times and defeated other Hall of Fame fighters such as LaMotta, Basilio, Fullmer, Turpin, Olson, Armstrong, Graziano, Gavilan. Guys who saw him fight and were great, Joe Louis, Ali, Leonard, trainers like the aforementioned Arcel, said he was the best of all-time. I'm not even arguing Robinson was perfect. I just think there are more grounds to say that he is the best, than Floyd, which is just a visual test against good fighters.
I still find it a bit hypocritical because you can't explain to me how a guys like Lamotta, Basilio, Fullmer, Turpin, Olson, Graziano (who by his own admission in his book Somebody Up There Likes me, admitted in no uncertain terms that he was a one-dimensional fighter who hardly trained, and relied mainly on his big right hand) are better than guys like Hatton, Mosley and Corrales. Like I said, Lamotta dropped decisions to nobodies all across the board. What did they specifically do better than Floyd's opponents? How were they more of a test to SRR than Corrales or Hatton was to Floyd?

I also think it's inconsistent that you set the criteria of "it doesn't matter how many wins you have, what matters is wins against great opposition", and then you use the fact that Robinson fought over 200 times as a reason why he's the best. How many of Robinson's 173 wins were against great opponents?

Also, I think comparing how many Hall of Fame fighters fought against is unfair, as with any Hall of Fame, it becomes harder to get in as time passes by and the "pioneers" and early trendsetters always get precedent, so the fact that a lot of Robinson's opponents ended up in the Hall (and if I may be so bold to suggest, I think a lot of them made it their simply on the merit of beating Ray Robinson) doesn't necessarily mean that they were a better quality opponent or a bigger threat to Robinson than Floyd's opponents were to him.

As far as old timers saying he was the best... you have to allow for a certain level of bias. Remember, to a lot of these guys, Ray Robinson was their childhood hero and they're going to have a certain nostalgic, "rose colored glasses" childhood view of the guy. Also, we all know how old people love to brag about "back in the day." I've heard old timers talk about how garbage the Klitschko bros were and how they'd be bums if they fought in any other generation, which is absolutely retarded.
The reason why I think that guys like Ceferino Garcia and Fritzie Zivic are better than Hatton and Corrales is because of the amount of guys they had to get through to get the top, the number of times they fought different styles, the number of great trainers and gyms that were all over the place where they could learn their trade.

My opinion is that Floyd could have fought well across the generations of boxing. Same with the Klitschko's or Pacquiao. Same with a handful of other fighters now. But, I'm nowhere near convinced that any of them would be the best of all-time.

Thus, We can agree to disagree @Beanflicker. I appreciate the good dialogue.

Let's both hope we get to see Floyd fight Martinez, Trout, Lara etc., so there is even more evidence of his greatness. Do you know that on the Ring Magazine website, the fight people most want to see after Marquez-Pacquiao V, is Floyd-Sergio? Let's both hope it happens.