Quote Originally Posted by Beanflicker View Post
Quote Originally Posted by greynotsoold View Post
And you would be WAY out on a limb re: Robinson's record.
Ok well let's make a list of his toughest opponents. I'll just put the guys I know, you can add some if you feel I missed somebody or if I wrongly included someone.

Jake Lamotta
Henry Armstong
Kid Galivan
Bobo Olsen
Randy Turpin
Rocky Graziano
Joey Maxim
Carmen Basilio
Gene Fulmer

There's 9 guys I know are considered great, or at least solid fighters. It's possible I skipped over a name, but his other opponents I know nothing about.

I'll give him credit for 3 Lamotta fights (that's 12), two Gene Fulmer fights (that's 13), two Turpin's fights (14) and two Basilio fights (15). So by my calculations (which could change), I have Robinson fighting 15 legit fights out of 200 total. That's 7.5% of his fights.

That's based on how people judge records now. For instance, I only credited 3 Lamotta fights because nobody would get credit for beating the same guy 5 full times. If Floyd fought and beat Cotto another 4 times, would people care?
Langford fought Wills about 20 times not because he wanted to but because he had to. Burley and the rest of Murderers row fought each other about 10 times each. Not because they wanted to but because they had to. They fought to survive. It does not take away how good they were. Nobody was making 40 million a fight and taking 2 years off in between. Robinson fought these guys more then once because they remained at the top of the food chain and kept getting in line.There was no other belt to be had. I do think tbh that Robinson overlooked the Murderers Row and only fought Wade after he had been retired for two years. I'm sure that money which runs the show today once Robinson was at the top had something to do with it. Of course there are exceptions like two guys not being able to get their ducks in a row for 50 million a piece while the world blames just about everybody else. Fighting people multiple times today wont wash because we live in an instant gratification society. Boxing in many ways resembles a drive through fast food joint. And people change those because somebody forgot to put ketchup in the bag. You lose once today and a certain segment of the boxing viewership
throws you to the wolves. Considering the sport, that in and of itself is disturbing. People lost more in past eras because they fought once every two weeks with many receiving the call the night before. That shit was common place. Its why guys that go 128-1-2 with 84 knockouts got noticed. Of course the 85 and 0 as an amateur with over 40 first round knockouts didn't hurt.

Robinson fought 18 world champions and beat 12 hall of famers in an era of 1 champion per division not 10.