Do they deserve to be in the Hall or not?

[p4pking]

How the hell can someone even suggest tarver should be a HOFer??

He beat a 35 year old RJJ and a 36 year old glen johnson, had he of beaten them to at the turn of the decade sure this could be an interesting debate...but he didnt and it isnt.

I dont usually like to comment on potential world class boxers that have fought any lower than 126 as i dont pay attention those divisions..

Calderon looks to be a great little warrior from the few occasions ive seen of him, penalosa always reminded me of that guy who could of come to the party and made a hell of an impression but never quite managed it.

Hatton is 44-1 and his only defeat was by the single greatest p4p athlete of our generation.

If you suggest he shouldnt be a hall of famer you may as well suggest neither should manny pacquiao or marco antonio barrera!!

Pacquiao and Barrera have far higher quality wins than Hatton though, it's not just about who they lost to.

If the hall of fame was about out and out quality im sure you could find a perfectly good argument to suggest someone like ricardo mayorga should be in there.

But its a combination of many different factors. 44-1 is more than enough to argue for hall of fame status, add to that the fact he is still unbeaten and untested at 140, won a world title in a division he wasnt comfortable in and has wins over greats like kostya tszyu and JLC.

44-1 in itself means absolutely nothing. Tons of guys have gone almost undefeated past 50 fights and built up horribly padded records. The fact that he is "untested" at 140 is because the best fighters there long ago moved up to Welter. He basically failed to be succesful in doing so. I honestly have never heard more made of one jump in weight class than over Hatton, although obviously I wasn't there at the time in most cases. I don't think it gives him a complete out for the Collazo fight, as imo he clearly was a better WW against Mayweather who probably wouldn't have had so much trouble. I'm not really saying Hatton shouldn't go in the hall here, and tbo I didn't even read the article, but I'm just kind of playing devils advocate. What exactly makes Hatton a more worthy candidate than Tarver to the Hall? I just can't personally see it. Tarver beat Roy Jones Jr, who was past his best however had never been beaten and coming off winning the HW title(of course this worked against him but I'm just putting the win at the time in perspective), and still had enough to beat Tarver at his absolute best in a tough fight the first go. Then he split a couple tough fights with Glen Johnson who has more than proved his worth since, I thought Tarver actually won both of them. Lost to Hopkins, beat Clinton Woods. Before his big night he just had a bunch of aging names he'd beaten, Griffin, Harding, Johnson... Actually very similar to Hatton's career on paper or in form if you ask me. Makes me wonder how much that really has to do with it.

[ICB]

I think Hatton's record except for Tszyu, Castillo, is only decent. Not trying to be an ass here but im not sure if i would have him in the HOF just because of his two wins over past there prime fighters. And to even suggest that Hatton should be ranked higher than Barrera or Pacquiao is pure madness. But like others have said if Bazza can get in there why not Hatton ??