Quote Originally Posted by X View Post
Quote Originally Posted by p4pking View Post
Roy Jones vs Richard Hall has to be the best case of this, perhaps in the history of boxing.
Oh, come on P4P ...... the history of boxing didn't start in 1990 !!!

Prior to the 1950's, it was commonplace for a superior fighter to carry his opponent for a few rounds, or even the whole fight. The Kefauver enquiries in the 1950's was dedicated to exactly this principle.

Fighters like Robinson, Walcott, Cerdan etc routinely carried their opponents ..... more often than not, it was so that the paying crowds could see them putting on a show and not zapping the guy out in a couple of rounds.

Before then, it was not unheard of for fighters to have a clause inserted in their fight contract that their pay was less if the fight lasted a short period of time. The great Sam langford made a career of carrying fighters not fit to lace up his gloves.

For me, without any doubt, the fighter who toyed with his opponents (whilst under the highest personal pressure) with the sole purpose of prolonging their punishment and making sure there was no doubt amongst a single fan as to who was the better fighter....... was a certain Jack Johnson.
Alright, I was exxagerating then, if you like... Although I doubt you have in fact seen many of these performances from the days which you reference. For me it doesn't mean a whole lot to have heard that so and so carried all of these opponents, you have no idea to what extent it was really true in any given fight unless you have seen the whole thing.

If you in fact watch the fight I brought up, it's perfectly clear that Roy could have KO'ed him EASILY in the first round, without getting hit once. The next ten are just a showcase where Jones does absolutely whatever he wants and doesn't really face anything in return. There really isn't a lot of room to improve on that as far as carrying an opponent goes, without it becoming a complete farce.

Furthermore, as you admit in those days great fighters would often carry opponents in order to give the paying crowd their moneys worth. This is not to say that they were in fact COMPLETELY dominant in every second of the fight, only that they were never at risk of losing, and were willing to extend the action in order to ensure they were brought back.

I am sure you are right upon thinking about it, but that is also only in part due to horrible matchmaking and no television coverage in those days, people would actually be content to sit and watch a great fighter play with some joker who shouldn't be there.

As far as a remotely legitimate matchup goes in the modern era, I will stand by my example.