ATG lists - How close to Manny should JMM be ????

1. Will the fact that Manny got two gifts against JMM before going splat!! ....... matter???

2. Will Manny's superior record nullify JMM's superiority If it does.........??

3. How kindly will history remember JMM ???

Think JMM deserves to be close to Manny in the lists but my guess is history will be unkind to JMM........No one in years to come will factor in the moral victories and RECORDS will speak for themselves........JMM is a wonderrful fighter with a great record but like Hearns will be remembered for his defeats before his victories!! (who remembers Hearns v Leonard 2)....no doubt people will be saying he knocked out Bradley-beaten- and-waning -Manny!!

While we have the same wally on another site still claiming Mayweather is a coward and should be lower than Pac.....I believe that the lists will eventually have (when the dust settles) these guys in this kind of territory.........

Mayweather 10-15

Manny 20-30

JMM 50-60 and he deserves better...........

Pacquiao has the far superior record overall which will make a fair old difference irrespective of head to heads which rightly or wrongly he leads anyway. Barrera, Morales, Hatton, Cotto and Marquez will read a lot better than Barrera and Pacquiao in the eyes of many. Add in the unmatched weight hopping exploits then Pacquiao is good value for a loftier position.

Mayweather- Top 10ish
Pacquiao- Top 20ish
Marquez- Top 50

Pep tends to get the nod over Saddler despite being 1-3 against his greatest although if you ignore the statistics of their series you will see who was quite clearly the best boxer of the pair. Pep made Saddler look silly round after round over the 4 fights but was fouled to defeat so a slightly different situation but you get the point.

Interesting summation of the Pep v Saddler fights..

Might be under-selling Saddler there..

Despite losing 3 of the 4, Pep wins a ridiculous amount of rounds over his conqueror. Going off topic anyway Truss but there's so much more to things than a simple head to head, Barrera struggled mightily with Junior Jones twice and I can bet my house that no one would have them close to eachother in an ATG list.

No but JMM/SADDLER are much more celebrated boxers than Junior...

Hardly a true comparison

Imperial Ghosty wrote: Barrera struggled mightily with Junior Jones twice and I can bet my house that no one would have them close to each other in an ATG list.

Good point, good fights too

Why should that make a difference Truss?

Yes but JMM and SADDLER are alltime greats.....

You could say the same for

Turpin v Robbo
Forrest v Mosley..

Not really relevant in JMM's context.

It makes a difference because JMM has a great legacy without the Manny fights but I imagine however....It's down to how the " alltime compilers" weigh up those fights as to where he will be ultimately placed..

Junior doesn't have a legacy as such.....He was a difficult style for Barrera as was Turpin etc.....................

Whereas JMM more than being a difficult style could have a case to say he was the better fighter!! end of..

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Yes but JMM and SADDLER are alltime greats.....

You could say the same for

Turpin v Robbo
Forrest v Mosley..

Not really relevant in JMM's context.

Good point, good fights too

I would disagree slightly on Marquez there, I think Pacquiao has made him by and large, without him he's more in the Cotto category rather than the Morales/Barrera category.

Imperial Ghosty wrote:I would disagree slightly on Marquez there, I think Pacquiao has made him by and large, without him he's more in the Cotto category rather than the Morales/Barrera category.

You're on form tonight Ghosty

Think Marquez might rank as many spots as 30 below Pacquiao when they've both retired, although that would be too many for me. Pacquiao's run from 2006-2010 is one of the greatest weight-jumping series in boxing history, for me and entitles him to a higher ranking. By how much is tough to say. Marquez has shaken off the Norwood and John losses to a large extent, but the crushing nature of his loss to Mayweather is likely to count against him, however unfair that may seem. Think Marquez cracks the 40-50 barrier, with Pacquiao around the 20 mark(Floyd a fringe top 10 merchant).

Ghosty, I have to wag my finger at the dismissal of Saddler, who knocked Willie sparko in 4 the first time they fought, even before either had found their fouling range. Fights 3 and 4 were a six and two threes in the dirty stakes - Pep was no angel, as he admitted himself. Personally, I make Sandy the top man at feather -he only ever lost one title fight - to Pep - which is what really counts. Marquez may have had the hex over Manny, but not as conclusively as Saddler did over Pep.

Think by and large from what i've seen of their fights Pep looked the superior fighter, lost twice directly because of fouls when well ahead, big fan of Pep but Saddle isn't my kind of boxer.

Don't think you're too far off in your estimations, Truss. Mayweather between, say, eighth and fifteenth on just about everyone's list by the time he's done, Pacquiao at the low end of a top twenty-five, with Marquez maybe getting in to that top half century. On reflection, it'd be hard to argue with that, although there's always a chance that any of the three could add to their legacies before they're done or, alternatively, havesome ignominious moments which see them falling down such lists.

Not sure that any of the trio will fall down the lists too far now, Chris. The main body of work for each of them is completed, and I doubt that we'd penalise any of them too harshly for an end of career loss to a lesser fighter.

Hard to see any of them still boxing at the highest level after the end of 2014, I'd have thought, which means perhaps three fights maximum left. Whatever happens in those, it would need an ultra-severe critic to downgrade any of the three for a surprise defeat.

I'd agree with that in principle, captain, don't get me wrong. But I'm mindful of the case of Roy - had he retired after beating Ruiz or after reclaiming his old Light-Heavyweight title from Tarver, when he was, give or take, a similar age to what Manny and Floyd are now, I reckon he'd have been featuring in or on the cusp of most people's top ten at least.

Then came the fall from grace and, unfairly in my eyes, the fall down many people's all-time pound for pound list, too. I'm not sure if you bought Boxing News' recent '100 Greatest Boxers of All Time' edition, but they had Jones at number thirty-six (too low, for my liking); however, they heavily hinted that, had he called time on his career before the nightmares against Tarver (II), Johnson, Calzaghe etc, he'd have been in a seriously lofty position in their eyes, certainly a damn sight higher than he was.

When Jones beat Ruiz, some boxing scribes were pondering whether or not Jones might just have been the greatest since Robinson. Fast forward a few years, and some of that very group were questioning whether or not Jones was ever great at all.

I agree that the rewriting of history with Jones has gone much too far, Chris. I suppose it was the manner of Jones' three successive defeats, aged 35-36, which led people to forget everything that he had accomplished up to then.

It is, on the other hand, perfectly reasonable to be able to increase your standing through great deeds performed at an advanced age. We think of men like Moore, Jofre and Foreman, whose achievements in later life actually enhanced their credentials. Marquez is in that category as well. In Roy's case, the falling off was more or less absolute, which meant that he has had to rely on everything that he did up to age 34.

Again, I would stress that this should be sufficient for a very high overall grade. I make Ezzard Charles a top 5 all-time fighter, and his career went over a cliff in his early 30s. On the other hand, apart from maybe Greb, I don't think that there is a boxer in history with Ezz's CV in his 20s, so he is an extreme case. Like Jones, Tony Canzoneri's great deeds were done comparatively early in his career; Tony is acknowledged as a great fighter, but he's probably somewhere in the early 30s on an all-time list. I make Roy a bit higher than that - number 25 or so, perhaps?

The one fighter among the modern all-time legends who may fall into this trap of being taken for less than he is could be Pacquiao, if he suffers a string of bad losses. Because of his propensity to spend cash like a sailor in a brothel, he is the one I can see fighting far beyond his sell-by date. However, I do think it fair at this stage to place him marginally above Jones.

One other thought, slightly related to the original thread - how will Hopkins be perceived in the all-time standings when his race is finally run?

Good points, captain. I'd probably edge Jones marginally ahead of Manny but can see the argument for it being the other way round. Either way, they'd both be inside my top twenty-five as things stand right now, with Jones maybe making the top twenty by the skin of his teeth.

Hopkins doesn't quite get that high for me, but wouldn't be far behind the pair of them. It's virtually impossible after a top twenty or so to be totally happy with any list like this, because there are probably forty-odd names which you couldn't grumble against if you saw them in anyone's top twenty given how small the margins are between them, but I don't think I could find a way to leave Hopkins out of my top thirty.

Jones is probably in the absolute trough of his ratings at the moment now as he is a washed up wreck who wont pack it in and let us remember the business end of his career. But he could well bounce back up in the decade or two after he retires.

Take for example Charles who was mentioned as a similar fighter who went downhill rapidy. How long did it take for him to really rise up the all time great stakes? For much of his career he was beating really great fighters from middle – light heavy without a great deal of recognition to the common fan, and he never got a title shot at his best weight so I think he has always been underrated. Even now I still regularly see him outside the top 10 lists (sometimes top 20) and often he isn’t even rated top of the light heavyweight pile or even second.

I think in his own era, much of his best work went under the rader and when he did finaly get into the mainstream it was as a patchy, detached heavyweight rather than an outstanding light heavyweight. Its probably only decades after when people looked back and examined his record that they really began to appreciate his accomplishments.

With Jones it in some ways its the opposite case. I think his own generation really appreciate how phenemonal he was at his best but he doesn’t have the kind of elite wins Charles has so people in 50/60 years who look back on him may not be inclined to rank him so highly. But I would expect his position in historical ranking to change around a bit over the coming decades as they do with most fighters.

I should add, by the way, that I am looking at Donaire as someone who could trouble a top 20 by the time he is finished. Obviously, his story is a long way from being finally written, but if we take him as being roughly the equivalent of someone like Ward in today's market, then remember that he has been doing it at the highest level for five years across a number of weights, it is clear that we are watching a fighter of unusual merit. It would be nice to say the same of Ward eventually, but I fear that his susceptibility to injury, and consequent relative lack of activity, may mean that he will not quite fulfil all his undoubted potential.

Marquez is a fine fighter, worthy of a place in the top 50 at the moment, but there is an awful lot of competition out there for slots among that august company.

captain carrantuohil wrote:I should add, by the way, that I am looking at Donaire as someone who could trouble a top 20 by the time he is finished. Obviously, his story is a long way from being finally written, but if we take him as being roughly the equivalent of someone like Ward in today's market, then remember that he has been doing it at the highest level for five years across a number of weights, it is clear that we are watching a fighter of unusual merit. It would be nice to say the same of Ward eventually, but I fear that his susceptibility to injury, and consequent relative lack of activity, may mean that he will not quite fulfil all his undoubted potential.

Marquez is a fine fighter, worthy of a place in the top 50 at the moment, but there is an awful lot of competition out there for slots among that august company.

Donaire's ranking will depend on his promoter Bob Arum, who is stopping him from showing how great he is. He would spark Rigo and Mares, but I doubt they will happen.