Bert Sugar's Top 10 greatest fighters !!

Hammersmith harrier wrote:Even without facing DM and Pacquiao respectively they still have had brilliant careers facing more quality than Louis did. Nobody else is judged on who they didn't face so I don't think it's fair to judge either of them on that.

88Chris05 wrote:Fair enough, Haz. Can agree to disagree with regards to Louis / Mayweather / Jones.

What about Louis compared to Ray Leonard, though? Seems that many of the old-hand pundits and writers tend to have Leonard outside their top ten these days. Suffice to say I'd disagree.

Hammersmith harrier wrote:Who else is judged on they didn't face then Haz, Robinson isn't, Leonard isn't, Hagler isn't, Hearns isn't.

azania wrote:If Conn at 170 could give Louis fits, what would RJJ do to him? It's not inconceivable to suggest that RJJ could have beaten Louis. After all he has lost to slower and smaller guys.

hazharrison wrote:

azania wrote:If Conn at 170 could give Louis fits, what would RJJ do to him? It's not inconceivable to suggest that RJJ could have beaten Louis. After all he has lost to slower and smaller guys.

Likewise -- if Tarver and Johnson could kayo Jones, Louis would punch holes in him.

hazharrison wrote:

azania wrote:If Conn at 170 could give Louis fits, what would RJJ do to him? It's not inconceivable to suggest that RJJ could have beaten Louis. After all he has lost to slower and smaller guys.

Likewise -- if Tarver and Johnson could kayo Jones, Louis would punch holes in him.

Hammersmith harrier wrote:Doesn't seem to harm any of them considering two of them are in many top ten lists. If Mayweather can't be in the top ten for not facing Pacquiao how can Demspey be for not facing Wills or Johnson for not facing Langford as champion?

azania wrote:

hazharrison wrote:

azania wrote:If Conn at 170 could give Louis fits, what would RJJ do to him? It's not inconceivable to suggest that RJJ could have beaten Louis. After all he has lost to slower and smaller guys.

Likewise -- if Tarver and Johnson could kayo Jones, Louis would punch holes in him.

Jones was old.  Like Louis was old when rocky tore him a new one. Or was that the peak RJJ?

Hammersmith harrier wrote:

hazharrison wrote:

azania wrote:If Conn at 170 could give Louis fits, what would RJJ do to him? It's not inconceivable to suggest that RJJ could have beaten Louis. After all he has lost to slower and smaller guys.

Likewise -- if Tarver and Johnson could kayo Jones, Louis would punch holes in him.

Using that logic Charles and Robinson have no place being greats if we judge them past their bests which you're doing with Jones but not with Louis with regards to Charles and Marciano.

Hammersmith harrier wrote:Or what about Louis being one fight removed from his impressive win over Bivins when he lost to Marciano Haz?

The thing is you are using different criteria dependent on what era a boxer is from, if they're from years ago you are far more willing to let them off for ducking, performing poorly or losing.

hazharrison wrote:

Hammersmith harrier wrote:Or what about Louis being one fight removed from his impressive win over Bivins when he lost to Marciano Haz?

The thing is you are using different criteria dependent on what era a boxer is from, if they're from years ago you are far more willing to let them off for ducking, performing poorly or losing.

The win over Bivins was not impressive -- have you read the report? Louis was way over the hill in '51.

Hammersmith harrier wrote:You can say exactly the same of Louis and Charles Haz but you'll undoubtably come up with excuses of retirement for that loss as well as being past his best.

88Chris05 wrote:

Strongback wrote:I think you are vastly underrating Louis' ability. He also started fighting 80 years ago, training and techniques have moved on.  There were also no steroids, epo or HGH around when Louis fought. The rumours or evidence around fighters like Jones, Hopkins and Mayweather using performance enhancers are rife.

Louis is remembered as a knock out artist and there have been none better.  In terms of punching ability he is miles ahead of Mayweather in technique as evidenced by his KO ratio.  Mayweather is a defensive master while Louis is an offensive master.  As fighters they are very hard to compare as their particular best strengths are so well developed they are off the scale and incomparable.  Louis' combination punching and ability to land 3 left hooks in a row at speed is as good as anything Jones demonstrated.  Remember Jones fought a lot of very average fighters, against his poorer opponents he ended up looking fantastic. These poorer opponents are weaker than Louis' worst.  Nobody has fought more top contenders while defending a title than Louis.

 

I think a lot of people would say I'm underrating Louis' ability Strongback! But that's just me. As I've said before, my stance on this is clear - Louis was a great technician with a shed load of ability. But when you're talking about putting a fighter in an all-time top ten pound for pound, you have to be pretty thorough and it's my contention, simply from watching Louis, that he had more flaws to his all-round game than Mayweather did. You've have to believe that the struggles Louis had against some decent, but hardly outstanding opposition in his peak years were down to more than just a coincidence.
 
Ultimately I don't see how anyone can say that the first fights against Schmeling, Godoy and Conn didn't at least highlight some flaws in Louis' style. Seems to be an idea growing that if you point out some deficiencies in Louis, you'[re saying he didn't have great ability. All I'm saying is that he had some weaker points, hence why those fighters were able to either beat him or give him such a torrid time.
 
If Mayweather had been knocked out as a young pup by Hernandez when he first came on the big scene, struggled to a split decision against someone like Corley, needed a desperate late rally after being outboxed for much of the fight and down on the cards against a smaller man moving up in weight in Marquez and had been rocked badly and later put down by Gatti before getting his win, I suspect many people would be proclaiming that this was all evidence that he wasn't a great fighter and never could be one. That wouldn't be true, and nor is it true in Louis' case (if we swap those Floyd opponents for Schmeling, Godoy, Conn and Galento respectively), but it does serve to show how few holes there are to Mayweather's game from a technical view point.

As for your point regarding Jones. He has his fair share of fighters on his record who were nothing to shout home about. More than Louis, however? Not really, and they fought a similar number of world title fights, too. You're right in saying that Jones shone against those men who were there to make up the numbers as well. But unless I'm mistaken, I'm pretty sure he shone against the very good fighters he faced n'all! His performances against Toney, Griffin (II), Hill and Johnson were outstanding, so it's not like he was found wanting when he did step up.

hazharrison wrote:

88Chris05 wrote:Fair enough, Haz. Can agree to disagree with regards to Louis / Mayweather / Jones.

What about Louis compared to Ray Leonard, though? Seems that many of the old-hand pundits and writers tend to have Leonard outside their top ten these days. Suffice to say I'd disagree.

I flip and flop with Leonard. I was cheered to see him ranked fairly high in the BN poll recently, however, revisiting his career after the 30 for 30 No Mas doc. knocked some polish off the Duran rematch and Hagler fight.

I wouldn't argue with anyone having him top ten - sometimes I think he belongs, other times I feel he's just outside.

Benitez, Duran (first fight) and Hearns, though. Wow.

Strongback wrote:

88Chris05 wrote:

Strongback wrote:I think you are vastly underrating Louis' ability. He also started fighting 80 years ago, training and techniques have moved on.  There were also no steroids, epo or HGH around when Louis fought. The rumours or evidence around fighters like Jones, Hopkins and Mayweather using performance enhancers are rife.

Louis is remembered as a knock out artist and there have been none better.  In terms of punching ability he is miles ahead of Mayweather in technique as evidenced by his KO ratio.  Mayweather is a defensive master while Louis is an offensive master.  As fighters they are very hard to compare as their particular best strengths are so well developed they are off the scale and incomparable.  Louis' combination punching and ability to land 3 left hooks in a row at speed is as good as anything Jones demonstrated.  Remember Jones fought a lot of very average fighters, against his poorer opponents he ended up looking fantastic. These poorer opponents are weaker than Louis' worst.  Nobody has fought more top contenders while defending a title than Louis.

 

I think a lot of people would say I'm underrating Louis' ability Strongback! But that's just me. As I've said before, my stance on this is clear - Louis was a great technician with a shed load of ability. But when you're talking about putting a fighter in an all-time top ten pound for pound, you have to be pretty thorough and it's my contention, simply from watching Louis, that he had more flaws to his all-round game than Mayweather did. You've have to believe that the struggles Louis had against some decent, but hardly outstanding opposition in his peak years were down to more than just a coincidence.
 
Ultimately I don't see how anyone can say that the first fights against Schmeling, Godoy and Conn didn't at least highlight some flaws in Louis' style. Seems to be an idea growing that if you point out some deficiencies in Louis, you'[re saying he didn't have great ability. All I'm saying is that he had some weaker points, hence why those fighters were able to either beat him or give him such a torrid time.
 
If Mayweather had been knocked out as a young pup by Hernandez when he first came on the big scene, struggled to a split decision against someone like Corley, needed a desperate late rally after being outboxed for much of the fight and down on the cards against a smaller man moving up in weight in Marquez and had been rocked badly and later put down by Gatti before getting his win, I suspect many people would be proclaiming that this was all evidence that he wasn't a great fighter and never could be one. That wouldn't be true, and nor is it true in Louis' case (if we swap those Floyd opponents for Schmeling, Godoy, Conn and Galento respectively), but it does serve to show how few holes there are to Mayweather's game from a technical view point.

As for your point regarding Jones. He has his fair share of fighters on his record who were nothing to shout home about. More than Louis, however? Not really, and they fought a similar number of world title fights, too. You're right in saying that Jones shone against those men who were there to make up the numbers as well. But unless I'm mistaken, I'm pretty sure he shone against the very good fighters he faced n'all! His performances against Toney, Griffin (II), Hill and Johnson were outstanding, so it's not like he was found wanting when he did step up.

On the first point you made regarding Mayweather I would point to Louis having 61 fights up to his retirement.  He won 60 of those fights knocking out 52 of his opponents. This included 25 title defences.  He may have been knocked down numerous time but he was never in danger of being KO'd apart from Schmelling who hit him with the kitchen sink before the fight was stopped.  The Galento knock down which is much quoted on here had Louis down for less than a second.  He then went on to viciously beat Tony, the big man was being knocked around like a rag doll.  

Heavyweight fighting is a different animal to the smaller weight classes because as we know with big men one punch can easily end a fight and often does.  That's what the public finds so exciting about the heavies.  You'll find it hard to pick out a top class heavyweight that hasn't tasted the canvas,  obviously that includes Ali who was down 4 times.

Some people prefer the smaller weight classes, Captain Carrantouhill appears to be one.  It seems to me that people who like the smaller fighters have less time for the heavies.  Windy and Jimmy always seemed to me to be in the heavyweight camp.  

Where do you have Ali in the P4P list?  I remember in the distant past that you didn't see that much between Ali and Louis.  Do you now have a big gulf between them now?

88Chris05 wrote:Always had Ali with a very healthy edge over Louis personally, Strongback. I have conceded that I can see why people may have them closer than I do, which is perhaps what you're getting mixed up with. But to me it's never really been a close run thing between them.

Appreciate that the knockdown against Galento was a flash one, but he was also hurt pretty badly in the first round of that one too, for instance. Nobody should really read too much in to me bringing this up, as I'm not trying to say that Galento took Louis to the brink. I merely mentioned it to put in to context how remarkable it is that Mayweather has managed to almost completely avoid such things right throughout his career.

As for your Ali question, somewhere between five and seven, pound for pound.

Hammersmith harrier wrote:LJ I don't see how you can say Louis has fought better opponents, is Schmeling better than Corrales, Walcott better than Hernandez, Baer better than Castillo? Not me they aren't.

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Just don't bother asking stupid questions.......Hammer.

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:I rate Oscar, Canelo, Cotto and Jmm..............Better fighters than Louis ever fought.......

Lumbering_Jack wrote:

Hammersmith harrier wrote:LJ I don't see how you can say Louis has fought better opponents, is Schmeling better than Corrales, Walcott better than Hernandez, Baer better than Castillo? Not me they aren't.

Well it's a matter of opinion, but I don't really rate Floyd's opponents as highly as others do. Hernandez for example is often thrown around as a great win but I just don't see it. Good yes, great no.

Lumbering_Jack wrote:The best man won. Him being behind isn't relevant. He won.

Louis took on every available challenger, something Floyd simply cannot boast, no matter have much you love him. For this reason he will never be ranked above Louis. After the hype dies down over his career he will settle in most lists outside the top 10, and behind Louis.