Do we set the bar too high when judging boxers?

Hi, I'm a very casual/armchair boxing fan with no in depth knowledge other then knowing whose fighting who whose won what etc. But one think I've noticed is that boxing fans seem to be much harder to impress then say a football fan or F1 fan. As soon as hamilton won his championship you'd read articles on how he was already better then Schumacher and how he'll win more, all the england football team had to do back in the day was win a few matches and next thing you read is that they're going to win the world cup. We don't mind if a tennis player like federer gets beaten-it was just a one off people will say. Boxers on the other hand are judged against really high standards?

For example you'll read how Tyson is overrated and all you had to do to beat him was not let him bully you, Hamed beat bums and lost to the only decent fighter he met, the klitchkos are boring in a rubbish era, floyd mayweather boring and won't fight anyone good as he loves his zero, all you have to do to beat Khan is hit him on the chin.....

Why are people so harsh when they judge a fighter? What do they have to do to get universal praise?!

What do they have to do to get universal praise?

Easy, fight in an era where the footage can't tell you what colour shorts they wore

sikhlion wrote:Hi, I'm a very casual/armchair boxing fan with no in depth knowledge other then knowing whose fighting who whose won what etc. But one think I've noticed is that boxing fans seem to be much harder to impress then say a football fan or F1 fan. As soon as hamilton won his championship you'd read articles on how he was already better then Schumacher and how he'll win more, all the england football team had to do back in the day was win a few matches and next thing you read is that they're going to win the world cup. We don't mind if a tennis player like federer gets beaten-it was just a one off people will say. Boxers on the other hand are judged against really high standards?

For example you'll read how Tyson is overrated and all you had to do to beat him was not let him bully you, Hamed beat bums and lost to the only decent fighter he met, the klitchkos are boring in a rubbish era, floyd mayweather boring and won't fight anyone good as he loves his zero, all you have to do to beat Khan is hit him on the chin.....

Why are people so harsh when they judge a fighter? What do they have to do to get universal praise?!

Nice post Sikh but I think you're over qualified for here

Indeed. Everyone else's qualifications for giving their expert opinion seems to be they own property in Londres.

Good post mate - I totally agree. Im a relatively new boxing fan that got into the sport through boxers like Hatton and Haye. I think it must be a British thing with the way the media go on but seems like people love nothing more than to build sports people up just so they can bash them down. Dont need to look any further than our own Hatton and Haye. World class boxers, world champions but as soon as they lose people go overboard and knock them down. Boxing must be one of the only sports where you have a world class exciting boxer like Haye and people from his own country claim hes rubbish and should stay retired.

kingraf wrote:What do they have to do to get universal praise?

Easy, fight in an era where the footage can't tell you what colour shorts they wore

Need to get your eyes tested raf. They all wore black, white or shades of grey.

kingraf wrote:Indeed. Everyone else's qualifications for giving their expert opinion seems to be they own property in Londres.

Its what self made men have to do when they haven't got a family farm to retire to raf

Apologies Sikh.

Personally, I think as boxing is a fading force as a sport, your typical fan is older and naturally nostalgic for bygone eras. Due to rivalry from other sports particularly in the states, particularly at heavy there appears to be a smaller universe of participants and that gives rise the argument that the standards are (all other things being equal... Diet training etc) dropping. Chuck in the volume  of belts devaluing  the world championship , and the emphasis on remaining unbeaten  leading to accusations of cherry picking, you can see why there are things unique to boxing that maybe create this old v new divide.

For what its worth despite being almost fossilised myself, I feel  it gets overplayed and that modern fighters often do not get the credit they deserve.

People do go overboard when a boxer loses. Nobody is allowed an off night or a poor performance against an opponent who has their number, stylistically.

It's a shame and as Milky states it may be down to the emphasis on remaining unbeaten as everyone is terrified of defeat and all it brings. Could also be down to how infrequent boxers fight. If a football team loses they can put it right the next week, a boxer may not get in the ring for another 6 months.

There is as much hyperbole in boxing as any other sport, so no not really.

Bugger off Milky. Sure, I might have a family farm to retire off to. And sure, my dad bought me my car. And sure I got my early employment opening because of one of my dad's contacts. And sure, my dad bought me lots of shares in blue chip companies... but don't you dare suggest I'm not a self made man!!

Good thread mate and agree. Boxing is definitely a sport were everything past is better for some.

Fighters of this era will be appreciated more in 50 years from now

I think it is the same in other sports as well, if I'm honest. The England cricket team went from amazing to the scum of the earth in one summer. Admittedly it was one incredibly poor summer, but you'd think they had enough in the credit box get away with one poor tour. Difference is, two months later they had a shot at redemption, and continue to have more opportunities. If Amir loses... well, it's a lot harder to forget since he's only had like three four fights since his last defeat

Older isn't always better but today's fighters fight less and - in the main - are in less competitive fights. Mayweather, for example, fights twice a year. Ray Robinson once fought Jake LaMotta twice in three weeks. They fought over more rounds against tougher opposition.

Also, there were more boxers back then - certainly more world class boxers. Then imagine having only one champion.

I'm not sure where this theory comes from that modern fighters are short changed. In terms of talent, the likes of Floyd, Jones etc. are as good as any from history.

I agree. Look at tennis. Rafa Nadal loses early in Wimbledon he is written off, then he goes and wins the US Open and all is forgotten.

Boxing is an unforgiven sport. I hold my hands up to dissing Manny about the Marquez fight but look at what he has done since then. Even if he beats Floyd some people will still discredit his achievement and bring up JMM. I think all boxing fans are guilty of this. Boxers aren't perfect and can have a bad night at the office as well as anybody.

I'm a huge fan of Floyd but wish he wouldn't obsess over this 0. Best thing that could of happened is Castillo took his 0, then he wouldn't avoided some tough challenges. Hell he would maybe even take a go at middleweight if he wasn't protecting the 0.

I understand your criteria now Haz. You base your atg with achievement and talent for their eras. I in the other hand base too much emphasis on head to head.

Suppose its not fair to compare head to heads from different eras. Training methods and other enhancements would give todays fighter a major edge.

Definitely agree with one belt a division and less divisions helping ones claims to being a better champion. Too many divisions and too many catch weight fights these days. Guys like Scott Quigg for example could never be a champion from the old days.

I can't speak for other sports, but the makeup of boxing has changed drastically over time. The fracturing of belts and promotion cold wars of today make people look back at old fights and yearn for that simpler time, ignoring the prevalence of fixes and the like. Basically modern boxing does itself no favours, and when something is right in front of you, you can see all the cracks in it, whereas when something is looked at from a distance you don't see all those imperfections.

One of the differences from "then" to now is the frequency of fights. Older fighters had careers with huge amounts of fights, less protection when building their records and more learning on the job. Due to this, losses were more or less expected. Nowadays fighters are brought along much more carefully and fight far less, so a single loss is emphasised. Also social media means when we see a fighter others rated higher than ourselves lose, we can immediately leap to twitter or 606 or whatever and ram our foresight down everyone's throats.

I reckon Marciano comes in for as much flak as any fighter since colour TV's were invented btw

John Bloody Wayne wrote:I can't speak for other sports, but the makeup of boxing has changed drastically over time. The fracturing of belts and promotion cold wars of today make people look back at old fights and yearn for that simpler time, ignoring the prevalence of fixes and the like. Basically modern boxing does itself no favours, and when something is right in front of you, you can see all the cracks in it, whereas when something is looked at from a distance you don't see all those imperfections.

One of the differences from "then" to now is the frequency of fights. Older fighters had careers with huge amounts of fights, less protection when building their records and more learning on the job. Due to this, losses were more or less expected. Nowadays fighters are brought along much more carefully and fight far less, so a single loss is emphasised. Also social media means when we see a fighter others rated higher than ourselves lose, we can immediately leap to twitter or 606 or whatever and ram our foresight down everyone's throats.

I reckon Marciano comes in for as much flak as any fighter since colour TV's were invented btw

And what a shame that is. Marciano was everything you'd want your heavyweight champion to be.

The likes of Joe Louis - one of the greatest fighters who ever lived - doesn't get the lickings of a dog from some on here - a fair few of whom only started watching boxing a few years back I wouldn't wonder.

I dont buy that modern fighters (what does that even mean nowadays?) are underrated. The current era of boxers is as poor as I have seen. Certainly far lesser than the talents in the 80s and much of the 90s.

A lot of people didnt witness any other era than the current one. Nothing wrong with that. But a fair few seem butthurt by the suggestions that the currnet crop wouldnt stack up with the best from other era's. The state of the sport is in a real mess now which doesnt help.

catchweight wrote:I dont buy that modern fighters (what does that even mean nowadays?) are underrated. The current era of boxers is as poor as I have seen. Certainly far lesser than the talents in the 80s and much of the 90s.

A lot of people didnt witness any other era than the current one. Nothing wrong with that. But a fair few seem butthurt by the suggestions that the currnet crop wouldnt stack up with the best from other era's. The state of the sport is in a real mess now which doesnt help.

A lot of fighters these days can't even do the basics - look how long it's taken Khan to look anything like a competent boxer. They don't fight enough.

Most of the heavyweights today look like they didnt make the weightlifting team and decided to give boxing a go.

To the OP,

Khan is doing fine, he has a lot of talent along with flaws but he is having a good career.  In his last two fights he has shown a maturity to go with his skill set and that bodes well for the future.  

Part of the reason he isn't universally loved is because he has done and said a few silly things down through the years which have shown a lack of basic gumption.  There is also an element of racism towards Khan that is unfortunate,  sometimes it gets overplayed as all boxers get criticised regardless of race.   As an aside some of the antics of Khan fans at events in the past has been less than exemplary.

If Khan keeps winning he will continue to get the kudos. It is noticeable he is keeping a lower profile media wise in Britain these days.  He seems to be concentrating on America.  

In terms of assessing fighters there will always be factions who support a certain fighter or type of fighter and others who have a completely different view.  In tennis there is only one champion per event and a player like Federer is obviously an ATG.  In boxing as others have stated there are so many variables.  F1 to me became boring as it is a test of whether a human can repeatedly drive around a track like a robot making no mistakes. Throw in some rain and other variables are added and drivers are tested in different ways, Schumacher in the rain was great to watch.  Because of the variables in boxing it will always be easy to dismantle the achievements of fighters without much difficulty.

Remember though that Khan while in a big fight was not fighting for a world title of any kind on Saturday.

AdamT wrote:I understand your criteria now Haz. You base your atg with achievement and talent for their eras. I in the other hand base too much emphasis on head to head.

Suppose its not fair to compare head to heads from different eras. Training methods and other enhancements would give todays fighter a major edge.

Definitely agree with one belt a division and less divisions helping ones claims to being a better champion. Too many divisions and too many catch weight fights these days. Guys like Scott Quigg for example could never be a champion from the old days.

The effect of advanced training and enhancements is over rated when it comes to a sport that is based upon skill not numerical measuring.

I have very little doubt in my mind that LaMotta is stronger and tougher than any Middleweight around today, that Armstrong is fitter than any Welterweight, Wilde punches harder than any Flyweight or that Ali is quicker than any Heavyweight.

There are too many immeasurable variables in boxing dependent on tactical nous and tecnhique, things that it takes years to learn, there isn't a fighter around today with the know how of Archie Moore, not even Hopkins. It took him years and years of fighting every style immaginable to get to that point, current day boxers don't fight often enough to get there.

Right everyone put your cards on the table. Are there any current fighters you class as great? If so, who and why?

Mayweather, Pacquiao, Hopkins, Marquez and Donaire; Rigondeaux and Ward could be but they need to do a bit more. Barrera, Morales, Calderon, Jones, Calzaghe, Tzuyu and possibly Martinez of recent times were all great too. It's a combination of achievements, record and talent, Ward and Rigo have the talent but there records are far too thin to be considered great yet.

Calderon and Donaire, no.