Boxing thread

I love boxing. Nice idea making the thread

1. British - lennox Lewis, Other - Floyd Mayweather
2. Floyd Mayweather (can only go on who I have seen obviously)
3. Light Welterweight/Welterweight - Cant choose between them as the competition is very strong in both.

 

Favourite is probably Marco Antonio Barrera, mainly because his fights are usually great to watch. His first fight v Morales is a true classic.

Best is Tyson for about 3 years. I honestly dont think he gets the credit he deserves (as he became a lunatic) for how highly skilled he was. Knock out power in both hands, lightning speed (for a heavy) and superb movement both in defence and attack. He also had such an aura about him that other fighters were genuinely scared (see Frank Bruno in their second fight)

Best weight I would say is harder because a lot of fighters go up. But the 140 division plus or minus one step is usually the best as there is more often than not more world class operators at that level imo.


Do think Calzaghe is class as well.

 

Hamed shat himself that night tbh.

Btw I seen Calzaghe's debut so for a trivia question who can tell me what bill it was on. Top of the bill was a world title fight.

 

Here's another clue, it was in Cardiff.

 

It was raining that night and we were sitting miles away from the ring at the time. The fighters kept slipping and me and my mate thought they were knock downs Managed to blag a seat for the big fight right beside the TV cameras though. Great night it was.

 

Yeah I did. £65 for a ticket and we were right at the back of the stadium at a corner behind the goal Thought to myself, F that and went and sat beside the TV gantry. Luckily nobody moved us. On the way back I went up to Anfield and watched Liverpool v Arsenal.

Harrison was good but his head is a mess. Dont think he was top notch, but not far off it.

 

Seen as your curious of opinions, I'll give you a few of mine Tony

Favourite of all time - My favorite boxer of all time has to be Ali, what a man and what a boxer. He had it all as a fighter - Great foot work, great hand speed, wasn't the hardest of hitters but he could punch, great jab, he was entertaining, was durable, great ring smarts etc. He never ducked anyone, take a look at his resume.. it's incredible.

We also seen two sides to him in my opinion, the pre-exile Ali showed fantastic physical capabilities however the post exile Ali showed a fantastic boxing brain. As his physicial capabilities diminished, his intelligence and ring smarts more than made up for it. In fact you could even make a case that he has a better resume post exile than he does pre-exile and basically that he beat better fighters when he was less 'physically gifted' seen as he beat the likes of Foreman, Frazier, Quarry, Norton, Chuvalo etc when he came back after his 3 years absence. Roy Jones was another big favourite of mine and in his prime, was probably the closest thing to superman in a boxing ring.. but Ali pips him for me!

Of all the active fighters right now, my favourite would have to be Floyd Mayweather, his skillset is something else. Would say Ricky Hatton, but can we call him active or not when he doesn't even know himself.

Greatest of all time: Only one man, Sugar Ray Robinson although Sam Langford and Harry Greb run him close. I've watched countless footage of him and the way he moved around the ring was a work of art, he really did have everything. Anyone ever seen his knock out of Gene Fullmer? Probably the greatest punch ever thrown and is much agreed to be just that. Another man who never ducked anyone, he fought the best - La Motta, Henry Armstrong, Fullmer, Graziano, Kid Gavilan, Basilio, Maxim, Randy Turpin etc.

The man had 200 fights, with something like 173 wins. And most most of his losses only came when he was an old man, but even then he was still often beating some of the better fighters at the time. He went 84 0r 85-0 as an amateur and went 40-0 as a pro before losing his first fight to Jake La Motta, basically meaning that he was involved in 124-125 fights before tasting defeat! At one point in his career he was 128-1-2. That is f*cking amazing especially if you take into consideration that he was fighting legit fighters. He was no Julio Cesar Chavez (who although I loved as a fighter) who very much padded his record with tomato cans for years before fighting the top boys (oh and while on the subject of Chavez, Whitaker beat him.. probably one of the worst decisions that has ever been seen in the sport, no way was that fight a draw!)


Best Weight: Currently I believe the best weights to be both the Light-Welterweight and Super-Middlweight divisions seeing as their so deep in talent. LWW has such top talents as Bradley, Alexander, Maidana, Khan and many other top fringe fighters like Ortiz, Malignaggi, Urango, Campbell etc.

SMW also has a stacked division and the super-six has been a great idea, the likes of Abraham, Dirrell, Froch, Ward, Kessler, Bute, Green, Stieglitz, Pavlik who has just came up to the division and Andrade. In fact, I'd probably say this is the most stacked division and the best thing is, the tournament is allowing us to see the best fighters fighting one another.

Tony, you say Welterweight is the most competitive by a mile pal.. but I don't see how you can say that? Really there is Pac and Mayweather who are without a doubt, the two best fighters p4p in the sport but after that theres only really Mosely who's coming to the end of his days and Berto who is relatively unproven. Cotto, Margarito, Cintron and Paul Williams have all moved up to Light-Middle.

Next Big Thing: For me the next big thing is George Groves, I've been following him for a while now and the boy can fight. He's sparred with Froch and gave him a lot of trouble + him and Degale have a grudge with one another which goes back to their amateur days, Groves beat him in the Amateurs. If both of these keep focused and progressing, this will with out a doubt be the next British super fight and hopefully Groves will give Degale a lesson.. cannot stand him.

Great thread by the way mate, seen as much of this sub-forum is made up of boxing.. it would probably be wise to sticky this thread.. HINT to Mods

 

Good man, it would make a lot more sense.

We'll never see records like that again, nowadays it's all about ppv and the big pay days. Most top tier fighters will fight every 4 months if we're lucky, with there training camps and promoting the fight etc. Back then fighters fought many times a month for much less money, most of the time just to get by. For him to have a record like that and fight the men he did as well is nothing short of amazing.

To many fighters these day want to preserve there '0' for as long as possible, pad there records and get a pay day. Fair enough I can see why, they want to stay at the top longer and collect more £££ instead of taking hard fights but I respect fighters who will go out on a limb to challenge the best.

 

I can see where your coming from but for me, I just feel that once you look past Mayweather and Pac the WW division doesn't really have all that there.

I mean, Mosely is coming to the end of the road now so it won't be long before he jacks it in. Clottey is huge for a WW and I can see him moving up to Light-Middle in the near future to be honest and there has been a lot of talk of Berto dropping down to 140 to challenge the likes of Bradley, Alexander, Khan, Maidana etc.

I don't see Cotto coming back down to WW, he didn't look to healthy against Manny and looked in much better shape against Foreman up at Light Middle. Margarito will stay at 154 now and Paul Williams won't drop back down to 147 unless he can get a fight with either Pac or Mayweather, which I can't see happening because he offers a huge risk to both fighters.

Alvarez looks the dogs bollocks but again, if you take into consideration his age and the size of him it looks like he won't be at WW for a long while and I can see him growing into a Light-Middle - Middleweight.

 

He's 19, crazy when you think that he's had 33 fights by that age.. thats more than Haye, Chad Dawson, Dirrell and Tim Bradley have had! He turned bro at the age of 15! Shades of Barrera, hopefully he'll have a career like he did.

Yeah I think Gomez would be a good fight for him, very winnable but would also help with his learning. Hopefully we may see a fight between him and our Kell Brook in the future, both are coming along really well and it would make for a great fight.