The Greatest of All? Time.

consortium11 said:
Sugar Ray Robinson was a bum with no heart. He ducked Burley and refused to box at heavyweight!

(Although actually, the Burley thing is true...)
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i used to think the burley thing was true too, but have heard different stories. One is that burley was lined up but lost a fight leading up to it. It's all so long ago who knows what happened. I think I remember a story with robinson negotiating for 3 fights where he loses one wins one, burley wouldn't go along with it or something, could be very wrong about that, heard so many stories over the years sometimes they muddle together.
 
There's a special on Robinson, which involves a lot of Bert and I'm sure he relays that injury story in it. I can't find it right now. I'm not sure which way that makes me lean.
 
If Ray did avoid Burley, there are a couple things that are undoubtable, that if he did duck him, it was his own doing because ray was the first fighter who ran his own career and another is that most champions duck fighters. Alex Wallau has said that Joe Louis avoided black heavyweights during his reign, same goes for Jack Dempsey and Johnson. In all cases it was either due to racism or money or both. White fighters were more marketable by and large. Aside from that, the list of champions who've avoided fights is long, Larry Holmes stopped fighting top fighters after 82 or so, Sugar Ray Leonard ducked the prime Hagler until he was not-prime, no one in the era of Mike Mccallum wanted any part of him. However, if you consider that most situations like that are high risk low reward, it makes Floyd stand out on his own, he stood to make more money than anyone ever (unlike the other champions) and he still made sure the fight didn't happen and continues to say things to deflect blame for his part in it not happening. Not many champs ducked no one, Ali and Lennox Lewis confidently took on anyone (not counting when ali was too old to fight anyone better than Spinks) those are exceptions but most champs do some ducking and usually it isn't even the fighter, it's the management, not all fighters run their own careers.
 
oh, and lest we forget, no one calls Robinson or Louis cowards because they proved many times that they weren't.
 
mozfonky said:
that is the theory, I don't know though, i just don't know. My people, the Indians had to hunt, run down game before the horse, they had plenty to do. My aunt tells me they were up at 4 in the morning getting ready for the day. We may excercise for fun but I tell you, recently I did some labor jobs, old school all the way, they were the hardest things i've done in my life. 8-12 hours of swinging a pickaxe, shoveling, wheeling gravel. In 90 degree weather. I've trained and done hard grueling workouts, but I don't think it compares to that kind of labor. I could actually feel my kidneys straining and could hardly walk at the end of some days. To think that that's how they lived a hundred years ago and they did it all the time. A workout consisting of the old 3X8 and three bodyparts a day is pussy like in comparison. Our nutrition may be better for building bigger men with all the shit we pump into them but it's not good for us, the shit's killing us.
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"That shit that's killing us" has boosted average life expectancy significantly in the past 100 years, so it's pretty ironic. What they did was out of necessity to get by day to day. It wasn't, and never will be, an effective way of physically training a fighter in comparison to modern techniques.

As for nutrition and supplementation (what I gather you're hinting at), modern methods have been proven to be both safe and effective when done correctly. We're naturally bigger now than what we were 100 years ago because of improvements in nutrition in developmental years. In the case of athletes that are even larger, supplementation is usually required to give the body its requirements so it can perform at its best level.
 
xilliun said:
"That shit that's killing us" has boosted average life expectancy significantly in the past 100 years, so it's pretty ironic. What they did was out of necessity to get by day to day. It wasn't, and never will be, an effective way of physically training a fighter in comparison to modern techniques.

As for nutrition and supplementation (what I gather you're hinting at), modern methods have been proven to be both safe and effective when done correctly. We're naturally bigger now than what we were 100 years ago because of improvements in nutrition in developmental years. In the case of athletes that are even larger, supplementation is usually required to give the body its requirements so it can perform at its best level.
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I don't know, I can only speak for me, I did the weights thing a lot and it never really did anything dramatic for me. I think a lot of it is plain genetics. When i eat more i just get fatter. As far as life expectancy you are statistically correct but I do talk to old people and they will tell you in a minute that they can remember when the foods weren't so processed and how much better tasting and seemingly didn't make people big fat slobs like we are today. Our food is crap. Also, a friend and i were talking about our older relatives and how we both wondered how they were so hearty and how old people today look terrible in comparison even though her relatives, drank all the time. I do know one thing, medicine is far advanced so people won't die from the same things they used to but the quality of life doesn't look that great. Also, I think the rise of cities and dense populations has to be hugely responsible for wiping out legions of people because that's where diseases fester.
 
#1 is prime Tyson 4 sure

After that its a toss up b/w Ali and $ Mayweather
 
rashad2reel said:
#1 is prime Tyson 4 sure

After that its a toss up b/w Ali and $ Mayweather
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tumblr_mb8ps5LId21rvis73o1_500.gif
 
mozfonky said:
i used to think the burley thing was true too, but have heard different stories. One is that burley was lined up but lost a fight leading up to it. It's all so long ago who knows what happened. I think I remember a story with robinson negotiating for 3 fights where he loses one wins one, burley wouldn't go along with it or something, could be very wrong about that, heard so many stories over the years sometimes they muddle together.
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In today's world I could understand such circumstances preventing the Burley bout from happening, but not for Robinson. The guy had 200 bouts, was boxing basically once a month and faced a who's who of boxing (as well as a whole bunch of nobodies). There's no excuse for that bout not to have happened outside of Robinson turning it down. The time to bout came closest to happening (after the pair appeared together on a midwest card to promote a future matchup) Robinson immediately doubled his purse requirements and priced himself out... and that's without going into the whole "I'm too pretty to face Burley" quotes.

That's not a overly criticise Robinson or pretend he was a coward or the like. But Burley is a very notable name missing from his record... just as the entire Murderer's Row are missing from the ledgers of the many of the guys we look at as all time greats from that era.
 
I'm more inclined to say Henry Armstrong or Harry Greb = G.O.A.T rather than Sugar Ray Robinson, although I consider SRR the best ever (TBE).

I give Armstrong credit for the Ceferino Garcia fight, I don't let judges take away from that win, just like I don't let judges take Pernell Whitaker's win against Chavez Sr away from him. So that's 4 division champ. He lost to SRR when he was past prime. Unbeaten from 1936-1940..defending the title so many times against HOF's (he deffo beat Lou Ambers and I don't care for 2 round DQ's against lesser opponents).

As for Greb, I swing more towards his favour. The competition in his era was monstrous, not just because of the fact that he fought brutal HOF's but all of the competition. It was an unbelievable era.

Only legit losses were Tunney who Greb beat once and Tunney is a Top ATG who outweighed Greb by a big margin.

All of the other losses were avenged, mostly against ATG's i.e Gibbons and Loughran, and losses at the very start of his career, and the decisions against Greb at the end of his career against Tiger Flowers should have been given to Greb.

Greb for G.O.A.T
 
greb looks horrid in the footage I see. I don't want to be too hard on the early guys, they did the best they knew. I like fighters like Armstrong, Louis and Robinson and Pep too because they wouldn't look out of place in the ring today. Sad to say, I think alot of our genuine greats would get laughed at in the ring today if they were a young unknown. Correct me if I'm wrong because i've said it a million times, a Benny Leonard looks ridiculous by modern standards. Of course it isn't a contest of aesthetics but the chin up like a lantern looks very bad.
 
consortium11 said:
In today's world I could understand such circumstances preventing the Burley bout from happening, but not for Robinson. The guy had 200 bouts, was boxing basically once a month and faced a who's who of boxing (as well as a whole bunch of nobodies). There's no excuse for that bout not to have happened outside of Robinson turning it down. The time to bout came closest to happening (after the pair appeared together on a midwest card to promote a future matchup) Robinson immediately doubled his purse requirements and priced himself out... and that's without going into the whole "I'm too pretty to face Burley" quotes.

That's not a overly criticise Robinson or pretend he was a coward or the like. But Burley is a very notable name missing from his record... just as the entire Murderer's Row are missing from the ledgers of the many of the guys we look at as all time greats from that era.
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On the whole, Burley's career is a tragedy of wasted talent. Not much footage of him exists but just the fact that Robinson, Lamotta, Conn, Armstrong, Cerdan avoided him speaks volumes. I've heard his name ever since I was a kid so it wasn't all for naught, in boxing circles we've always known even though he was a mystery, he must have been great.
 
mozfonky said:
greb looks horrid in the footage I see. I don't want to be too hard on the early guys, they did the best they knew. I like fighters like Armstrong, Louis and Robinson and Pep too because they wouldn't look out of place in the ring today. Sad to say, I think alot of our genuine greats would get laughed at in the ring today if they were a young unknown. Correct me if I'm wrong because i've said it a million times, a Benny Leonard looks ridiculous by modern standards. Of course it isn't a contest of aesthetics but the chin up like a lantern looks very bad.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMA6Pd6tT3Q
I know you have this in mind. It worked for that era, and when I'm saying Greb is G.O.A.T, I'd just have to consider his H2H abilities in that very era, it's quite unfair to match up boxers from 100 years ago to fighters today. The sport saw major changes from 1880-1950.

Gene Tunney happens to look more impressive, and Greb did best Tunney once despite being the much smaller man:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_mW0hdS8Dk

My H2H Top 10 all time is relatively new timer:
SRR, SRL, RJJ, Duran, Mayweather, Monzon, Hearns, Sanchez, Cruiser Evander, Charles or Spinks
 
Good post AJ. I have always thought it was weird ranking guys like Jack Johnson with guys like Tyson and Ali. The styles are so different its almost a different sport.
 
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