Was Iran Barkley underrated?

[JayElectra]

When you have a left hook as good as his, you can go a far way.

He's an over-achiever, having won titles in three different weight classes when that wasn't an easy thing to do.

But ultimately is too crude and limited to be considered an elite type fighter.

Over-achiever actually sounds about right. That Hearns win is one of the biggest upsets of that era. He also made a decent fight with Nunn when Nunn looked like a beast (coming off of the somewhat shocking 1st round KO of Kalambay who had almost shut out Barkely a one or two years before). A bit of an erratic performer.

 

[AdamWeiss]

I don't think he is. He was a good fighter but not a great fighter

 

[TRYHARD 2001]

There is a school of thought that wrongly believes simply beating a great fighter makes you great as well, like Ken Norton as we were discussing in another thread.

But generally greatness is established by a fighters over all resume, not one or two particular fights. Barkley was inconsistent and couldn't regularly repeat those great wins like other greats, Ali and Robinson for example.

I see what you're saying. For the record, I wasn't trying to say he was great, just that he seems to be a forgotten fighter by most fans of today, which is a shame considering how good and unbelievably entertaining he was.

He was a pressure fighter with a good left hook, average chin, average cardio, a lot of size, and an amazing heart, which made for some truly amazing displays, in victory and defeat.

I still say he would've beat Benn if they'd rematched.

 

[consortium11]

I'd say he's actually somewhat over-rated. People put a fair amount of stock in people beating him (podgy Duran for example) when the reality was outside of those two Hearns bouts he lost pretty much every time he appeared at world level, normally in one-sided bouts (although giving Nunn the bout he did was impressive) and had some embarrassing losses (such as to 1-0 former kickboxer Tosca Petridis).

To refer back to the earlier conversation Seano references, at least Norton had about a 50/50 record at world level outside of the Ali bouts; you could remove Ali from his record and he'd have been a competent contender who won some and lost some. Remove Hearns from Barkley's and you're left with pretty much nothing.

 

[Seano]

I see what you're saying. For the record, I wasn't trying to say he was great, just that he seems to be a forgotten fighter by most fans of today, which is a shame considering how good and unbelievably entertaining he was.

He was a pressure fighter with a good left hook, average chin, average cardio, a lot of size, and an amazing heart, which made for some truly amazing displays, in victory and defeat.

I still say he would've beat Benn if they'd rematched.

I respect your opinion. I respect anyone's opinion who isn't a dick about it.

 

[mozfonky]

I wouldn't go so far as to say he's overrated, good fighter, in a pretty decent era, Toney,Nunn, the english guys, the four kings and some pretty good contenders. I remember when Barkley was just making a name for himself on ESPN I thought then that he'd be a top contender. He was in a pretty good talent pool. Lots of people thought Nunn was the second coming of Sugar Ray Leonard, people forget that now if they remember nunn at all.

 

[Oldknees]

p4p a great name...iran the blade...

 

[TRYHARD 2001]

I'll never understand why the Nunn fight was scored so closely. Michael boxed the ears off Barkley for 12 rounds, landing the bigger shots (especially the left uppercut) far more often and dancing around Barkley's wild shots. One judge had it 116-112, which I still feel was too close, the other 115-113, and that was terrible, but the judge who scored it a draw was right out of 'er.

It was a good fight and Barkley gave a decent account of himself, but it definitely does nothing to advance his claim to greatness in my eyes. Mind you, Nunn was on fire at this point in his career.