Who is the greatest NHL fighter?

[Jon Stark]

Voted Probert. One of the few men to knock him out, Todd Ewen, passed away earlier this year. Sad when these legends pass.

 

[Prime Ang]

From the looks of the poll, it seems this Probert guy could have probably been a Champion level cage fighter.

 

[Prime Ang]

Voted Probert. One of the few men to knock him out, Todd Ewen, passed away earlier this year. Sad when these legends pass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsFV-bfxwEA

Don't know how to embed but there's that fight.

 

[Prime Ang]

Probert ragged dolled Ewen every time from there on out though, so we can mark that up as a lucky punch.

 

[Sharkey]

Also this poll is a joke without Schultz, Ray, Domi and Grimson. Could probably add Nilan as well.

Do some research TS

While they were tough guys for sure and played the role, guys like Schultz, Ray, and Nilan don't belong at all when talking about the elite enforcers ability to fight. Domi and Grimson could fit in there some where, but then you'd scratch someone else that maybe deserves it as much as them.

 

[Sharkey]

I just watched some Larry Playfair fights and I can't believe I overlooked him as a fighter. He was ragdolling some damn tough players like Terry O'Reilly and Chris Nilan. I notice that a lot of his fights feature opponents hugging Playfair pretty hard because they didn't want to see him getting that right hand loose.

There were so many tough enforcer types during that era when he played. Playfair, Wilson, Gillies, Cochrane (as fun to watch as anybody), Fotiu, etc. Don't forget Bobby Nystrom though, as he wasn't just the guy that scored the OT winner to win the Cup. He was also as tough as they came during that era and he could throw them as well as anybody in his time and maybe for all time. Gillies & Nystrom. Nystrom & Gillies. One of the toughest pairing of teammates in history. With apologies to Probert & Kocur, maybe even the toughest. Debatable though.

Nice scrap here between Playfair and Nystrom that was fairly even;

 

[Thrawn33]

Probert for sure, but no love for Tie Domi in your poll ts? He was tough for his size (5'8") and even managed to getting the better of Probert one time. P4P Domi was probably toughest toughest player of all time.

This. Voted Probie, but his clashes with Domi were epic.

 

[absous7]

While they were tough guys for sure and played the role, guys like Schultz, Ray, and Nilan don't belong at all when talking about the elite enforcers ability to fight. Domi and Grimson could fit in there some where, but then you'd scratch someone else that maybe deserves it as much as them.

Not sure if serious!

 

[Sharkey]

Not sure if serious!

Of course I'm serious. We're talking top 10 of all time here. None of those guys come close. In fact you could very easily make an argument that guys like Nilan wasn't one of the 10 best fighters in the NHL during the 80's and likewise for Ray in the 90's. Nevermind them being one for all decades. Schultz was very likely one of the 10 best fighters in the NHL during the 70's, but his reputation was more built on both activity in the fighting department as well as beating up weaker fighters like Magnusson (who everybody beat up) or non-fighters like Dale Rolfe. When Schultz dropped the gloves against the elite tough guys of the 70's he lost more than he won. Battleship Kelly (x2), Gillies, Larry Robinson, Holmgren and some others handled him easily enough. As did some players who didn't have the big reputation for toughness those others did like Serge Savard, Ted Harris, Harold Snepts, Pierre Bouchard, and Ken Houston who all beat Schultz in fights. Judging by the series of fights Schultz had with guys like Terry O'Reilly or Garry Howatt (both tough guys for their time, but not amongst history's toughest) and how even they were, how can you say he was even a better fighter than those two guys? In his auto-bio Schultz has also freely admitted that he was scared to fight Nick Fotiu. Imagine that. Now Fotiu would have scared a lot of people in the game during his time and actually wouldn't be out of place getting mentioned in this thread as one of the absolute best fighters in NHL history. But if you're supposedly that yourself you're not going to be running scared from a guy like that and then freely admitting to it.

 

[Sharkey]

Not sure if serious!

Here's a couple of links from the old-timers section of the hockeyfights.com forum. Go and ask them if they're serious when next to no one mentions either of those guys as one of the 10 best fighters in NHL history;

http://www.hockeyfights.com/forums/f18/official-hockeyfights-com-all-time-top-10-a-58337/

I looked through the first 8 pages, saw about 30 all-time rankings and only saw one of those three guys mentioned once in total. Some guy ranked Ray 7th all-time. The other 29 or so rankings don't mention any of them. Ask them about it.

Or look at this link which is a back dated yearly top 10 ranking conducted by the community there, which was done so by guys who study the history of enforcers and also features a whole bunch of guys who (or have in the past) collect old fight tapes;

http://www.hockeyfights.com/forums/f18/lineage-heavyweight-champ-top-ten-lists-75-09-a-49487/

Schultz was in the NHL up til 1980, yet they only had him ranked top 10 in three of the six years he was eligible during the time, although they did list him as #1 for the 74-75 season.

Chris Nilan played in the NHL for 13 years, yet those guys at hockeyfights.com only ranked him in the top 10 for one single year during that span when he was ranked 8th in the 85-86 season.

Rob Ray played in the NHL for 15 years, yet those guys at hockeyfights.com only ranked him inside the top 10 for four of those years with the highest being 6th in 95-96.

Maybe you could throw an those guy's way as well and ask them if they're serious. What would they know, hey?

 

[Sharkey]

I wished I could change my vote to Behn Wilson just to give him a vote in all of this. He didn't fight as often as many NHL enforcers, but he was as good as there was when he did. He had 98 documented NHL fights during his career, and out of all the ones I've ever seen the only one I've seen him lose clearly was to Nick Fotiu in Wilson's rookie season when he was still a young buck. Even then that loss wasn't nearly as bad as some of the ones guys like Probert, Brown, Kocur, Gillies, etc., suffered.

Here's big bad Dave Semenko hanging on for dear life versus Wilson;




Here's Wilson beating the shit out of Clark Gillies in the first of two fights they had (Wilson also dropped Gillies in the rematch, but Gillies did better at the start);




Here's Wilson manhandling a prime Chris Nilan who some people here think was some kind of terror in his day;




Here's Wilson almost killing aspiring NHL enforcer John Hilworth in one of the most vicious beatings you'll ever see inside a hockey rink;




Here's Wilson pounding on minor league legend Archie Henderson with Henderson being one of the first guys that Probert would later earn his reputation from;

 

[Sharkey]

One of the most underrated fighters in NHL history is Dave Richter;

Here's Richter pounding on Larry Melnyk, who while not an elite tough guy in his time could fight well enough to give Dave Brown all he could handle when those two drop their gloves with each other;




Here's Richter hammering on Sabres tough guy Steve Dykstra with one left hand after the other. Dykstra also wasn't elite at all, but he still played that enforcer role to an extent. Just a fun little fight, though;




Here's Richter dropping one of the above options in Joey Kocur;




Here's Richter easily handling Leafs' enforcer Jeff Brubaker, who while big and strong, wasn't terribly good in the fighting department;




Here's Richter fighting Probert to what was basically a standstill in the only meeting those two had;

 

[Sharkey]

Each of these guy's fighting record (W-L-D) in the NHL according to dropyourgloves.com;

Donald Brashear: 155-40-56
Dave Brown: 111-17-34
Clark Gillies: 25-8-11
Joey Kocur: 139-20-63
George Laraque: 84-17-45
Sandy McCarthy: 77-24-41
Bob Probert: 149-51-66
Tony Twist: 84-13-27
Behn Wilson: 50-4-15

And records for some of the others mentioned in the thread so far;

Eric Godard: 51-27-25
Brian McGratton: 53-14-19
George Parros: 49-53-57
Derek Boogaard: 41-13-15
Larry Playfair: 43-8-15
Tie Domi: 157-71-74
Dave Schultz: 37-14-9
Rob Ray: 70-80-91
Stu Grimson: 108-54-72
Chris Nilan: 92-44-63
Stan Jonathan: 23-10-16
Wendel Clark: 66-17-44
Marty McSorley: 109-43-59
Tiger Williams: 20-31-36
Terry O'Reilly: 54-24-34
Chris Simon: 77-22-21
Colton Orr: 65-39-28
Nick Fotiu: 23-8-10
Bob Nystrom: 57-10-13
Glen Cochrane: 40-12-12
Dave Richter: 27-3-13

Out of the initial options guys like Brown, Kocur, Twist and Wilson have the best W/L records out of the bunch. Playfair & Nystrom out of the also mentioned also have very good records as well. Guys like Parros, Ray, and Tiger Williams have the worst records with that site saying they lost more than they won.

This of course doesn't mean a whole lot by itself for a number of reasons; Those older guys from the 70's are missing a lot of results due to no video being available and such. It doesn't factor in quality of their opposition. Or their fighting style at all since it's much easier to lose a fight when you have a more wide open fighting style than say a guy like Huggy Bear Brashear. Or longevity as some of these guys fought well past their due date and had a number of losses when they had too much wear and tear on them. Plus, it would be hard to trust the reviewers by themselves without watching the fights for yourself, especially those fight results where there is only one or two reviewers giving their opinion on it (homerism would exist on a number of those results with limited reviews). Or whatever other reason. But I think on the surface it can eliminate some of the pretenders from the contenders at least.

 

[Crimson Glory]

Clark.

 

[neverwas]

how many of them are still alive?

 

[iwhoopedbatman]

I know next to nothing about hockey, so I won't mess with the poll. I did have a hockey nut roommate one year in my early 20's. He was a Bruins fan. They had this guy PJ Stock that was crazy fun to watch. Way undersized for a goon, but got out there and banged with anyone.

Brashear is the only one of these guys I'm really familiar with. He was a monster.

 

[PUO3]

Each of these guy's fighting record (W-L-D) in the NHL according to dropyourgloves.com;

Donald Brashear: 155-40-56
Dave Brown: 111-17-34
Clark Gillies: 25-8-11
Joey Kocur: 139-20-63
George Laraque: 84-17-45
Sandy McCarthy: 77-24-41
Bob Probert: 149-51-66
Tony Twist: 84-13-27
Behn Wilson: 50-4-15

And records for some of the others mentioned in the thread so far;

Eric Godard: 51-27-25
Brian McGratton: 53-14-19
George Parros: 49-53-57
Derek Boogaard: 41-13-15
Larry Playfair: 43-8-15
Tie Domi: 157-71-74
Dave Schultz: 37-14-9
Rob Ray: 70-80-91
Stu Grimson: 108-54-72
Chris Nilan: 92-44-63
Stan Jonathan: 23-10-16
Wendel Clark: 66-17-44
Marty McSorley: 109-43-59
Tiger Williams: 20-31-36
Terry O'Reilly: 54-24-34
Chris Simon: 77-22-21
Colton Orr: 65-39-28
Nick Fotiu: 23-8-10
Bob Nystrom: 57-10-13
Glen Cochrane: 40-12-12
Dave Richter: 27-3-13

Out of the initial options guys like Brown, Kocur, Twist and Wilson have the best W/L records out of the bunch. Playfair & Nystrom out of the also mentioned also have very good records as well. Guys like Parros, Ray, and Tiger Williams have the worst records with that site saying they lost more than they won.

This of course doesn't mean a whole lot by itself for a number of reasons; Those older guys from the 70's are missing a lot of results due to no video being available and such. It doesn't factor in quality of their opposition. Or their fighting style at all since it's much easier to lose a fight when you have a more wide open fighting style than say a guy like Huggy Bear Brashear. Or longevity as some of these guys fought well past their due date and had a number of losses when they had too much wear and tear on them. Plus, it would be hard to trust the reviewers by themselves without watching the fights for yourself, especially those fight results where there is only one or two reviewers giving their opinion on it (homerism would exist on a number of those results with limited reviews). Or whatever other reason. But I think on the surface it can eliminate some of the pretenders from the contenders at least.

Parros is a can he gets the shit kicked out of him.

 

[Sharkey]

I know next to nothing about hockey, so I won't mess with the poll. I did have a hockey nut roommate one year in my early 20's. He was a Bruins fan. They had this guy PJ Stock that was crazy fun to watch. Way undersized for a goon, but got out there and banged with anyone.

Brashear is the only one of these guys I'm really familiar with. He was a monster.

PJ was one of the most entertaining fighters the NHL has seen in the last decade or two. Completely agree. His fights with muck larger guys like Stephen Peat and Reed Low were about as good as they get.

 

[Sharkey]

Parros is a can he gets the shit kicked out of him.

Yeah, he wasn't the best mention in this thread by whomever did so. He was tough, as all the guys that play that role are. But one of the best fighters ever in the NHL? Nah, not even close. Parros biggest problem was that he had some of the worse balance I've ever seen from an enforcer type and it cost him a bunch of times in his fights. He was a lot like Punchy Peluso in that regard.