Who's your all-time 5 favorite boxers?

mozfonky said:
I know, I wasn't criticizing your choice just wondering why. Spinks was a good fighter, you don't win gold without any talent and on the night he fought Ali he really fought his ass off in a way not too many guys did against Ali. He was a bit small for the era and he wasn't psychologically ready to handle the early title win or the fast life. No telling what could have been had a better run of it. I'm not sure his chin would have ever held out against the upper tier heavyweigts and Ali ushered in the era of big athletic men so Leon would have always been at a disadvantage there.

I've never seen the mma stuff, I should check it out. Leon was a sweet guy who deserved better out of life if not the sport.
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I guess i understand your underdog assumption because Buster Douglas is also on my list in addition to Spinks. It is true that i like fighters who are confident and don't get scared regardless of opponents. I also always liked Mitch Green for that reason. I just don't really care much about upset victories themselves.

Leon Spinks was interestingly really kinda bad at mixed rules / pro wrestling stuff, despite having like 35 matches, which is a lot for boxers doing attraction freak show stuff. Even with Muhammad Ali, when you look at his pro wrestling matches he did bodyslams and stuff mixed with boxing moves which ended up coming together pretty well. Spinks had insanely interesting match ups against all types of people (Terry Funk and Sabu among them) but he only threw awful looking punches and did nothing else. Makes his boxing matches look even more beautiful by comparison.

I think with boxing in general, i wish the participants long and healthy lives but i don't really have a high expectation for that, so it's almost expected that their life is going to end up really terrible rather early. So your last sentence applies to most boxers in my opinion. Though even there you have outliers like Trevor Berbick which had an exceptionally terrible end.
 
Patrick Jane said:
I guess i understand your underdog assumption because Buster Douglas is also on my list in addition to Spinks. It is true that i like fighters who are confident and don't get scared regardless of opponents. I also always liked Mitch Green for that reason. I just don't really care much about upset victories themselves.

Leon Spinks was interestingly really kinda bad at mixed rules / pro wrestling stuff, despite having like 35 matches, which is a lot for boxers doing attraction freak show stuff. Even with Muhammad Ali, when you look at his pro wrestling matches he did bodyslams and stuff mixed with boxing moves which ended up coming together pretty well. Spinks had insanely interesting match ups against all types of people (Terry Funk and Sabu among them) but he only threw awful looking punches and did nothing else. Makes his boxing matches look even more beautiful by comparison.

I think with boxing in general, i wish the participants long and healthy lives but i don't really have a high expectation for that, so it's almost expected that their life is going to end up really terrible rather early. So your last sentence applies to most boxers in my opinion. Though even there you have outliers like Trevor Berbick which had an exceptionally terrible end.
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lots of great fighters live long lives and many manage to seem clear right to the end. Of course there are many great ones who spend the last 10-15 years in bad condition. I don't know what the average lifespan of boxers would be but it's not just the length it's the quality. Leon had drug problems, legal problems, was turned into a joke by the media and then was used as a punching bag and a stepping stone, he was shot and they were still feeding him to guys he couldn't defend himself against. I didn't know a thing about his MMA career but that sounds like a worse idea than boxing too long. Joe Louis tried wrestling to make money and some guy landed on his chest or something and damaged his heart so he had to quit.
 
Finito López
Chávez Jr (kidding, Sr.)
Lennox Lewis
Post Hammed Marco Antonio Barrera (dude was a different boxer altogether before that)
Probably Foreman

Feels like im forcing myself to come up with a current boxer even though I already picked 5. So it is probably Usyk or Inoue and remove foreman.
 
BoxingMMA said:
Finito López
Chávez Jr (kidding, Sr.)
Lennox Lewis
Post Hammed Marco Antonio Barrera (dude was a different boxer altogether before that)
Probably Foreman

Feels like im forcing myself to come up with a current boxer even though I already picked 5. So it is probably Usyk or Inoue and remove foreman.
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Funny you should say that, Barrera was my guy up until the Hamed fight. After that, aside from the Eric fights I didnt enjoy them at all.
 
Three mentions of Usyk? He's become one of my favorites over the years as well because of his approach. There's no nonsense with him. No BS, dragging his feet, or cherry picking. Legacy over money. A rare quality in the age of businessmen.
 
burningspear said:
Leonard was the man, whenever someone starts eulogizing about how great someone is I always compare them to Ray in my mind, they never match up.
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Ray was the man, both of them.

Leonard showed us a bit of everything, great intangibles, great speed, really underrated kayo power and more than that, you just realized you were looking at a different kind of fighter watching him. The way his career went, I think there will always be some questions that Robinson will never have asked of him because he fought so many times. How would Ray have fared had he tried to keep a 5-10 year reign as welterweight champ? How would he have done had he faced hagler five years earlier ?(I think he would have lost). But, he gave us enough to call him great, no doubt about it.
 
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mozfonky said:
Ray was the man, both of them.

Leonard showed us a bit of everything, great intangibles, great speed, really underrated kayo power and more than that, you just realized you were looking at a different kind of fighter watching him. The way his career went, I think there will always be some questions that Robinson will never have asked of him because he fought so many times. How would Ray have fared had he tried to keep a 5-10 year reign as welterweight champ? How would he have done had he faced hagler five years earlier ?(I think he would have lost). But, he gave us enough to call him great, no doubt about it.
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Absolutely, I wasnt comparing, 128-1, nobodys fckin with that. They are indeed both the man.
 
BoxingMMA said:
Finito López
Chávez Jr (kidding, Sr.)
Lennox Lewis
Post Hammed Marco Antonio Barrera (dude was a different boxer altogether before that)
Probably Foreman

Feels like im forcing myself to come up with a current boxer even though I already picked 5. So it is probably Usyk or Inoue and remove foreman.
Click to expand...

You can 10 favorite boxers if you like.

And thanks for sharing.
 
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