Rumble, young man....Rumble!

Reebok Trotter wrote:Mayweather is truly a great talent but would he have been as successful had he fought during the era of Roberto Duran, Thomas Hearns, Ray Leonard, Wilfrid Benitez, Aaron Pryor, Jose Cuevas and Davey Moore?

Hearns v Hagler was one of the best fights I've ever seen.

Tommy Hearns was a freak of nature. He stood 6ft 1 but only weighed 147lbs. He was stick thin but he packed one helluva punch. He won the light heavyweight belt as well, beating Dennis Andries ( a Caribbean Brit  with limited ability but a granite chin and a big heart.)
Hearns only lost to quality fighters like Leonard and Hagler.
Ray Leonard also fought at light heavyweight dispatching Golden Boy Donny La Londe.
How many light heavyweights has Mayweather beaten? I doubt very much he would have beaten Roy Jones in his prime.
It's all hypothetical because the older you are the more great fighters you will have seen.

Sluffy wrote:

Sugar Ray Robinson is considered by many to be the greatest boxer of all time - maybe you've never even heard of him?

I was brought up watching Boxing DVDs , i've seen all the great fights like you've mentioned , great fighters as they were, but even the most fight fan would say Meyweather is a better boxer than all mentioned.

infact its hard to imagine we'd get a better boxer than him ever, his title fight record is just through the roof.

Reebok Trotter wrote:Tommy Hearns was a freak of nature. He stood 6ft 1 but only weighed 147lbs. He was stick thin but he packed one helluva punch. He won the light heavyweight belt as well, beating Dennis Andries ( a Caribbean Brit  with limited ability but a granite chin and a big heart.)
Hearns only lost to quality fighters like Leonard and Hagler.
Ray Leonard also fought at light heavyweight dispatching Golden Boy Donny La Londe.
How many light heavyweights has Mayweather beaten? I doubt very much he would have beaten Roy Jones in his prime.
It's all hypothetical because the older you are the more great fighters you will have seen.

Hearns would look stuipid against Mayweather, Mayweather would take the piss.

This would be Mayweather's fight.

Floyd wouldn't know what to do against the rope-a-dope. Ali is the greatest ever. That said, Floyd is no chicken - just not the greatest ever.

Blimey!
Ali was always box office and was largely responsible for dragging boxing out of the smoke-filled halls and into the mainstream, dramatically increasing it's popularity. If he hadn't lost so many years of his prime - ironically for being a pacifist - goodness knows what his record would have been like. That said, it did give him the opportunity to come back to win the World Title twice more. Ali was the UNDISPUTED world heavyweight champion as there was only one world title in those days.
The thing about Ali was that he was in an era where there were some great heavyweight fighters and a range of styles. The Ali v Frazier fights will always be the archetypal battle of opposing styles but just look at who else he fought and beat. Sure there were some easy wins like Richard Dunne and Henry Cooper but Ali fought everyone and there were some monsters at that time.
A boxer's "greatness" largely depends on who he fights and that's why you have to look at the Leonard/Hearns/Hagler/Duran era as their fights were epic and they all won titles at multiple weights. Even the Hitman won world titles at 6 weights which is amazing for such a skinny bloke, but he was all about punching speed - incredibly fast hands. All of them had lots of difficult fights.

I know you can only fight what's in front of you, but IMO Mayweather has had a relatively easy ride compared to these guys - apart from de la Hoya on an off night and Hatton when he was past it. I like Mayweather but he is a big fish in a small pond who only picks fights he can win. Fantastic career from a business and self-publicism perspective but Mayweather's fights just didn't have the magic of the fighters mentioned above. Most were overhyped slightly boring regulation wins with the occasional gem.

Have you got one of these on your bed, Scott?

Is that writing stained?

Yeah, but I'm suspecting that the milky fluid involved ain't sputum.......

boltonbonce wrote:Sadly,I fear that fight,and Ali's present mental and physical state,are inextricably linked.
Despite that,he was, without doubt the most charismatic sportsman I've ever seen.
In fact he transcended sport. We'll never see his like again.

Just watched the Earnie Shavers fight back on YouTube and I think you're right, as it was the same deal - stand there, get hit for a bit round the head (far too much) and then move away and counter.

He was still a very quick puncher, but he took a lot of hits during his later fights.

A sacrifice he thought was worth it and wouldn't cause too much lasting damage, obviously.

Shame.

The Kinshasa fight is a piece of history that will never be equalled. Apart from the worldwide viewing figures that reflected interest in boxing never since equalled, several Hollywood movies and loads of pop records were made about it ranging from the Johnny Wakelin pop tune at the time to the Fugees and the Hours more recently - and they weren't even born when it happened.

The fight was box office - up there with the moon landing and the Kennedy assassination.
Ali sold his soul to the media. He used it for self promotion and he thrived on controversy. It was no surprise that he was too proud to quit when he should have done years before he did - an ego like his could never resist another shot.

Mayweather will be all but forgotten in 10 years time. There won't be a "When we were Kings" or "Ali" equivalent for Floyd and he and everyone in boxing knows it.

wanderlust wrote:Johnny Wakelin

I remember it well. I bought his LP on the strength of that In Zaire and I have still got it.

Breadman wrote:
Just watched the Earnie Shavers fight back on YouTube and I think you're right, as it was the same deal - stand there, get hit for a bit round the head (far too much) and then move away and counter.

I remember watching Ernie Shavers tag Larry Holmes who only just managed to beat the count. Shavers met a woman from Liverpool and ended up marrying her and living in Merseyside. Last I heard he was working as a doorman at one of Liverpool's nightclubs.