...particularly have loved to have seen face greater opposition than they did in their careers? I'm not saying finger anyone who you thought avoided challenges, or dodged rivals (at least, not necessarily), but rather, men who you felt were good or great, & who could've beaten or made a good fist of fighting significantly better competition. Some who come to mind... Roy Jones Mike Tyson Ricardo Lopez Wlad Klitschko Vitali Klitschko Bob Foster Rocky Marciano Floyd Mayweather Humberto Gonzalez
Jones, no doubt. Would have loved to have seen him in against all of the following: Jirov Calzaghe (when Jones was prime) Darius M. Benn Collins Eubank Mayweather: Cotto Pacquiao Tszyu Bowe: Lewis Ruddock Mercer Don't know why you have Tyson on the list though..he fought everyone that he could have fought. Witherspoon is the only one he missed..but that happened only because Tim lost to Bonecrusher in the heavyweight unification tournament.
Joe Calzaghe. I feel he was an all time great, with great chin, bravery, and a very rare blend of size and the ability to change tactics at any point of a fight. Also, I would have loved to see Billy Conn fight some bigger names too, he is remembered all too often for a KO loss to Joe Louis.
Sorry, to clarify --- I'm not limiting these fighters to men of their generation specifically --- I'm saying, you'd have loved to see them in against given higher calibre of opposition, right throughout their division's history. For instance, the K-brothers, Jones & Tyson all cause a lot of arguments as to just how good they really are (or were). Some people call these fighters greats, & some disagree. We could answer those (IMO, very interesting) questions if they'd had fought many of their fellow greats, or at least, happened to come up against better contenders from other eras (Tyson in the 60's or 70's, for example).
Ah..gotcha. Well then...that's a different story. ROCKY MARCIANO tops the list for me. Would love to have seen him against a prime Louis, Liston, Clay, Frazier.
Yeah, we are on the same page now. Good thing about it is you don't have to feel the fighter is especially great or over-rated...you'd just be interested to see how things pan out. How do you see Marciano stacking up, Sly? Is he embarrassed, triumphant, or somewhere in-between?
Good shout. But IMO we saw how good Marciano was in how close he came to defeat. The tape measure came right up to his hairline I'm pretty comfortable filling in the rest.
I'd personally love to have seen a prime Locche against more really great names, or at least to have better clarification on whether his draws with Ortiz & Laguna were legit.
jones jr. wouldve put a SERIOUS whipping on calzaghe, or otherwise completely tamed him and reduced him to a gun shy shell of himself. believe it
chiquita beat everyone they had to offer except for that one dude who upset him and also when he was old and ran out of gas vs sorjaturong. he also fought in one of the best eras that his division could provide. good thing he didnt fight lopez nor too sharp when he was at the tail end of his career.
Agree with the names put out so far. Kostya Tszyu would top my list. I wish dlh had fought him and Nazarov. Ottke. Quartey. Valero.
obviously it wouldve been wonderful to see Marcellus Johnson fight the cowardly men around his weight class who feared the hiding they wouldve surely received
Admittedly true --- I was mostly thinking of Lopez in relation to Gonzalez when I mentioned his name.
I think in general it's fighters we think are either under-rated or over-rated who we'd like to have seen face better competition, whether it be contemporaries or not. The exception are those fighters we have no hunch about, and wonder how good they really were. The ones most interesting to talk about are the exceptions - those we're unsure about. The following are ones I'm unsure about: 1. El Finito - he sure was pretty to watch. And obviously skilled. But he was bigger than most of his opponents, and showed an absolute aversion to moving up in weight, even when unprecedented pay-days would've been available for him. 2. Valero - the guy could obviously punch. And I think he was very skilled too, in the sense that Monzon was skilled. But, due to his untimely death, it's unclear how good he really was. 3. Mosley at 135 - I echo this as a good choice since although he was dominant there for a long time, he never really did fight anyone notable there. 4. Ibeabuchi of course. His wins over Tua, in which he fought Tua's fight, and his KO of Byrd, when Byrd was undefeated, seemed promising. But like Valero, the story went untold.
Floyd Mayweather Cotto(can still happen, but Cotto is past his best) Margarito(same as Cotto, but i bet May is hoping Margarito can pull the upset) Pacquiao Tszyu Mosley(at Light) Clottey Cintron Williams
Good one. Even though he fought & beat some excellent rivals, Julio Cesar Chavez against a real superstar or two would've been nice.
So many fall under the category of careers cut short: Harry Simon Pollo Valenzuela Joe Mesi (just kidding)
