Best "recent" uk fighter

By youse i meant that foreign lot.

They think Finnegan was some guy who had an island

 

People forgot how good he was. Im not saying he was good. Rather he wasn't as fucking awful as they think he was.

Taylors face would be falling off after 5 rounds with Zoo.

 

Hatton was good. He was very good, in fact. He wasted most of his prime being protected by Frunk, hiding behind his WBU 'world' trinket, but once he stepped up, even though he was at the back-end of his career, he proved how good he really was.

He got overrated by some in his prime. He is clearly not in the class of the absolute best 140lbers that history has seen. But he is solidly in the next class down from them. He has definitely become underrated by some, especially after the Pac destruction.

MTF

 

Very, very good fighter was Chris. Very good indeed.

MTF

 

Yep.

Guy had 3 fucking losses.

10 rounds vs Floyd/Cortez at 147. Its not at 140, its Floyd, its Cortez, its Mt Everest.

2 round vs Pac.... His last fight

Senchenko... An ill conceived comeback when he'd been in rehab etc.

 

His 14 rounds vs Foster is the high water mark of losing efforts of all British boxrrs, IMHO.

Higher than some of the wins of other British fighters.

 

Froch was one of these guys that could beat anybody that didn't have a little bit of magic about them.

If they had any special skills Froch was usually found wanting.

Any bit of slickness and mojo and The Farmer was left scratching his balls.

Proof: Bute and Groves.

Bute was a hype job. Instantly found out.

Groves had a bit about him, knew tge ropes, great mover, long arms... Farmer immediately got a long night ahead of him.

 

Yeah, the mid-70s Conteh would really beat the Hell outta Froch.

Conteh was far better from the outside with his piston jab. Conteh was 100x better than Froch as a infighter. And Conteh was a bigger and stronger man.

There's no path for a Froch victory.

Carl Froch is absolutely fucked in the pre-super middle era. He was too big to ever be a middleweight, and I can't see him competing with any of the elite light heavyweights in history.

 

Tszyu is a terrible matchup for Taylor.

Pac and Whitaker are the only two southpaws who beat Tszyu at 140. Meaning, without a doubt beat him.

Crawford probably beats Tszyu, but Bud's chin isn't granite, so im not 100% sure. I suspect Bud is too good for Tszyu though.

 

BTW - when assessing Taylor's chances against the elites of 140 in the last 25 years, I forgot that Oscar and Cotto fought at 140 in the last 25 years.

Yeah, Taylor has no chance at all against the 96 Oscar. DLH would have Taylor bleeding like a stuck pig, very quickly.

And Josh has VERY LITTLE chance against the Cotto that beat up Pinto and Bailey.

 

What i respect about hatton is that he didn't hide behind his promoter (a la Crawford). Once he realised that Warren wasnt interested in giving him big matches, he threw a tantrum and basically forced him to match him against top fighters

 

Bud will go down as a fighter whom I liked, but really disappointed me.

So content at beating garbage. It's surprising, because circa 2013, he was fighting Burns then Gamboa, and it SEEMED like he was a guy who would always test himself against the best.

After he unified 140, it's like he gave up. He's been content with fighting trash the last 5 years.

 

The best description of Froch I ever saw came from you immediately after he beat the shit out of Bute. You described him as 'one of those machines banks use to check for forged notes'. I couldn't have put it better myself.

MTF

 

Bud frustrates me too, I love switch-hitters in general, adds a whole new dimension to someone's game, and he's one of the best at it, but yeah he's been a real disappointment on the competition front.

 

Okay, so I've decided to go with:

1. Lewis
2. Buchanan
3. Conteh
4. Froch
5. Hamed

I'm a huge Watson fan and I genuinely think Watson was better than both Froch and Hamed but we never really got a chance to find out. All we know is that he was the best of that Brit trio.

Calzaghe was also 'better' than Naz and Froch and I'd pick him to easily beat Carl based on styles, but his resume is much weaker around almost the same era and his ranking is hurt by his unwillingness to test himself against elite comp until the very end. His best win, against an ATG in Hopkins, is a very underrated win but not quite enough to justify a higher spot imo.

I'd rank Calzaghe and Watson 6th and 7th, probably in that order.

I'd then have Hatton 8th and McGuigan 9th. Hatton largely cleaned out 140 after his brilliant title winning effort against Tszyu and only two ATGs beat him. Barry had a short but brilliant run but the lack of longevity hurts. I feel he was probably 'better' than Hatton in the technical sense but his run really was short. I'd have Fury 10th (right now).

Honourable mentions: Eubanks, Benn, Watt, Finnegan, Honeyghan and Minter.

MTF

 

Now I'm looking at that list, I'm wondering if I should swap Calzaghe and Hamed. Hamed lost to the one ATG he faced. Joe didn't. Maybe that separates them?

MTF

 

For me it does. It's not just the loss, but the aftermath. If Joe got embarrassed and all but retired ala Hamed it would be different.

 

The problem with ranking Calzaghe, which I've been toying with all day, is that his entire career and legacy is based on precisely four wins. The first was a breakthrough win against an utterly shopworn Eubanks. The second was the destruction of Lacy, which was highly impressive at the time but we now know that Lacy wasn't as good as advertised. The third was his win over Kessler. That was a great performance where he was probably down at halfway but he adapted midfight, changed track and won going away. He beat a younger Mikkel more impressively than Froch did a near retirement version. And then there is the Hopkins fight. People like to make excuses for Hopkins and he was old but he later went on a streak of top level wins, including beating the shit out of Kelly Pavlik.

That's all there is. Calzaghe's position depends entirely on how and where you place those four wins.

MTF

 

I get it.

A couple of things, though. Calzaghe beat a pretty old ATG. Now, that wasn't necessarily his fault. Hopkins reneged on an agreement to fight Joe earlier. But he was old. Barrera was an ATG in his prime, by comparison. Also, Naz was largely done before the Barrera fight, mentally at least. He had half retired beforehand. And that fight was a lot less one-sided than many like to recall. Barrera won as clear as day but the 'embarassment' of it is sometimes exaggerated imo.

Anyway, despite all of that, I wouldn't argue too much if you swapped them round

MTF

 

While i think there is some revisionism to how dominant Barrera was i ,think that's also the case when it comes to Hamed being "done". If you just look at the fight in a vacuum and score it i guess it won't seem so one sided. MAB however gave Naz a lesson and psychological blow. With one shot KO power like he had i guess he always had a chance but realistically i think that outcome is always the same with whatever "version" of Naseem you want to use. He wasn't mentally tough enough to handle that adversity.

I couldn't stand Joe and his slapalanche bullshit but he closed the show while Hamed essentially whimpered away.

 

I think Hamed was mentally near the end before the fight. It was pretty obvious watching him in the six months beforehand and pretty much everyone involved in his corner told the same story of aguy who didn't train properly, never really switched on etc

However, all of the fault for that lies with him. They aren't 'excuses'. They are contributory factor to his lots for which he is responsible. He deserves no mitigation for them. And I also agree that he would have likely lost to MAB at any time and in any place. No doubt in my mind about that.

MTF

 

Hamed was definitely done at that point. If you've ever seen the Little Prince doc he looked like complete and utter dogshit in sparring against these two undersized guys, who as far as I know never amounted to anything.

 

Yeah, I've seen it. That was what changed my view.

MTF

 

Agree with the post, bar the hopkins part. Hopkins at that time was a hot and cold fighter. Looked good against certain guy, yet showed his age against other. Calz barely squeaking past hin (of even that) is overblown as an accomplishment. Though to his credit, calz also had a few other decent wins, most notably brewer and Mitchell

 

Hopkins after losing to Taylor:

W Tarver
W Wright
L Calzaghe
W Pavlik
W Ornelas
W RJJ
D Pascal
W Pascal

Now there is no question that Hopkins was old at this point. He wasn't prime, certainly not. But that record is not indicative of a man not worth beating, even if you feel it was close (and I agree that it was). It was a very good win for Joe, who was in his twighlight himself.

MTF

 

I'm not saying it's a worthless win, but it's not an incredible one either. As said, bhop was very hot and cold at that.point of his career. Two.losses against taylor, and he was getting blasted all.over the ring by pascal in the early rounds before he gassed (and even then, he was a bit lucky to get a draw, since a lot of ref would have called a kd on the rabbit.punch).

And he looked incredibly shitty against an old decrepit rj



He looked great against tarver and pavlik, but that was mostly based on them having bad footwork.

 

I don't think we're a million miles away on this one. It certainly wasn't an incredible win. But, as I say, this is one of the key issues which help to determine how you rate Joe.

MTF

 

9 years ago now. Time flies.









Not as fast as Bute though. He fuckin flew out of England, pronto.

 

I don't think Naz was done. He just stopped working. He certainly wasn't "Shot"

 

Yeah for sure. Despite me being an ackowledged calzaghe hater, i can admit he was a very good fighter. I just vehemently disagree when people put him on a pedastal, since his resume is really thin, and had a few struggles against subpar opposition. Never understood why some claims he's levels above froch