The four greatest southpaws of all time are undeniably (in no order): Pac Hagler Whitaker Saldivar Who would you consider the 5th greatest?
There's too many names to narrow down for me just now for greatness, but I will confidently say that the fifth best is Camacho.
Camacho is a hard one to rate, I find. He was very good and his talent in the early days when he was focussed was remarkable but after the Rosario fight, he pretty much took a different route and picked up straps and didn’t really engage at the highest level. It was weird. I’d say he wasted his talent between 1987 and the early 90s.
If we're talking about "best" rather than greatness, then Nunn is up there. Nunn imo peaked higher than a Calz or Wright. Of course, Zapata is up there too. And Too Sharp is top 10. So is Watanabe.
Young Corbett III Tiger Flowers Gabriel “Flash” Elorde Oleksandr Usyk Joe Calzaghe Khaosai Galaxy Hector Camacho Winky Wright Mark Johnson Hilario Zapata Take your pick.
Usyk would probably get my vote already, even assuming he loses to Fury. But its a damn good question
I dont know if he'd have shown Ibeabuchi or Wlad oe even Vitali much more than Byrd did, and both Byrd and Moorer beat very good versions of Holy. But i can see Usyk beat Byrd and Moorer and outclass guys like Botha or Tua or Mo Harris and most of Byrds other wins.
Yeah, I don't see Usyk fairing well against Ibeabuchi. It seems you needed real firepower to keep off crazy Ike. Ibeabuch would mow him down. I would pick Usyk over Byrd and Moorer H2H though.
In a pound-for-pound sense, I would consider Usyk well above Byrd & Moorer, but I don't think I would at heavyweight yet. I don't find two wins over Joshua better than Byrd's wins over Tua & Vitali, nor Moorer's over Holyfield. Although I would happily pick Usyk to beat both, by considerable margins, too. I also can't bring myself to place Usyk over Lew Tendler or Young Corbett III. He's done a lot, but he hasn't met them and unless he beats Fury, I can't see it happening either. I would probably rank Tendler fifth. I don't think he's surpassed Calzaghe in terms of accomplishments yet either. In terms of ability, I don't consider Usyk better than Khaosai, Elorde, Watanabe or Nunn. Probably others I'm forgetting too. I think putting him as the fifth greatest, or fifth best southpaw ever is overkill.
Maybe not very good for Byrd. But still useful. He'd decisioned Rahman just before the Byrd fight. These are his fights before Byrd, guy had some gas left yet John Ruiz,10 years after he beat Holyfield, showed up in London to fight Haye. Nobody complained,mostly cos Ruiz got his head beat in albeit he did drop Haye.
That's an interesting fight. Ike is so hard to rate head-to-head, simply because he was so untested. I mean, there's weirdos who blindly pick him over literally everybody. But what about guys like Witherspoon, or Norton. Who's to say Ike couldn't beat them? Against Usyk, I tend to agree. He'd look pretty foolish at first, but I think Ike's workrate and aggression would get to Usyk pretty quick and he'd take over big time in the late rounds. I think his best chances at beating a legitimately great heavyweight, is Wlad or Vitali.
The think about Ike is the proof is there that he won't pull a Joshua or a Golota....he won't just go silent, so to speak. He'll keep up an intelligent pressure, he won't just keep moving his hands pretending to be still fighting.
rahman with that big ass headbutt induced lump on his gourd ? i guess that makes it a 'very good' version of holyfield. after looking shitty vs ruiz 3 times. i saw that very good version of holyfield get the dog shit beat out of him live at the mandalay bay the very next fight.
I think it's between Flash and YCIII. Over on the esb thread I rather mentally forgot about Corbett, but he was a great fighter and undisputed achiever, which is more than can be said for the likes of Camacho, Nunn, Zapata, Too Sharp, Calzaghe, Galaxy, Watanabe, Gushiken, Ibarra and their ilk who wasted parts of their careers or didn't fully spread their wings. Elordes CV is really underrated for mine, he beat a shitload of good, rated fighters from bantam to lightweight including Saddler and Laguna even while seemingly sometimes having a sparringy/ journeyman attitude. Fought a load on the road too.
If Payakaroon had turned pro a lot earlier and focused himself probably, he would've been an atg. Genuinely disturbing level of skill and talent.
